On the surface, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a deceptively straight-forward tale of an eccentric teacher, who exerts her influence and strong personality on a selected group of pupils, the so-called Brodie set. However, the slim novella has more to it than that.
Miss Brodie is far from the stereotypical heroine teacher, who bravely stands up to an outdated and conservative educational system. She is passionate about art and culture and teaches the girls lessons about life outside school. However, she is also self-centred, supports fascism, picks on the less gifted in the group and entertains with stories about her love life instead of teaching arithmetic and history. Each of her selected pupils has been typecasted into a specific role and she has no qualms using them as puppets in her own personal schemes.
Religion and ideology both play a central role in the story. When observing Miss Brodie’s treatment of the girls, parallels can be drawn to fascism and even to an omnipotent God determining the faith of his subjects. The actions of Sandy, a clever and shrewd pupil, are also influenced by her reflections on morals and religion. Unfortunately, some of the references and connections went right over my head. A quick googling of “what is inverted Calvinism + Miss Brodie” resulted in endless numbers of complex academic theses, analysing and interpreting this key aspect of the novel in more or less incomprehensible language. That is when I gave up writing a traditional review. Clearly, I was out of my depth here.
In the past, I’ve often used alternative formats when reviewing popular classics. Examples include “What Learned from” and The Literary Duel. For this book, I decided to highlight some of its remarkable qualities. So here are five reasons why it is worth reading The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
1. The Perspective
The story is narrated in third person and we primarily see Miss Brodie through the eyes of her young pupils. We don’t get to know her beyond the perception of the girls. This means, the portrayal of Miss Brodie is a filtered and highly subjective version. Let’s take Miss Brodie’s love and sex life as an example. The young girls have limited understanding of these concepts and it’s amusing to see their perspective. Miss Brodie doesn’t always tell the whole truth, which adds an extra layer of subjectivity. And Sandy, whose perspective we follow most of the time has a vivid imagination and an uncanny ability to produce fictional conversations and scenarios in her head. I felt, I got a good impression of Miss Brodie’s character, but it was clearly a secondhand impression impacted by subjectivity and even potential unreliability of those around her.
2. The Intricacy
I was impressed, how every plot point and every theme seemed to be closely linked in an intricate network, resulting in a layered and highly interconnected story. Even the details followed this intricate pattern. When Mr. Lloyd, an art teacher in love with Miss Brodie, paints portraits of the girls in the Brodie set, they all somehow end up looking like Miss Brodie. This illustrates Lloyd’s infatuation with the teacher, but also symbolises Miss Brodie’s impact on the girls. Her influence is so strong, they carry her within them. Which again fits neatly with the theme of fascism. Miss Brodie and her set have become one entity, with the teacher as the autocratic leader.
3. The Richness
What is the essence of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie? A character portrayal of an unorthodox teacher and her pupils? A comment on the mechanisms of fascism? A discussion of Christian morality? An illustration of the author’s power over her work and characters discussed by using a teacher’s influence on her pupils?
When skimming reviews on Goodreads, I saw a huge variety of interpretations, with each reviewer focusing on different aspects of the story and demonstrating plenty of examples and symbolism supporting their chosen angle. That such multifacetedness can be achieved in a novella of 150 pages blows my mind.
4. The Ambiguity
Plenty of ambiguity is to be found in the novel; not just relating to the overarching theme, but also to the intriguing narrator and in particular to miss Brodie herself. Is she a poor spinster living vicariously through her pupils? Or a progressive and visionary female? Is she a good or a bad person? I loved, that the author didn’t provide any answers. Hitting the reader on the head with a central message is one of my pet peeves in books. Muriel Spark appears to be very much in the opposite camp.
5. The Flash Forwards
From an early point in the novella, I was dying to know what happened to the girls later in life. An answer to that was provided via flash forwards, showing how the life of each girl turned out and whether she ended up fulfilling the role, Miss Brodie had outlined for her. Also, we see how the former pupils perceived miss Brodie, when they got older and wiser and could put things into perspective. I very much enjoyed these flash forwards.
Although, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie wasn’t perfectly aligned with my reading taste, I take my hat off to Muriel Spark. The composition, the complexity, the layers, the writing style – just wow. And speaking of hats… I haven’t come across an author before, whose initial descriptions of each character’s personality is done by showing how they wear their hats.
Title: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie [1961] Author: Muriel Spark Format: Audiobook, narrated by Miriam Margolyes Genre: Classics
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is part of my project of reading the Best British Books. The novella is number 63 of BBC’s list of The 100 greatest British novels.
I keep saying I must read this book, Stargazer, and somehow it never happens. Your review has nudged it back on to my radar, thank you!
It is a short book, which you could probably read it in a few sittings. I hope you manage to get to it at some point, it was such a fun and interesting experience. 🙂
What a great review! I read this a couple of years ago and was taken by how dark she is; I went back and rewatched the film and sure enough it is all there. You’ve made me feel like having a re read and re watch!
It is rather dark, which I didn’t expect. But it also has humour in it. Now I want to watch the film!
Because of your review, I’ve added this book to my TBR list, which, I have to admit, is about 50 feet long! We all are fortunate that there is an enormous number of books worth reading.
So many books, so little time – anyway, this one is certainly worth spending a couple of hours with.
I read this as a teenager, enjoyed it, but every aspect of its subtext that you discussed utterly passed me by. Time for a reappraisal!
That is the great thing about this novel – it can be read (and enjoyed) on many levels.
What a terrific review! I can see ‘Five Reasons to Read….’ taking off as a series.
I’ve added this book to my list. Now I’m wondering how I wear my own hats reflects my personality… beanies pulled down around my ears (I thought that was because it was cold, but perhaps it’s showing a personality trait I wasn’t aware of!)
Five Reasons to Read – maybe that is the title I should have chosen! It was quite fun to write a review this way and focus on the positive aspects of the novel. I will probably use the format again in the future. Haha, Muriel Spark could probably find a way to analyse your style with beanie hats! 😁
🙂
Wow I had always heard of this acclaimed book but never read it. And I didn’t realize it also included fascist beliefs. With all that you mention, you make me want to read it. I’ve heard many say Muriel Spark was a master at writing. I need to read her, I will put it on my TBR. Have you seen the movie?? I have not but the images you have of Maggie Smith make it look good.
Personally, I was glad to have tried one of her books. I’d heard so much about her and wanted to see what all the fuss is about. I haven’t seen the movie, but would like to. Maggie Smith doesn’t disappoint. Speaking of Maggie Smith, I also thought the memoir you read was from the actor rather than the poet. You live and learn!
I’ve never heard of this before, but I’m glad to see that this surprised you in a very positive way. I’m quite intrigued by the writing style that you praise here though. Great review, stargazer!
Thanks – it was an interesting one providing lots of food for thought, especially seeing how short it is.
I read this very many more years ago than I care to remember, but it had an impact. Time for a re-read, I think. Thanks for the insights into your experence of it.
It may be worth a reread, if you read it in school the first time. I feel, it’s one of those books, where you spot different layers and meaning, when reading later in life.
Oh absolutely. I didn’t read it in school but later in life, yet still quite a while ago. I always find, with good literature, that on a second reading you spot the little clues and prefigurements that you didn’t pick up the first time because you didn’t know how it was going to end. 🙂
Very true. I also think, it defines a good book, if you can continue to spot new things, when rereading. Virginia Woolf is a prime example. Her books may be difficult to get into at first, but they benefit a lot from being reread.
Yes, I’ve found Woolf heavy going, but better the 2nd time around. 😊
Btw. I’ve tried to comment on your blog a couple of times, but my comments disappear. Maybe check your spam filter? Or perhaps, you just need to approve them.
Sorry about that, I usually get notifications of comments, and the spam filter isn’t taking them. I checked my comments folder today and they weren’t there. I’ve had problems myself at times, trying to comment on others’ posts. The system asks me to sign in, when I’m already signed in, or it publishes the comments as anonymous. Maybe something like that is happening to yours. I’ll check what notifications settings I have for you and keep an eye on your site. Thanks for mentioning it. 😀
I just tried again and actually think it may have worked this time. Very strange. To be fair, your blog isn’t the only one, I’ve had problems commenting on recently, so it is probably a more general issue. A lot of genuine comments go into my spam filter these days, so I’ve made a habit of checking my spam folder from time to time.
I’m told that WordPress has issues. Someone else made a comment to one of my posts and it didn’t show up in my notifications. I only found it by chance when I checked the Comments tab in the left-hand menu on my Home page. I’ll check that more regularly in future, just in case. 🙂