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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
challenging
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is another slim-yet-potent novel that made a disproportionately great impression on me during my girlhood. Weaned on young-adult paperback romances like Madeleine L'Engle's And Both Were Young as well as grown-up masterpieces like Charlotte Bronte's Villette, I have never been able to resist a well-spun yarn that takes place at a girls' boarding school. Girls' boarding schools are great settings for novels, really, because they are wonderfully intense little microcosms of society, claustrophobic little snow-globes in which childhood innocence collides with forbidden knowledge, individualism clashes with the pressure to conform, rebellious spirits butt heads with dictatorial authority figures, and femininity bumps up against...well, opposing interpretations of femininity. A girls' boarding school is a place where, removed from the immediate sphere of influence of her mother, a girl can play at being motherless, at being the only motherless female ever to exist: Eve, at ease in her Eden, garlanding herself with grapevines and holding tete-a-tetes with snakes.
When I was ten years old, I nursed idle fantasies of growing up to be a girls' school teacher, or a headmistress. Funny how, at that age, the thought of mothering a brood of hundreds didn't daunt me. At my current age, the prospect of parenting even one child seems a Herculean challenge, and inspiring others through art rather than pedagogy now strikes me as a more appealing project. But back to Brodie.
In this novel, Muriel Spark takes the "A charismatic teacher changes his/her students' lives forever" trope, popularized by schmaltzy films such as Goodbye Mr. Chips and (much later) Dead Poets Society, and turns it on its head with gusto. Jean Brodie, the charismatic boarding-school teacher at the heart of the book, is a deeply flawed character: a histrionic, narcissistic woman with fascist political leanings and a pathological tendency to misuse her position of authority to facilitate her illicit sexual adventures. Yet so deftly does Spark bring this character to life that the reader will find himself guiltily rooting for this odd little monster, this bravado-wrapped yet piteously vulnerable little woman hurtling toward a tragic downfall of her own making.
When I was ten years old, I nursed idle fantasies of growing up to be a girls' school teacher, or a headmistress. Funny how, at that age, the thought of mothering a brood of hundreds didn't daunt me. At my current age, the prospect of parenting even one child seems a Herculean challenge, and inspiring others through art rather than pedagogy now strikes me as a more appealing project. But back to Brodie.
In this novel, Muriel Spark takes the "A charismatic teacher changes his/her students' lives forever" trope, popularized by schmaltzy films such as Goodbye Mr. Chips and (much later) Dead Poets Society, and turns it on its head with gusto. Jean Brodie, the charismatic boarding-school teacher at the heart of the book, is a deeply flawed character: a histrionic, narcissistic woman with fascist political leanings and a pathological tendency to misuse her position of authority to facilitate her illicit sexual adventures. Yet so deftly does Spark bring this character to life that the reader will find himself guiltily rooting for this odd little monster, this bravado-wrapped yet piteously vulnerable little woman hurtling toward a tragic downfall of her own making.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
It starts out all cute, with girls i.n school uniforms and jaunty hats talking to boys leaning on bicycles. But this turns out to be a dark and disturbing novel. I was so unprepared.
What a time to read about the dangers of low-key fascists in education!
This is one of many books I've read in the past few years where I can tell there would be a whole nother layer of complex commentary if I knew even the slightest big about the history of Ireland... and yet for reasons as yet unknown to myself, I refuse to learn.
This is one of many books I've read in the past few years where I can tell there would be a whole nother layer of complex commentary if I knew even the slightest big about the history of Ireland... and yet for reasons as yet unknown to myself, I refuse to learn.
Tres estrellas y media, Muriel Spark tiene una forma de narración muy curiosa, dentro de qué la historia de la señorita Brodie y sus alumnas es bastante particular.
La historia comienza en un punto del futuro para contarnos sucesos del pasado, la historia no es lineal, pasa de una niña a otra, de su futuro a anédotas del pasado. Todos los personajes giran en torno a la maestra, gran influenciadora de las niñas qué acoge y moldea desde qué tienen 10 años. Nadie puede ser considerado normal en esta historia. La escritura de Sparks esta llena de ironía. Me gusta como nos relata la forma qué las niñas tienen de ver el mundo, la imaginación desbordante de Sandy me recordó a cómo yo misma de niña navegaba en el mundo imaginario de los libros. Con ganas de conocer más de esta autora.
La historia comienza en un punto del futuro para contarnos sucesos del pasado, la historia no es lineal, pasa de una niña a otra, de su futuro a anédotas del pasado. Todos los personajes giran en torno a la maestra, gran influenciadora de las niñas qué acoge y moldea desde qué tienen 10 años. Nadie puede ser considerado normal en esta historia. La escritura de Sparks esta llena de ironía. Me gusta como nos relata la forma qué las niñas tienen de ver el mundo, la imaginación desbordante de Sandy me recordó a cómo yo misma de niña navegaba en el mundo imaginario de los libros. Con ganas de conocer más de esta autora.
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes