Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
My first instinct was to side with Miss Brodie's enemies. She is the type of woman--petty, selfish and bullying--that I would never want my daughter to meet, and I certainly wouldn't want her as my daughter's teacher/mentor. However, she does deserve some pathos since it becomes ever more clear with each page that Jean Brodie is past it, well beyond "her prime", and desperately trying to hold on to past triumphs, which are few and relatively insignificant. Spark creates an enduring character sketch of a British school teacher as seen through the eyes of her charges; this book is a sad account of a once precocious woman's wasted years. Quite tragic, I think.
A short nearly perfect novel, usually regarded as one of the best. This book tells of a radical teacher Jean Brodie in post WW1 Scotland and the pupils that have been named "The Brodie Set" because of their dutiful admiration for their teacher. The novel often flashes forward and speaks of a "great betrayal of Miss Brodie" which causes her to be fired.
Over the course of the book, as the Brodie Set come of age, one of the students becomes disillusioned with her teacher and starts to see through the blinders of admiration to get the reality of a woman she believed to be "in her prime".
Over the course of the book, as the Brodie Set come of age, one of the students becomes disillusioned with her teacher and starts to see through the blinders of admiration to get the reality of a woman she believed to be "in her prime".
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
I really enjoy reading wee classics from time to time and loved that this was set in Edinburgh!! Though I'm not entirely sure it's the kind of book that I usually enjoy, as I did only really get the full impact from it after reading the afterword at the end.
I think because I've not read an old book in a while I found it hard to get into the writing style so didn't feel particularly hooked or swept up at any point, which is a shame because the story was really intriguing.
I found the characters all very interesting and did enjoy Miss Brodie's narcissistic female voice, especially when realising this was written in the 60s. The whole book felt like an ode to gossip, high school gossip and almost soap-opera style drama, what with the wee twists in the end. But the fact that it centres around female lead characters and the relationships between women and girls really was great, again especially when it was written when women were still second class citizens.
I think because I've not read an old book in a while I found it hard to get into the writing style so didn't feel particularly hooked or swept up at any point, which is a shame because the story was really intriguing.
I found the characters all very interesting and did enjoy Miss Brodie's narcissistic female voice, especially when realising this was written in the 60s. The whole book felt like an ode to gossip, high school gossip and almost soap-opera style drama, what with the wee twists in the end. But the fact that it centres around female lead characters and the relationships between women and girls really was great, again especially when it was written when women were still second class citizens.
dark
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
2.5 stars. It wasn't until I read a few reviews of this book that I could see anything unique in this book: the flash forwards and the painting of characters in broad strokes (allowing the reader to fill in) must have been relatively new in the early 60s. Unfortunately, they didn't strike me as particularly innovative or interesting. The story itself had potential but in the end just didn't do much for me. Overall it's ok, but I'm not sure why people love this book so much.
3 based on the conversation I had about this not my personal enjoyment of this book. Not my cup of tea although I can appreciate the literary depth packed into a short book.
Goodness, Truth and Beauty...
Miss Brodie is a teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in the years between the wars. As she repeatedly tells anyone who will listen, she is in her prime. The people she confides in most are a group of girls who were once in her class and whom she singled out as her girls – the Brodie set. Under cover of teaching them history, she instead tells them the story of her lost love, Hugh, who died in the First World War, and of the joys of being a woman in her prime. She would never marry, she declares, since she is too devoted to her girls. But that doesn't mean she has to live the life of a nun...
The book gets off to an excellent start, introducing us first to the girls in the Brodie set. Spark plays around with time, taking us back to the girls' first introduction to Miss Brodie as ten-year-olds, and then forwards to what feels like the present of the book, in the late '30s when the girls are almost grown-up; and then forward again, often telling us the girls' future as a way of shedding light on their personalities in the now. The time-shifting is cleverly done – the whole book sparkles with intelligence, in fact – giving layers of depth to what fundamentally is a rather slight little story of one of the many “surplus” women left single after the huge loss of young men in WW1.
Although the story may be slight, the characterisation of Miss Brodie is anything but – she is wonderfully realised as an unconventional woman battling against the rigid restrictions of prim and proper Edinburgh society, yearning for art and beauty in her life, longing for love, desperately needing the adulation both of men and of her girls. Her beauty and exotic behaviour bring her admiration from more than one man and lead her into the realms of scandal, endangering her necessary respectability and her career. But perhaps Miss Brodie's real misfortune is that in the end she isn't quite unconventional enough.
The writing is excellent, full of barbed humour but with dark undercurrents of repressed sexuality and warped morality. Spark skewers this Edinburgh society with its fixation on class, its soul-destroying respectability, still suffering from the blight of Calvin's and Knox's self-righteous, unforgiving Protestantism, obsessed by immorality and sin.
It would have been easy for Spark to make Miss Brodie a heroine, leading her girls out of the darkness of repression into the light of self-expression, which is how Miss Brodie herself would justify how she exerts her influence over them. But instead Spark makes Miss Brodie fatally flawed – narcissistic and self-obsessed; blinded by romanticism into admiration of the Fascist regimes springing up around Europe; willing to use the girls as surrogates to lead the life she wishes she could have. But even in her tiny realm, she doesn't wield absolute power – as the girls mature, they begin to make choices for themselves. The irony is that this is what Miss Brodie has encouraged them to do, but in the full and erroneous expectation that they would make the choices she wanted them to. If Miss Brodie is a heroine, she is a tragic one. The reader is told from the beginning that one of her students will one day betray her.
And when that betrayal comes, the reader is left to decide whether it was deserved. Spark creates a wonderful murkiness around actions and motives that meant this reader could sympathise with both Miss Brodie and her betrayer, yet condemn them both at the same time. No-one is fully likeable, no-one's motives are completely pure. Instead these women are entirely human, glorious in their complicatedness, selfish in their desires, trapped in their conventions, and ultimately, for some at least, doomed by their weaknesses.
A book that fully deserves its reputation as a Scottish classic – Miss Brodie is one of those literary characters who have become part of the national psyche. But though it says much about the Edinburgh of the period in which it's set, its focus on the messy humanity of the characters prevents it from being restricted to that small sphere – these are people who could be met with anywhere. I look forward to reading more of Spark's work – if it comes close to this in quality, I'm in for a treat. And meantime, if you haven't already read this, then I recommend it wholeheartedly to you.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Miss Brodie is a teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in the years between the wars. As she repeatedly tells anyone who will listen, she is in her prime. The people she confides in most are a group of girls who were once in her class and whom she singled out as her girls – the Brodie set. Under cover of teaching them history, she instead tells them the story of her lost love, Hugh, who died in the First World War, and of the joys of being a woman in her prime. She would never marry, she declares, since she is too devoted to her girls. But that doesn't mean she has to live the life of a nun...
The book gets off to an excellent start, introducing us first to the girls in the Brodie set. Spark plays around with time, taking us back to the girls' first introduction to Miss Brodie as ten-year-olds, and then forwards to what feels like the present of the book, in the late '30s when the girls are almost grown-up; and then forward again, often telling us the girls' future as a way of shedding light on their personalities in the now. The time-shifting is cleverly done – the whole book sparkles with intelligence, in fact – giving layers of depth to what fundamentally is a rather slight little story of one of the many “surplus” women left single after the huge loss of young men in WW1.
Six years previously, Miss Brodie had led her new class into the garden for a history lesson underneath the big elm. On the way through the school corridors they passed the headmistress's study. The door was wide open, the room was empty.
“Little girls,” said Miss Brodie, “come and observe this.”
They clustered round the open door while she pointed to a large poster pinned with drawing-pins on the opposite wall within the room. It depicted a man's big face. Underneath were the words “Safety First.”
“This is Stanley Baldwin who got in as Prime Minister and got out again ere long,” said Miss Brodie. “Miss Mackay retains him on the wall because she believes in the slogan 'Safety First.' But Safety does not come first. Goodness, Truth and Beauty come first. Follow me.”
Although the story may be slight, the characterisation of Miss Brodie is anything but – she is wonderfully realised as an unconventional woman battling against the rigid restrictions of prim and proper Edinburgh society, yearning for art and beauty in her life, longing for love, desperately needing the adulation both of men and of her girls. Her beauty and exotic behaviour bring her admiration from more than one man and lead her into the realms of scandal, endangering her necessary respectability and her career. But perhaps Miss Brodie's real misfortune is that in the end she isn't quite unconventional enough.
The writing is excellent, full of barbed humour but with dark undercurrents of repressed sexuality and warped morality. Spark skewers this Edinburgh society with its fixation on class, its soul-destroying respectability, still suffering from the blight of Calvin's and Knox's self-righteous, unforgiving Protestantism, obsessed by immorality and sin.
In fact, it was the religion of Calvin of which Sandy felt deprived, or rather a specified recognition of it. She desired this birthright; something definite to reject. It pervaded the place in proportion as it was unacknowledged. In some ways the most real and rooted people whom Sandy knew were Miss Gaunt and the Kerr sisters who made no evasions about their belief that God had planned for practically everybody before they were born a nasty surprise when they died. Later, when Sandy read John Calvin, she found that although popular conceptions of Calvinism were sometimes mistaken, in this particular there was no mistake, indeed it was but a mild understanding of the case, he having made it God’s pleasure to implant in certain people an erroneous sense of joy and salvation, so that their surprise at the end might be the nastier.
It would have been easy for Spark to make Miss Brodie a heroine, leading her girls out of the darkness of repression into the light of self-expression, which is how Miss Brodie herself would justify how she exerts her influence over them. But instead Spark makes Miss Brodie fatally flawed – narcissistic and self-obsessed; blinded by romanticism into admiration of the Fascist regimes springing up around Europe; willing to use the girls as surrogates to lead the life she wishes she could have. But even in her tiny realm, she doesn't wield absolute power – as the girls mature, they begin to make choices for themselves. The irony is that this is what Miss Brodie has encouraged them to do, but in the full and erroneous expectation that they would make the choices she wanted them to. If Miss Brodie is a heroine, she is a tragic one. The reader is told from the beginning that one of her students will one day betray her.
And when that betrayal comes, the reader is left to decide whether it was deserved. Spark creates a wonderful murkiness around actions and motives that meant this reader could sympathise with both Miss Brodie and her betrayer, yet condemn them both at the same time. No-one is fully likeable, no-one's motives are completely pure. Instead these women are entirely human, glorious in their complicatedness, selfish in their desires, trapped in their conventions, and ultimately, for some at least, doomed by their weaknesses.
A book that fully deserves its reputation as a Scottish classic – Miss Brodie is one of those literary characters who have become part of the national psyche. But though it says much about the Edinburgh of the period in which it's set, its focus on the messy humanity of the characters prevents it from being restricted to that small sphere – these are people who could be met with anywhere. I look forward to reading more of Spark's work – if it comes close to this in quality, I'm in for a treat. And meantime, if you haven't already read this, then I recommend it wholeheartedly to you.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Good writing, but wholly unlikable characters. Somewhere in the book Jean Brodie was described as loathsome, and I could not agree more. She was supercilious, manipulative, and disturbingly subversive, and the ease with which she secured the devotion of her "creme de la creme" should be a cautionary tale for parents. I have read it, but I can't say I'm glad of it.
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:
Yes