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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
It's been a busy week so I'm sorry to say I didn't have time to write about this novel when it was fresh in my mind and I feel as though I might not do it justice now, distracted as I am. This is only my second Muriel Spark novel but I'm already quite a fan. What I like best about her writing in this novel is the way the story unfolds in ragged splashes of information, paying little attention to either chronology or a typical modernist technique of first person narrator's recollections or whatever. It's wholly unrealistic, unexplained, and just perfect. It's best described, I guess, as simply artistic. The story happens in exactly the way it needs to dramatically. Art for art's sake. And it's beautiful.
I don't mean to insinuate by this that The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is unrealistic or of the fairy tale variety or postmodern or anything like that. Rather it's scrumptiously unique. An omniscient narrator weaves in and out of various characters' heads to tell us the story as it should be told without worrying about literary convention or realism--so, as a reader, I didn't either. I just sat breathlessly following the little adventure of Miss Brodie's gathering together of her student set, their development, Miss Brodie's betrayal by one of them, and then their fates as adults. Terrific stuff. A wonderful window on a bygone era in an interesting place (Edinburgh) and into an interesting slice of a female and young person's world. All of these things were rather vividly invoked.
Thematically, Spark seems to me--again, only two novels, this one and The Bachelors--extremely subtle. I wondered here if Miss Brodie's admiration of Mussolini (and later Hitler too) although mentioned more-or-less in passing, meant that we were being invited to consider the dynamics of fascism in the form of an elementary school teacher's influence over a group of her favorite students. (This would perhaps verge on satire, and Spark--in both the novels I've read-- does display a viciously ironic wit.) In the end, though, I'm not sure the novel makes much of a political statement--but I do believe the detail of Miss Brodie's admiration of all things Italian is psychologically accurate for the portraiture of her character--an elementary school teacher in her prime. Probably most interesting here are the sexual dynamics of women of the early part of the twentieth century. The girls' burgeoning pubescent sexuality becomes part of Miss Brodie's own renounced (perhaps?) and deflected sexuality through her already established "set." Creepy stuff, in the end--all the more so because the novel captures, particularly in its opening chapters, the innocence of the elementary school girls.
I don't mean to insinuate by this that The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is unrealistic or of the fairy tale variety or postmodern or anything like that. Rather it's scrumptiously unique. An omniscient narrator weaves in and out of various characters' heads to tell us the story as it should be told without worrying about literary convention or realism--so, as a reader, I didn't either. I just sat breathlessly following the little adventure of Miss Brodie's gathering together of her student set, their development, Miss Brodie's betrayal by one of them, and then their fates as adults. Terrific stuff. A wonderful window on a bygone era in an interesting place (Edinburgh) and into an interesting slice of a female and young person's world. All of these things were rather vividly invoked.
Thematically, Spark seems to me--again, only two novels, this one and The Bachelors--extremely subtle. I wondered here if Miss Brodie's admiration of Mussolini (and later Hitler too) although mentioned more-or-less in passing, meant that we were being invited to consider the dynamics of fascism in the form of an elementary school teacher's influence over a group of her favorite students. (This would perhaps verge on satire, and Spark--in both the novels I've read-- does display a viciously ironic wit.) In the end, though, I'm not sure the novel makes much of a political statement--but I do believe the detail of Miss Brodie's admiration of all things Italian is psychologically accurate for the portraiture of her character--an elementary school teacher in her prime. Probably most interesting here are the sexual dynamics of women of the early part of the twentieth century. The girls' burgeoning pubescent sexuality becomes part of Miss Brodie's own renounced (perhaps?) and deflected sexuality through her already established "set." Creepy stuff, in the end--all the more so because the novel captures, particularly in its opening chapters, the innocence of the elementary school girls.
«розквіт міс броді» – 1961.
перша книжка про карлсона – 1955.
англійський переклад ліндгрен, щоправда, вийшов тільки 1975 року. але так приємно уявляти, як мюріел спарк усміхається, думаючи про карлсона, коли пише свою харизматичну героїню в розквіті літ (I’m a Man in his Prime, that’s all I can say). а може, все було якраз навпаки, і це перекладачка ліндгрен надихалася «міс броді».
перша книжка про карлсона – 1955.
англійський переклад ліндгрен, щоправда, вийшов тільки 1975 року. але так приємно уявляти, як мюріел спарк усміхається, думаючи про карлсона, коли пише свою харизматичну героїню в розквіті літ (I’m a Man in his Prime, that’s all I can say). а може, все було якраз навпаки, і це перекладачка ліндгрен надихалася «міс броді».
After my recent introduction to the work of Muriel Spark via The Hothouse by the East River I went on a mini binge of buying every title that came across my path in second hand bookshops, until eventually I found the novel that she is most famous for and the one I had seen everywhere I looked for years until that moment I decided I wanted my own copy. Typical.
Still when it finally found its way in to my hands I didn't want to put it down such was the pleasure I was having in getting to know Miss Brodie and her set, and for most people I'm sure they won't have to, it's such a slim volume.
When Colin Firth refers to Ruth Gemmell as Miss Jean Brodie in Fever Pitch I had assumed he was referring to how dour, strict and rigid she was, turns out he was referring to the single woman giving the prime of her life to teaching (not sociopathically however) teenagers. That misinterpretation seems to have led my ignorance of the work of Dame Spark and specifically this hugely enjoyable read.
Miss Jean Brodie in her prime is a strong, independent woman who strongly believes that a girl should be fully prepared for life via her education and not simply prepared for exams. A novel idea that is still being ignored by educators everywhere it seems. Filled with such extremes of self assurance in all that she does her presence is intoxicating for the young impressionable girls handpicked to be the creme de la creme and her personal avatars going forth in to the world between the wars.
Spark's prose is light and witty, filled with astute observations of the interactions between mentor and acolyte, teenage girls with each other and the gradual awareness of their place in the world outside of an educational establishment. Told in a very deliberate piecemeal manner, Spark drops crumbs of what the future would hold for the Brodie Set, hints and revelations are provided only for the action to return to "the present" and in doing so provides a much more intriguing read.
Impressively, you are led to feel both enamoured of her attitude towards life and teaching and sympathy for her sad little life whilst increasingly becoming aware that actually her behaviour is quite reprehensible and the damage she is causing these young women with her manipulative, sociopathic behaviour will be irreversible. Many people choose to acknowledge one of the chosen six girls analysing Miss Brodie as thinking of herself as the Calvin God as an admission on behalf of the writer that the entire novel is an assault on the religion of her youth, and hey I guess you could read it that way too if you were so inclined, me I prefer to stick to analysing my literature in relation to human behaviour.
There's no way that this should have stayed on my "embarrassingly unread" pile for so long, and the same goes for any person serious about literature of the 20th century, especially as it's such a brief piece. Do yourself a favour and get on out there and find yourself one of the many millions of copies printed worldwide since 1961.
Still when it finally found its way in to my hands I didn't want to put it down such was the pleasure I was having in getting to know Miss Brodie and her set, and for most people I'm sure they won't have to, it's such a slim volume.
When Colin Firth refers to Ruth Gemmell as Miss Jean Brodie in Fever Pitch I had assumed he was referring to how dour, strict and rigid she was, turns out he was referring to the single woman giving the prime of her life to teaching (not sociopathically however) teenagers. That misinterpretation seems to have led my ignorance of the work of Dame Spark and specifically this hugely enjoyable read.
Miss Jean Brodie in her prime is a strong, independent woman who strongly believes that a girl should be fully prepared for life via her education and not simply prepared for exams. A novel idea that is still being ignored by educators everywhere it seems. Filled with such extremes of self assurance in all that she does her presence is intoxicating for the young impressionable girls handpicked to be the creme de la creme and her personal avatars going forth in to the world between the wars.
Spark's prose is light and witty, filled with astute observations of the interactions between mentor and acolyte, teenage girls with each other and the gradual awareness of their place in the world outside of an educational establishment. Told in a very deliberate piecemeal manner, Spark drops crumbs of what the future would hold for the Brodie Set, hints and revelations are provided only for the action to return to "the present" and in doing so provides a much more intriguing read.
Impressively, you are led to feel both enamoured of her attitude towards life and teaching and sympathy for her sad little life whilst increasingly becoming aware that actually her behaviour is quite reprehensible and the damage she is causing these young women with her manipulative, sociopathic behaviour will be irreversible. Many people choose to acknowledge one of the chosen six girls analysing Miss Brodie as thinking of herself as the Calvin God as an admission on behalf of the writer that the entire novel is an assault on the religion of her youth, and hey I guess you could read it that way too if you were so inclined, me I prefer to stick to analysing my literature in relation to human behaviour.
There's no way that this should have stayed on my "embarrassingly unread" pile for so long, and the same goes for any person serious about literature of the 20th century, especially as it's such a brief piece. Do yourself a favour and get on out there and find yourself one of the many millions of copies printed worldwide since 1961.
This is one of those books that I’ve been meaning to read for over a decade. I always thought that I would love it, and I was right. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is the crème de la crème. The story was familiar because I’ve seen the movie (Assassin!), but the writing was a great surprise. The prose is beautifully economical, which is one of my favorite things. It left me thinking about things like loyalty and betrayal and childhood.
fast-paced
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-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
Quick. Charming. Definitely made me a bit emotional at the end, but the lack of an overall plot made me a bit restless. Still, it was entertaining for such a short book!
dark
lighthearted
fast-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
A clever, quirky (and sometimes annoying) writing style.... but, on the whole, I didn't really like the book.
