You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
niceisneat 's review for:
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
by Muriel Spark
In Edinburgh in the 1930s, there is a Miss Jean Brodie in her prime. She teaches Junior school and has a habit of choosing certain of her pupils to take under her wing. This “Brodie set” consists of six girls: Sandy, Rose, Mary, Jenny, Monica, and Eunice, plus a seventh girl, Joyce Emily, who isn’t part of the set but who plays a role anyway. As the girls leave Junior school for Senior, they continue to be influenced by Miss Brodie by way of regular meetups at her home. By the time the girls are sixteen, she has chosen Sandy as her confidante and becomes obsessed with the idea of having an affair with Mr Lloyd, the married art teacher, while actually having an affair with Mr Lowther, the unmarried music teacher. The novel, told largely in flashforwards, tells us from the beginning that one of the Brodie set is going to “betray” Miss Brodie and have her fired from teaching, and it is the who, how, and why of this on which the non-sequential narration focuses.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a very short novel: the edition I have is only 150 pages. However, in those few pages, Spark manages to fit a remarkable amount of character. Jean Brodie herself is quite a complicated woman. She is not, however, very sympathetic: she is openly fascist and her exploits at the Marcia Blaine school lead to the destruction of more than one girl’s life. Miss Brodie has a romanticized idea of the world- as Sandy notes, “She thinks she is Providence … She thinks she is the God of Calvin, the beginning and the End”- and it is this that ultimately proves her own downfall as she is betrayed by one of her own set.
As I mentioned, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a very short book, perfect for a day or weekend read. Due to its length and readability, I’d recommend it for someone looking to get into classics or literary fiction or just looking for a nice character-driven novel with a bit of a mystery.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a very short novel: the edition I have is only 150 pages. However, in those few pages, Spark manages to fit a remarkable amount of character. Jean Brodie herself is quite a complicated woman. She is not, however, very sympathetic: she is openly fascist and her exploits at the Marcia Blaine school lead to the destruction of more than one girl’s life. Miss Brodie has a romanticized idea of the world- as Sandy notes, “She thinks she is Providence … She thinks she is the God of Calvin, the beginning and the End”- and it is this that ultimately proves her own downfall as she is betrayed by one of her own set.
As I mentioned, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a very short book, perfect for a day or weekend read. Due to its length and readability, I’d recommend it for someone looking to get into classics or literary fiction or just looking for a nice character-driven novel with a bit of a mystery.