The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Spark at her Sparkiest, taking what should by rights be a wistfully comic look back at her Edinburgh schooldays and turning it into a dark, difficult, morally complex - but hilariously funny - novel about sex and politics, betrayal and loyalty, romanticism and hard reality, eccentricity and conventionality, Catholicism and Calvinism, childhood's end, and the confusing historical moment of the 1930s. And all crammed into not much more than 100 pages of high-energy prose, with her classic mid-sentence ironic pauses destabilising the most harmless phrases and turning them into enough gunpowder to blow up this school.

It's a great book to re-read - you can do it in a couple of hours, and you will find something quite different in it from show more last time you read it. This time I found myself focussing on the way the story is tied into the historical moment, Miss Brodie's status as one of the many young women of her generation left a spinster because their men had been killed in the great War, and the way that anomalous position provided a kind of licence for them to behave in ways that would otherwise have been outside the pattern for their generation and class. That generation of women were still around when I was a child, and they were all quite special in their different ways, although of course I didn't think of it that way at the time... show less

This was a grower for sure. I tried reading it awhile ago and gave up because its so boring. But I gave it another shot in audiobook format because I was hoping for some lesbian themes, and this book didn't disappoint. It's still fairly boring, there isn't much of a plot. But it does give you a lot to think about as you try to figure out what's going on with the three main characters. I think it may actually be worth a closer reread as well.

Miss Brodie is a bird. There's just not another way to describe her foolishness. She's a teacher who is completely unqualified for her job and doesn't care that she's unqualified because she's in her "prime." I love it, I love her. I wish for all women to be this unconcerned with their work and to show more view their entire 30s-60s as their prime. Miss Brodie is so self-obsessed that she views her students as an extension of herself. They are merely the props holding up her own ego. They don't have their own personalities or ambitions in her mind, they just have what she's assigned to them. And like many a bird, Miss Brodie is obsessed with an unattainable man. I usually don't encourage women sleeping with married men, but Miss Brodie is such a bird I don't think she could have gotten over him in any other way. She doesn't sleep with him and I feel like that's one of many social commentaries in the novel. The fact that someone as freewheeling as Miss Brodie doesn't feel free enough to take what is both wanted and on offer says a lot about how restrictive society is for women.

On that theme, throughout this entire book everyone is so incredibly critical of Miss Brodie. Yes, she's a vain ditz who has no business teaching, but the true villain of the story is Mr. Lloyd. Mr. Lloyd is a predator. He clearly has a lot of sex with his Catholic wife, who is forced to bear his children, yet it is not enough. He tries to lure Miss Brodie into a sexual affair even though he knows it would absolutely ruin her. He forces his lips onto a fifteen-year-old girl. And though it isn't explicitly stated, it seems pretty clear that Mr. Lloyd uses his passion for painting portraits as a way to lure young girls into his studio in the hopes of turning them into lovers. Yuck! The fact that almost no criticism lands at Mr. Lloyd's feet is a huge commentary in itself. Very typical of our society to blame a woman for possibly being loose and not a man for being a clear and obvious philanderer and predator.

Lastly, there is Sandy. My poor mess of a child. She is a hard character to understand because Spark doesn't give us a ton of info on her background. But halfway through this book, I figured Sandy must be in love with Miss Brodie and not understand or what to do with those feelings. Her obsession is weird. All of the other girls give Miss Brodie platonic friend energy, but Sandy holds back in weird ways. At one point she silently accuses Miss Brodie of being a lesbian and its like...girl, look in the mirror. She becomes so obsessed with Miss Brodie that she sleeps with the man Miss Brodie loves just to be closer to her in some sick way. She doesn't even like the man, she's just trying to understand why the man loves Miss Brodie so much...because maybe if she understands his obsession she'll understand her own. Eventually she retreats into Catholicism because she no longer wants to think for herself. Thinking for herself would mean sorting through all of her complicated feelings. It's so much easier to live by the strict rules of a nunnery. And of course, she turns Miss Brodie in because the woman stirred up so many feelings within her that she was upset with having to deal with. Like Miss Brodie, Sandy gives no indication of actually giving a shit about the kids that come after her.

Fun stuff. This also returned to me the concept of "being in my prime." I love that idea and will likely be saying it for years to come. show less

I had a teenage crush on Geraldine McEwan's television portrayal of Miss Jean Brodie (always "Miss"). There was, despite her waspish condescension and superciliousness, something alluring about her repressed sexuality. I carried something of this feeling over into my reading of Muriel Spark's slender novel, and it appears Miss Brodie's air similarly influenced the men who came within her orbit. McEwan brilliantly expressed Miss Brodie's overweeningly high opinion of her personal characteristics and beliefs.

What I missed from the television adaptation (maybe it was there and I didn't pick it up) was quite how Machiavellian and narcissistic Miss Brodie is. Her adoration of Mussolini and Hitler are rather obvious pointers, of course, but I show more don't think I'd go so far as to add psychopathy to make up the dark triad of personality traits. As grandiosly as she presents herself, Miss Brodie is a sad, tragic and flawed person, desperately lonely, desperate not to be alone, too desperate to allow herself the intimacy of person that goes beyond the intimacy of sexual intercourse. Far from being the benevolent mentor of a group of impressionable young children, she simply uses them for her own ends, betraying no remorse for the death of one one of the girls who follows Miss Brodie's promptings to an untimely end. Nevertheless, however selfish her motivations, in the end, Sandy, the closest of Miss Brodie's confidants amongst her"set", knowing most fully the deficits of Miss Brodie's character, accepts that she has been the main influence on her life. The place at which Sandy's life arrives is a matter for reflection on just what Miss Brodie's ultimate influence was. I'd have wished for Miss Brodie a happier, less lonely end, surrounded by the laughter and affection of her grown up "set" and their children, but, alas, she couldn't break out of her self-absorption long enough to develop a true affection for "her girls", nor engender more than a superficial affection for her in them.

I liked Spark's narrative device of flash-forwards, steeping the story in a darkling sense of melancholy and inevitable tragedy. [author:Edward Gorey|21578] would have been the ideal illustrator for Spark's Edinburgh, the Marcia Blaine School for Girls and their inhabitants. That's not to say that the book is entirely doom-laden; there is much humour running through it, often quite light, and often sardonic, and usually at the expense of pomposity or pretentiousness.

Postscript: I just watched a video clip of Geraldine McEwan as Miss Brodie and, while she remains a brilliant actress giving a superb performance that I can watch over again, as for Miss Brodie I'm left wondering about the mysteries of adolescent hormones and their perceptual effects! show less

Jean Brodie is in her prime. At least that is what she says. She regularly informs her girls, her special set of students whom she is developing into the créme de la créme, that when one is in one’s prime, as she is, all manner of art and beauty is open to one. Mostly, however, her girls assume she is talking about sex. Maybe not when they were 10, when she first took them under her wing, but increasingly through the years in which they stay in close contact even after the two years she taught them directly. Her girls range from the bright to the dull, from the beautiful to the plain, but they all share an absolute devotion to Miss Brodie. Any act of betrayal on their part is almost inconceivable. And yet…

The writing here is show more marvellously subtle and playful as the narrator jumps between characters and over time-spans to reveal, early on, outcomes for the various girls. It is so light and knowing that you will be astounded at Spark’s reinvention of the school novel. If it is your first direct encounter with her writing, as it has been for me, you will immediately want to commit yourself to reading everything that Spark has written. But you’ll probably find yourself returning to Jean Brodie in her prime simply to admire the craft and sparkle of Muriel Spark’s prose.

Certainly recommended. show less

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a well-known tale about a memorable boarding school instructress and her six young favorites, the "Brodie set." Miss Brodie, as she is almost always called, is devoted to her girls (her "crème de la crème"), but, as they must, they all grow up and leave her to embrace their own disparate fates.

Author Muriel Spark's technique of flashing forward in time could have made this an especially intriguing short novel. However, as other readers have commented, I found this work more tedious than expected. The writing is clever, but the events and characterizations are perplexing. Perhaps this novel should be read as a fable concerning Scottish Calvinism’s fixations on election and predestination.

I have long show more wanted to read this short novel, and, on balance, I am glad that I did. I'm not sure that I could recommend it to others, however. show less

“Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.”

We remember our best and worst teachers all our lives. The ones who moulded us, however much we resisted. I particularly remember the English teacher who continued to take an active interest in me after I dropped it as a subject, because I wanted to read purely for pleasure (I was thrilled to meet her again, a few years ago). The geography teachers who fostered a gentle rivalry among their Oxbridge hopefuls. And the house-mistresses who knew when to turn a blind-eye to midnight feasts and sneaking out. But I also remember some cruel PE teachers and an exceedingly boring and ineffective history teacher. And then there was the English and drama teacher who was best show more and worst: when sober, she was original, irreverent and inspirational, but when she was drunk, she was intimidating, irascible, and ineffective, and our best bet was to persuade her to read Just William aloud until the bell went (she taught ages 11-14)!

Where does Miss Brodie fit in this Venn diagram?

She was certainly memorable, but I was surprised to find myself asking if she was one of the best or worst teachers.

I’d somehow never read this famous 1961 novella set in an Edinburgh private school in the 1930s, nor seen the film starring Dame Maggie Smith.

The first two-thirds were a delightful portrayal of the dedicated, spiky, unconventional, feminist Miss Brodie’s grooming of her crème de la crème (six girls in the book, four in the film) to be cultured and to grasp all the opportunities life could offer, especially when they reach their Prime, whenever that may be. The final third suggested a different sort of grooming.

Flash forwards are not spoilers

The story mainly covers the girls’ last two years in the junior school, aged 10-12, in Miss Brodie’s class, through the senior school, which they leave around age 17, having remained in constant contact with her. Right from the start, there are frequent mentions of what the future holds, especially what will be each girl’s “fame”.

Opening minds

“To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil’s soul.”

Miss Brodie takes the girls to art galleries, museums, and to see the poorer areas of their city:
“It was Sandy’s first experience of a foreign country, which intimates itself by its new smells and shapes and its new poor.”
Each Saturday, she invites them to tea. She tells them about her fiancé who died in the Great War, her travels, her admiration for Mussolini, her opinions of the other teachers, and more besides.

Triangle - or polygon?

Romantic pre-pubescent girls, fascinated by adult relationships, notice Miss Brodie’s fondness for the two male teachers, apparently reciprocated, and Sandy and Jenny enjoy writing imagined love letters:
“If I am in a certain condition I shall place the infant in the care of a worthy shepherd and his wife, and we can discuss it calmly as platonic acquaintances. I may permit misconduct to occur again from time to
time as an outlet because I am in my Prime.”

Sweet, harmless, and amusing.
But later, things get more complicated, as Miss Brodie takes Sandy and Rose deeper into her confidence. She sees them as useful opposites: one with insight but no instinct, and the other with instinct but no insight. She uses them as... puppets, pawns, substitutes...?


Image: Film poster (Source.)

Betrayal

"It's only possible to betray where loyalty is due."
(Said by a nun, towards the end.)

This is a Big Theme, oft mentioned. Miss Brodie goes to different protestant denominations every Sunday, but "was not in any doubt… that God was on her side whatever her course, and so she experienced no difficulty or sense of hypocrisy in worship” when she did not abide by the accepted rules of the church. She is “driven by an excessive lack of guilt” and thinks Catholicism is mere superstition. However, Biblical betrayal and sectarian differences are secondary.

Miss Brodie’s “more advanced and seditious” methods are not appreciated in the genteel girls’ school, and she’s aware the headmistress wants an excuse to force her out. She cultivates her Brodie Set to take her side and report to her when that’s been necessary, emphasising that her “leading out” approach is the opposite of putting her ideas in their heads. We also know from early on, and repeatedly thereafter, that someone will betray her. We assume it’s one of the six.

There’s another important betrayal that’s never mentioned outright. Should a teacher put her pupils in such a position in the first place? Regardless, Miss Brodie creates far more questionable situations, with damaging outcomes for three girls, including one not in Miss Brodie’s set, but acting under her influence.

Back to my Venn diagram, Miss Brodie is unarguably memorable, and she was good in the sense of effective, but she was bad - as she is portrayed here - in the wider, moral sense.

But maybe the unknown omniscient narrator seeks to justify themselves, as Miss Brodie did.
Perhaps a Catholic half-believes in Calvinistic predestination?
Maybe the narrator is prone to imaginative flights of fancy, as Sandy and Jenny were?
Maybe the narrator is Sandy?

Image: Broken trust (Source.)

Quotes

• “Vastly informed on a lot of subjects irrelevant to the authorised curriculum.”

• “The unfamiliar pineapple had the authentic taste and appearance of happiness.”

• “Goodness, Truth and Beauty come first.”

• “Art is greater than science… Art and religion first; then philosophy; lastly science.”

• “[Teachers] who had stalked past Miss Brodie… saying ‘good morning’ with predestination in their smiles.”

• “Dazzled by their new subjects… [until] the languages of physics and chemistry, algebra and geometry had lost their elemental strangeness… and become hard work.”

• “He looked at her with love and she looked at him severely and possessively.”

• “She looked… with the near-blackmailing insolence of her knowledge.”

• “Everyone likes to visit a nun, it provides a spiritual sensation.” show less

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie has all the ingredients for brilliance — a manipulative teacher, impressionable students, moral corruption disguised as inspiration — but the result feels as emotionally alive as a tax form.

No emotion, redemption, or warmth. The narrators observe humanity instead of inhabiting it, and when they do, we don’t feel anything. Very eerie detachment.

The word “prime” appears so many times it feels like a drinking game gone wrong.

The only real intrigue comes from Sandy, whose quiet rebellion and later transformation could have been rich and disturbing, but instead reads sterile, controlled, and detached — more like a clinical note than a crisis.

It’s clever, yes, but cold and boring — and yet it’s show more such a short book, but I could only manage a chapter a day. I couldn’t wait for it to be over. show less