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korrick 's review for:
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
by Muriel Spark
4.5/5
Of course, this lack of major interaction between my younger self and academic personas was a double edged sword. Perhaps a little more insistence from one of my favorite English teachers would have saved me years of mistaken pursuit of a Bioengineering degree, putting me via influential measures on my current path and avoiding all that fumbling around with personal choice. However, when looking at a book like this, I see the time I spent finding myself as well worth the cost of years and money and all that jazz. My distrust for authority figures may be on the paranoid side, but my questioning of everyone and everything alongside painstakingly gained self-worth has, is, and will continue to serve me better than any other tool at my disposal.
Thus, I see this Miss Jean Brodie as a seductive force that would have easily bowled me over in my younger days. Those times are long past, and her sway has been reduced by time to a portion of her power, a slogan in essence of that aesthetically minded mob machination of Fascism so well known to history. For every appealing remark in the realm of Literature and the Arts, there's the blind assuming in regards to Science, Math, Politics, Religion, etc. There's also that discombobulated aura of feminism of the hypocritical sort, something I wouldn't have known to look for in my youth and a key factor of why I have never had the desire to return to my childhood mentality.
The directness with which the author presents this miniature treatise on pedagogy never struck me as obtuse, as there's quite a bit more going on within the boundaries of this slim, sharp-shooting novel. I've heard of Spark excelling in the microenvironmental scope, and she doesn't fail in my first introduction to her fiction. The pointed way she captures that muddled feeling of school, that of one's time being filled with so much cramming of information while in reality knowing little of anything important, is especially impressive. I do like my literature that takes childhood seriously, and while this is no [b:The Instructions|8380409|The Instructions|Adam Levin|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1287702723s/8380409.jpg|13237247], there's a cynical naïvety to it that I well recognize.
While I would better remember and hold my school years in more esteem had I encountered an incarnation of Miss Jean Brodie in her prime, I spend enough time as it is in deconstructing all that I thought I knew in those days of desks and paper and the persistent feeling of an invisible cage, otherwise known as bits and pieces solipsism. Looking at how the woman in her prime ended up, rattling on the same rails of so many years as little more than a broken tape recorder, I'd say I got the greener side for my own satisfaction of sensibilities. Besides, all that vicarious chess game living with a side of psychosomatic sexuality? Creepy.
Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life.It wasn't until recently that I became aware of how teachers had viewed me during my high school years. To be frank, I was surprised that they had acknowledged me at all, let alone discussed me amongst themselves. This discussion extended out from time to time to parents associated with the school, one of whom is now a very good friend of mine and my reason for knowing about this at all. I was liked, apparently, for being a quiet and studious little girl, likely noticed despite said quietness due to being the lone white face in many of the advanced classes but that, of course, is only suspicion. In those days I excelled in the art of keeping myself to my self, especially in regards to those keepers of test scores and other belovedly loathed idols of my youth, so I had no inkling of this overarching benevolent gaze, to the point of being flabbergasted in senior year at finding many an enthusiastic response to my request for recommendation letters. Who knew.
Of course, this lack of major interaction between my younger self and academic personas was a double edged sword. Perhaps a little more insistence from one of my favorite English teachers would have saved me years of mistaken pursuit of a Bioengineering degree, putting me via influential measures on my current path and avoiding all that fumbling around with personal choice. However, when looking at a book like this, I see the time I spent finding myself as well worth the cost of years and money and all that jazz. My distrust for authority figures may be on the paranoid side, but my questioning of everyone and everything alongside painstakingly gained self-worth has, is, and will continue to serve me better than any other tool at my disposal.
Thus, I see this Miss Jean Brodie as a seductive force that would have easily bowled me over in my younger days. Those times are long past, and her sway has been reduced by time to a portion of her power, a slogan in essence of that aesthetically minded mob machination of Fascism so well known to history. For every appealing remark in the realm of Literature and the Arts, there's the blind assuming in regards to Science, Math, Politics, Religion, etc. There's also that discombobulated aura of feminism of the hypocritical sort, something I wouldn't have known to look for in my youth and a key factor of why I have never had the desire to return to my childhood mentality.
The directness with which the author presents this miniature treatise on pedagogy never struck me as obtuse, as there's quite a bit more going on within the boundaries of this slim, sharp-shooting novel. I've heard of Spark excelling in the microenvironmental scope, and she doesn't fail in my first introduction to her fiction. The pointed way she captures that muddled feeling of school, that of one's time being filled with so much cramming of information while in reality knowing little of anything important, is especially impressive. I do like my literature that takes childhood seriously, and while this is no [b:The Instructions|8380409|The Instructions|Adam Levin|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1287702723s/8380409.jpg|13237247], there's a cynical naïvety to it that I well recognize.
While I would better remember and hold my school years in more esteem had I encountered an incarnation of Miss Jean Brodie in her prime, I spend enough time as it is in deconstructing all that I thought I knew in those days of desks and paper and the persistent feeling of an invisible cage, otherwise known as bits and pieces solipsism. Looking at how the woman in her prime ended up, rattling on the same rails of so many years as little more than a broken tape recorder, I'd say I got the greener side for my own satisfaction of sensibilities. Besides, all that vicarious chess game living with a side of psychosomatic sexuality? Creepy.