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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship
Moderate: Bullying, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Infidelity, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Colonisation, Classism
Ms. Brodie, full of delusions of grandeur and actual grandeur, is a harsh mother to her pupils. She sets fates for all of them, and in believing it, it becomes. All save for one of them.
Childhood, being delicate, is easily broken; being broken, it is easily forgotten; being forgotten, it becomes a real and living thing. This book's emphasis on a theme of this cycle seems itself haunted. The author seems haunted, and in the pages repeats, as if in a dream repeated, the lines of fate drawn from the webs of a woman in her prime.
It is her making and unmaking of reality that is the heart of this book. Beauty, of some kind, is mistaken for honest truth. Where the laws of nature and fate contradict her, Ms. Brodie weaves them again. All the more fascinating, she weaves them true.
Perhaps, this book is a mere horrific retelling of Pygmalion; that what we find beautiful, we will love; and what we love will grow true, to whatever ends.
Childhood, being delicate, is easily broken; being broken, it is easily forgotten; being forgotten, it becomes a real and living thing. This book's emphasis on a theme of this cycle seems itself haunted. The author seems haunted, and in the pages repeats, as if in a dream repeated, the lines of fate drawn from the webs of a woman in her prime.
It is her making and unmaking of reality that is the heart of this book. Beauty, of some kind, is mistaken for honest truth. Where the laws of nature and fate contradict her, Ms. Brodie weaves them again. All the more fascinating, she weaves them true.
Perhaps, this book is a mere horrific retelling of Pygmalion; that what we find beautiful, we will love; and what we love will grow true, to whatever ends.
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Only the second novel I've read from her, but both have been overflowing with voice and wit. Lean books that feel like a bolt from the blue. The sense of the mind behind them can be overwhelming at times, even when the story is seemingly straightforward.
This one shifts from whimsy to intimate portrayals of being present for the world historical so smoothly you could miss it if you weren't paying attention. But make no mistake: this is a very, very dark book hiding behind what feels like a playful bildungsroman. You could easily read it in a day, but it will stick with you far longer.
This one shifts from whimsy to intimate portrayals of being present for the world historical so smoothly you could miss it if you weren't paying attention. But make no mistake: this is a very, very dark book hiding behind what feels like a playful bildungsroman. You could easily read it in a day, but it will stick with you far longer.
I thought it genius that the character with the small eyes had the greatest insight into the character of Miss Brodie.
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
idk if this is a spoiler but Living for bi queen Sandy. She’s a queer icon and you cannot prove me wrong. This book constantly reminded me of the teachers I was in love with and would follow to the ends of the earth - and then realizing, of course, they are flawed humans, too.
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Very unusual in its narrative style. Hovers over little details and milks them whilst landing huge plot points as if nothing in half a sentence. I think anyone thinking of writing would get some idea of style from this book. How humour doesn’t have to be an obvious joke. It reminded me terribly of school. I loved this book.
What an awesome short little book. I never had heard of Spark (my fault) so I didn't really have any expectations of her writing or what this book would be. But it was smart, funny, damning, and charming all in one.
My favorite part was how she constantly added little new details throughout the book that screamed to recontextualize previous things she knew the reader would balk at (for example, calling Rose a sexed up one when you had only introduced her as an 11 year old, leaving me as the reader incredibly unbalanced until it is clarified a few pages later that she would only be the sexed up one as she grew older -- only to find out throughout the course of the book HOW she got to be sexed up)
That also brings to attention the fact that while there is a linear story being told, every now and again you would get these random few-off paragraps of some random other time in the future of the characters, usually to add flare, sometimes to add new details. Something that seems incredibly hard to pull off well throughout the course of the novel, but is pulled off well regardless.
TLDR : selfish/off-beat teacher has a set of favorite pupils, the teacher has a love affair with other male teachers, female teachers are out to get her fired more because she is off beat than because she is sleeping around, we follow the students as they age out of Jean Brodies tutleage, and become young women, and learn how they interact with others and develop outside of the guidance of Brodie. Eventually, we learn that Brodie is basically a fascist sympathizer, and that's what gets her booted.
There are plenty of interesting little tid-bits, like how Brodie prefers classical education to modern, how Brodie disregards the concept of rules in preference of cleanliness, how she is authoritarian in her teaching styles, etc. that should have clued us off -- and could serve as a broader discussion on how pernicious fascistic sympathies are.
But it can also just be read as a good book.
Highly recommend.
This was such an ambiguous book to me. On the one hand, Miss Brodie is such an smart and strong figure, but on the other hand, something felt very wrong with her. Maybe it's because she's described over and over again as a spinster and I hate that word so much. She works so hard to not be defined in such a way, but society keeps focussing on her romantic life. And she does so herself as well, she might not be economically or socially dependent on a man, but she's very hung up on her partners, not getting very much in return for it. But it is things tragic undertone which makes this such a lovely novel to me.