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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
Mein erster Gedanke beim Lesen des Buchs: Man nehme den "Der Club der toten Dichter", verwandle die Schüler in junge Schülerinnen, ersetze Robin Williams durch Maggie Smith und - zack - hat man diesen Roman.
So einfach ist es natürlich nicht. Erschwerend kommt hinzu, dass ich den Club der toten Dichter als wesentlich zugänglicher empfunden habe. Um die (zweifelsohne vielzähligen) Botschaften des vielgelobten Romans von Muriel Spark zu identifizieren, muss man für meinen Geschmack etwas zu tief in die Textanalyse einsteigen.
Hatte ich alles im Germanistik-Studium, möchte ich jetzt nicht mehr machen müssen - da bin ich ehrlich.
Im Kern ist der vorliegende Roman ein Gesellschaftsporträt der 1930er, in dem Muriel Spark die frühen Anzeichen einer faschistoiden Ideologie abbildet.
Besonders bemerkenswert sind die vielen ausgeklügelten Stilmittel, mit denen Spark nicht nur den Plot spannend vorantreibt, sondern auch ihre Figuren - insbesondere die beiden Protagonistinnen Jean Brodie und deren Lieblingsschülerin Sandy Stranger - facettenreich ausarbeitet.
Für mich persönlich war der Text - im englischen Original gelesen - einfach zu anstrengend und die Botschaften ein bisschen zu gut hinter all den Pro- und Analepsen versteckt. Wer jedoch Spaß an der Textanalyse hat, wird hier sicherlich auf seine Kosten kommen. The Prime of Miss Brodie ist nicht umsonst typische Schullektüre in England oder deutschen Englisch-Leistungskursen.
So einfach ist es natürlich nicht. Erschwerend kommt hinzu, dass ich den Club der toten Dichter als wesentlich zugänglicher empfunden habe. Um die (zweifelsohne vielzähligen) Botschaften des vielgelobten Romans von Muriel Spark zu identifizieren, muss man für meinen Geschmack etwas zu tief in die Textanalyse einsteigen.
Hatte ich alles im Germanistik-Studium, möchte ich jetzt nicht mehr machen müssen - da bin ich ehrlich.
Im Kern ist der vorliegende Roman ein Gesellschaftsporträt der 1930er, in dem Muriel Spark die frühen Anzeichen einer faschistoiden Ideologie abbildet.
Besonders bemerkenswert sind die vielen ausgeklügelten Stilmittel, mit denen Spark nicht nur den Plot spannend vorantreibt, sondern auch ihre Figuren - insbesondere die beiden Protagonistinnen Jean Brodie und deren Lieblingsschülerin Sandy Stranger - facettenreich ausarbeitet.
Für mich persönlich war der Text - im englischen Original gelesen - einfach zu anstrengend und die Botschaften ein bisschen zu gut hinter all den Pro- und Analepsen versteckt. Wer jedoch Spaß an der Textanalyse hat, wird hier sicherlich auf seine Kosten kommen. The Prime of Miss Brodie ist nicht umsonst typische Schullektüre in England oder deutschen Englisch-Leistungskursen.
Review: https://clife.blog/2022/08/26/book-review-the-prime-of-miss-jean-brodie-by-muriel-spark/
This novel takes us to Edinburgh in the ‘30s. Where a teacher/mistress named Miss Jean Brodie has taken an interest in 6 of her students who are known as ‘The Brodie Set’.
Jean loves to go on about being in her prime throughout. It doesn’t matter what age you are, everyone reaches it at different times. Anyone in her classes are being taught in her own unorthodox way of life.
With the particular ‘Brodie Set’ they see Jean outside of school hours for plays and such. Be aware these kids are only 10 at the start of the novel. Jean goes on to discuss what they will be like in the future. Speaking of 10 year olds and talking about their sexuality was a little disturbing for myself.
It is so weird the amount of influence she has over these young women. I found it so interesting to see how these women turned out as they were growling during their impressionable age.
I really wished we could have seen more of an insight into Jean’s thoughts as we could only see from the kids points of views. I really did not agree with Brodie when she called a married man the ‘love of her life’ when clearly he a pervert luring after young children and later sleeping with one of them! She had one kiss with the man and deemed him as the love of her life, really?
Apart from that and the influencing of making them have sex with the teacher, it was an intriguing read.
This novel takes us to Edinburgh in the ‘30s. Where a teacher/mistress named Miss Jean Brodie has taken an interest in 6 of her students who are known as ‘The Brodie Set’.
Jean loves to go on about being in her prime throughout. It doesn’t matter what age you are, everyone reaches it at different times. Anyone in her classes are being taught in her own unorthodox way of life.
With the particular ‘Brodie Set’ they see Jean outside of school hours for plays and such. Be aware these kids are only 10 at the start of the novel. Jean goes on to discuss what they will be like in the future. Speaking of 10 year olds and talking about their sexuality was a little disturbing for myself.
It is so weird the amount of influence she has over these young women. I found it so interesting to see how these women turned out as they were growling during their impressionable age.
I really wished we could have seen more of an insight into Jean’s thoughts as we could only see from the kids points of views. I really did not agree with Brodie when she called a married man the ‘love of her life’ when clearly he a pervert luring after young children and later sleeping with one of them! She had one kiss with the man and deemed him as the love of her life, really?
Apart from that and the influencing of making them have sex with the teacher, it was an intriguing read.
funny
reflective
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
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
2.5 stars. I need to stop just reading things because they're compared to Dead Poet's Society. That being said, I loved the Edinburgh descriptions throughout. Just a bit sad that it dragged on as much as it did for such a short novel.
funny
tense
funny
lighthearted
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Another review that feels like it needs to be prepended with disclaimers given this book's overwhelming popularity.
After having read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie I ended up looking through a couple of pages of the 4/5 star reviews to try and understand what I'd missed out on, what other people got from this book that I didn’t. It seems that many people who liked this book had seen the Maggie Smith adaption of it first, so possibly I was missing something from not having seen the film?
But what the majority enjoyed about this novel is what drove me crazy, starting with the central character herself.
Jean Brodie is a highly functioning sociopath. She manipulates the children in her care to sculpt their sense of self, self-worth, and grooms a couple of them for revenge/replacement sex. And the bullying! Every interaction with Mary made me cringe.
How is this woman heralded as an anti-hero in modern fiction?
I’ve seen a couple of arguments that this book was very progressive for its time and that Brodie is a revolutionary character. This was written in the 60’s, this style, these characters are NOT progressive.
Brodie is about as likable as Holden Caulfield but with none of the youth to excuse her behavior. But a character doesn’t have to be likable for a book to be enjoyable, so putting Brodie aside as a character, what of the children (and eventually youths) that form the Brodie set? Despite Spark repeatedly ramming their ‘defining’ characteristics down our throats, they all merge into one another: bland, impressionable children. Sandy, the more fleshed out character of the bunch, does however entertain with her daydreams and fictional accounts of Brodie’s private life. These occasional paragraphs are the best bits of the novel.
The use of repetition is interesting for the first 2-3 pages. For me, at least, the girls being ‘known’ for something was part of Brodie’s influence: if you tell a child they’re stupid every day for 3 years, they’ll likely end up thinking they’re stupid. It would have been interesting to compare what the girls could have been known for before Brodie’s influence to what they did become known for after all.
After those first couple of pages though, the repetition starts feeling like filler. Were this a weekly installment it could be justified but with a novel this brief and lacking in content these repetitions stick out.
The repetitions of 'Brodie in her prime’ is aggravating beyond belief. By page 10 I did not care about Brodie anymore. Can you imagine if this central character were a man in a mid-life crisis? Is this still a ‘charming’ story with the gender swapped? urgh
The final thing that other reviewers seemed to enjoy so much was the flash-forward glimpses of the girl’s futures. Again, this felt like a device to break up the lack of story.
So I suppose after writing this review I have almost nothing positive to say about The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. I need a novel to deliver something to me, one of either: a rich character, interesting character dynamics, a good setting, a good plot. If these is none of these, I can’t but give it a 1 star. Sad I this turned out to be such a dud as I love books in a school setting. So it goes, so it goes.
After having read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie I ended up looking through a couple of pages of the 4/5 star reviews to try and understand what I'd missed out on, what other people got from this book that I didn’t. It seems that many people who liked this book had seen the Maggie Smith adaption of it first, so possibly I was missing something from not having seen the film?
But what the majority enjoyed about this novel is what drove me crazy, starting with the central character herself.
Jean Brodie is a highly functioning sociopath. She manipulates the children in her care to sculpt their sense of self, self-worth, and grooms a couple of them for revenge/replacement sex. And the bullying! Every interaction with Mary made me cringe.
How is this woman heralded as an anti-hero in modern fiction?
I’ve seen a couple of arguments that this book was very progressive for its time and that Brodie is a revolutionary character. This was written in the 60’s, this style, these characters are NOT progressive.
Brodie is about as likable as Holden Caulfield but with none of the youth to excuse her behavior. But a character doesn’t have to be likable for a book to be enjoyable, so putting Brodie aside as a character, what of the children (and eventually youths) that form the Brodie set? Despite Spark repeatedly ramming their ‘defining’ characteristics down our throats, they all merge into one another: bland, impressionable children. Sandy, the more fleshed out character of the bunch, does however entertain with her daydreams and fictional accounts of Brodie’s private life. These occasional paragraphs are the best bits of the novel.
The use of repetition is interesting for the first 2-3 pages. For me, at least, the girls being ‘known’ for something was part of Brodie’s influence: if you tell a child they’re stupid every day for 3 years, they’ll likely end up thinking they’re stupid. It would have been interesting to compare what the girls could have been known for before Brodie’s influence to what they did become known for after all.
After those first couple of pages though, the repetition starts feeling like filler. Were this a weekly installment it could be justified but with a novel this brief and lacking in content these repetitions stick out.
The repetitions of 'Brodie in her prime’ is aggravating beyond belief. By page 10 I did not care about Brodie anymore. Can you imagine if this central character were a man in a mid-life crisis? Is this still a ‘charming’ story with the gender swapped? urgh
The final thing that other reviewers seemed to enjoy so much was the flash-forward glimpses of the girl’s futures. Again, this felt like a device to break up the lack of story.
So I suppose after writing this review I have almost nothing positive to say about The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. I need a novel to deliver something to me, one of either: a rich character, interesting character dynamics, a good setting, a good plot. If these is none of these, I can’t but give it a 1 star. Sad I this turned out to be such a dud as I love books in a school setting. So it goes, so it goes.
reflective
sad
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