Monday, July 06, 2009

Needed: Bigger Buckets.......



My recent visit to England was just long enough for me to realize I'd have liked to stay longer, much longer! The southwestern part of the country has a magical quality. I felt as though I'd stepped back in time to a slower-paced, more contented era, to a rural landscape of farms that have been worked continuously for hundreds of years, to rolling green fields, and wild flowers, and cozy cottages with lovely gardens and blue smoke curling up dreamily from their chimneys.





And what is more timeless than a brand new baby, with the eggshell still on his head, as Isabelle so aptly put it! But almost gone in this recent update......




Too soon, it was time to leave, but consolation came from an unexpected source. From a woman named Mary Webb. It would have been a real pleasure to have met her in person, but since she's been resting under the Shropshire soil since 1927, my new friend and fellow grandma, G, did the next best thing. She gave me a copy of "Precious Bane," one of Mary Webb's best known books.





Mary Webb lived most of her life in Shropshire, several years of it in a house next door but one to where G lives now. I was delighted to have such a memento of my few days there, and thought that, some day, I might even read it.





Home, unpacking, and moping because it all flew by so fast, I picked up "Precious Bane", and as I thumbed through it, Mary Webb cast a spell on me and lured me into the world of Prue Sarn.


"Shropshire is a country where the dignity and beauty of ancient things lingers on," writes Webb in the foreword, "and I have been fortunate.....in being born and brought up in its magical atmosphere....."





I feel that way about the place where I grew up.........

As I read, it occurred to me that, even though the world and our daily routines have changed drastically since those days, the things that are really important and give meaning to our lives have hardly changed at all. Something to believe in: Prue has her faith in God. Something to do: She has plenty to do, helping her brother, Gideon, with all the work on their farm. Someone to love: Aha! Very few people can see beyond the birth defect Prue was born with, so they write her off as someone not deserving of love. Even Gideon, her brother says

"Being as how things are, you'll never marry, Prue." At which Prue's heart

"beat soft and sad. It seemed such a terrible thing never to marry. All girls got married..........even Miller's Polly, that always had a rash or a hoost or the ringworm or summat, would get married. And when girls got married, they had a cottage, and a lamp, maybe, to light when their man came home, or if it was only candles it was all one, for they could put them in the window, and he'd think "There's my missus now, lit the candles!" And then one day they'd make a cot of rushes, "and one day there'd be a babe in it, grand and solemn, and bidding letters sent round for the christening, and the neighbours coming round the babe's mother like bees round the queen."

Mary Webb,[and through her, Prue Sarn,] is so in tune with human nature, and the natural world around her, that she draws you into that world of Shropshire a hundred years ago, to Prue's life and her thoughts, to all the subtle signs of the changing seasons, to her everyday worries and occasional joys, to her strength and how she deals with the cruel handicap life has dealt her, and to the cozy little attic where she writes it all down.

"For you canna write a word, even, but you show yourself - in the word you choose, and the shape of the letters, and whether you write tall or short, plain or flourished....."





You hardly realize she's doing it, but while she captivates you with the twists and turns of the story, she takes you there, to the cornfields and cottages and lane ways of rural Shropshire, to the air humming with the "murmuration" of bees and birdsong, so that when winter creeps over the fields around Sarn Mere, you shiver in your armchair and draw your imaginary shawl closer around you against the cold, damp fog rising off the water. As I read, and the landscape came alive in my mind, I couldn't help thinking again and again of Constable's beautiful paintings of the English countryside......

......and thinking in the Shropshire dialect between bouts of reading! It too has a comfortable, cozy "murmuration" to it!

Reflecting on the characters' vain attempts to quench a blazing fire, by passing buckets and pails of water, one to another, Prue writes

"And I've thought since then that when folk grumble about this and that and be not happy, it is not the fault of creation that is like a vast mere [sea] full of good, but it is the fault of their buckets' smallness."

I liked Prue, her way of thinking and her way of writing. Or was it Mary Webb, and her thinking and her writing that I liked so much? To what extent can you separate the writer from the characters she creates? Can you invent such a beautiful character and mind without being so, and having such yourself? To me the mind of Prue Sarn and the mind of Mary Webb are one and the same.

And now I'm "afeerd" you'll all think I've lost my marbles. I'm not advocating that we go back to the way things were in that time, milking our own cows, spinning our own yarn, sending our daughters off to neighbouring villages to be apprentice milkmaids....... But it was somehow comforting to feel such a connection with Prue. Almost like reading something my great grandmother might have written, like getting a glimpse into how her everyday life might have been, and into the things that might have occupied her thoughts and made her world go around. And finding that, despite the intervening years, we are still more alike than different.

Go read a "tuthree" pages of "Precious Bane", if you can find it, and let me know what you think.

17 comments:

persiflage said...

This is a lovely post, Molly, so evocative. Your beautiful baby with his lovely heart-catching smile, the photos of the landscape and the bluebells, and your extracts from the book. I wonder whether it is available here. You have added extra smiles to my day.

brigette said...

molly,
you make me wanna run out and get that book!!!
you little book peddler you!!!
your visit sounds wonderful.
thanks so much for taking the time to share with us.

Thimbleanna said...

Your pictures are beautiful Molly. The book sounds wonderful -- I'll be checking at my local library -- thanks for a great suggestion!

Jess said...

Aha! My library will get it in for me! I can't wait....
Your baby is so beautiful!

Ali Honey said...

Dear wee baby - lucky you being Grandma to such a cutie.
I think there are a lot of old things we could return to that would be for the better....a mix of old and new, tried and true.

I hope you get to go back soon, but meanwhile photos help!

Micki said...

The book is very enticing, and glad that you had such a nice visit.
Micki

Unknown said...

Welcome back. Lovely photos and oh, now I am really craving a trip to England!

StitchinByTheLake said...

First of all Molly this is a beautiful baby - how proud you all must be to have him. Second, your words took me to England even though I've never been. I captured the serenity of it in your description. I wouldn't want to go back to that time but I'd dearly love to see families experience the connections they had then when entertainment was conversations with loved ones rather than moving pictures that said little. I'd love to have a long conversation with my great(s) grandmother and hear in her words what her life was like. Thank you for such a poignant post. blessings, marlene

Stomper Girl said...

I agree with all the comments about your beautiful grandchild! And I do so love it when a book completely captures you.

Anonymous said...

What an absolutley stunningly gorgeous babe.

Micki said...

One more thing...Ireland is even prettier, so you will have to visit here one day.LOL
Micki

Brooke - Little Miss Moi said...

Dear molly. I love Britain, I think there is something mystical, romantic and lovely about it. I'm sure it has to do with the lack of sun - being from a sunny country, I feel as though the sun just bakes all the mystery out of a land...

The best I got of south west england was Salisbury in Wiltshire, and even then, we didn't get time to go to Stonehenge. But we'll be back there, soon hopefully..

Pauline said...

and don't you find it interesting that through all the centuries with their marvels, inventions and "progress" etc., we still think the same thoughts and have the same feelings and desires and psychological pitfalls and joys? Loved this post and am off to hunt up a copy of Precious Bane. Thanks, Molly!

raining sheep said...

You know, this post has forcefully reminded me that I have not ready a really inspiring book in a long time. I am not certain how that came to be ... I am usually a bookworm. Beautiful images that so well capture the mood of your post.

Patty said...

cute,cute,cute baby. will be looking for the book at the library

Warty Mammal said...

Poor Prue!

Sometimes I think we've lost our way a bit. More than a bit. Like you, I'm not advocating a return to a time before anaesthetic and washing machines, but surely life can have balance? It frightens me when I hear about things like people not knowing where carrots come from. So very out of touch with the rhythms of life.

Lovely photos, and isn't that baby precious?

Pauline said...

Precious Bane is a marvelous book! Thanks for the tip. The language was pure poetry and conveyed such a sense of place!