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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
i think this one was too smart for me, reading the reviews has made me realise that it's more complex than i gave it credit for- a future reread, but this time it wasn't for me.
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life.
This came out before The Dead Poet's Society, but it feels like it is a response to the inspirational teacher movies that are still so popular. Miss Jean Brodie is the type of free-spirited teacher with non-traditional methods that is the star of these inspirational films. But while Miss Brodie considers herself a heroine, she is actually a controlling narcissist. Miss Brodie talks about how she is endowing her students with a love of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty (so much more important than arithmetic!). But instead of actually teaching her students or encouraging free thinking, she talks about herself (mostly her Grand Love Affairs) and enforcing her own personal opinions as objective fact ("Who is the greatest Italian painter?"/"Leonardo da Vinci, Miss Brodie."/"That is incorrect. The answer is Giotto, he is my favorite.").
Miss Brodie collects around herself a "set" - a group of little girls whose parents won't make a fuss about Miss Brodie's encroachment into their lives. She grooms them into her own personal army, setting up the world as "us" and "them." It is unsurprising that Miss Brodie is a fascist, with a great admiration for Mussolini and Hitler.
It packs quite a lot into around 200 pages, including flash forwards so we can see glimpses of the girls as adults. It is darkly comedic, leaning into Miss Brodie's ridiculousness.
4.5 stars, rounded up.
This came out before The Dead Poet's Society, but it feels like it is a response to the inspirational teacher movies that are still so popular. Miss Jean Brodie is the type of free-spirited teacher with non-traditional methods that is the star of these inspirational films. But while Miss Brodie considers herself a heroine, she is actually a controlling narcissist. Miss Brodie talks about how she is endowing her students with a love of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty (so much more important than arithmetic!). But instead of actually teaching her students or encouraging free thinking, she talks about herself (mostly her Grand Love Affairs) and enforcing her own personal opinions as objective fact ("Who is the greatest Italian painter?"/"Leonardo da Vinci, Miss Brodie."/"That is incorrect. The answer is Giotto, he is my favorite.").
Miss Brodie collects around herself a "set" - a group of little girls whose parents won't make a fuss about Miss Brodie's encroachment into their lives. She grooms them into her own personal army, setting up the world as "us" and "them." It is unsurprising that Miss Brodie is a fascist, with a great admiration for Mussolini and Hitler.
It packs quite a lot into around 200 pages, including flash forwards so we can see glimpses of the girls as adults. It is darkly comedic, leaning into Miss Brodie's ridiculousness.
4.5 stars, rounded up.
Quirky, intriguing, and surprising. I found this book at random on my bookshelf -- not sure how it got there, which may be what endeared it to me. It's not the most beautiful prose in the world, but for me, the plot was enough to keep my nose happily buried in its pages.
reflective
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
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
funny
reflective
fast-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
Muriel Spark is often named as a spiritual ancestor to a number of my favorite writers, so I gravitated towards her iconic book. "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" is a short novel about a group of students at an upscale girls' school in 1930s Edinburgh, and the impact of the titular instructor. The unmarried and determinedly nonconformist Miss Brodie is my favorite sort of fictional character; a lover of art, female empowerment, and Mussolini, she's not easy to love or easy to despise.
I quite enjoyed Spark's style, with its cold, acidic humor and casual disregard for standard storytelling. Plot bombshells are less foreshadowed then matter-of-factly dropped in your lap, as time bounces between past and future. But I found it kind of inert and less than compelling, at least until the final quarter. Even at 129 pages, the middle is a bit of a slog. As much I admire the bite of Spark's writing, this felt more like an inflated short story than a compact novel.
I quite enjoyed Spark's style, with its cold, acidic humor and casual disregard for standard storytelling. Plot bombshells are less foreshadowed then matter-of-factly dropped in your lap, as time bounces between past and future. But I found it kind of inert and less than compelling, at least until the final quarter. Even at 129 pages, the middle is a bit of a slog. As much I admire the bite of Spark's writing, this felt more like an inflated short story than a compact novel.
Started off charming, then it got scattered and hard to track.