The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) by Muriel Spark

Theme: Prime

On Thursday 8th October 2020 we used a hybrid Zoom/small group format to facilitate our discussion of Nick’s “Prime” themed choices and stay with the current Covid 19 rules. The selections under discussion….

Reading: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) by Muriel Spark

Listening: Achtung Baby (1991) by U2

Watching: The Sting (1973) directed by George Roy Hill

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) by Muriel Spark

Roland was, once again, the outlier, panning this novel and dismissing it with a cursory rating of 3. The previous month Roland lauded ‘Notes From The Underground' whilst the rest of the group were less than impressed.  This time out, all except Roland felt very positively about ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’.

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.

Muriel Spark uses a non linear narrative, 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 - the late 1930s - when the girls are young adults; and then forward again, often telling us the girls' future. 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.

In terms of style, Muriel Spark's non-sequential narrative and extensive use of prolepsis, is unusual, and yet works well as Muriel Spark repeats the same themes and phrases. The book is also very simple to read and well written. 

It was refreshing to read about such a free thinking, idiosyncratic and rebellious woman working in a deeply traditional environment in an era where great store was still placed on conduct in the bourgeois world of a girls' school in the 1930s. Miss Brodie is unconventional and daring. Instead of following the curriculum of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, she treats her pupils as adults and discusses all manner of subjects which include her admiration for the emerging fascist leaders in Italy and Germany, her personal history, and her emotional life. Miss Brodie also invites her pupils to her home, and the home of other teachers, and takes them to the theatre and other outings. 

Whilst initially appearing to have the welfare of her special students at heart, Miss Brodie's motivation appears to be to control and manipulate her pupils, and ultimately this is a disturbing portrait of a self-obsessed and psychologically disturbed teacher. This is the brilliance of the book, behind the rebellious and unorthodox teaching style which is cloaked in the benign appearance of taking special care of a small coterie of hand picked pupils, lies a monster. The revelations which emerge throughout the book would create a tabloid newspaper feeding frenzy if they came to light in the modern era. Not only does Miss Brodie appear to want to force her special pupils to fulfil a destiny she has predetermined, she also has cast each girl into a tightly defined character. Muriel Spark constantly repeats these characteristics throughout the story, almost as if, like Miss Brodie, if she repeats them often enough they will become self-fulfilling. There are also other more amusing stylistic motifs that are frequently employed by Miss Brodie, for example, "you are the crème de la crème", and "I am in my prime". These help the reader to see through the Brodie character and hint at her self-delusion. 

Whilst the book's primary focus is Miss Brodie, we find out very little about her motivation. I think it's to Muriel Spark's credit that she leaves her readers to draw their own conclusions, and yet we wondered the extent to which Muriel Spark is sympathetic to her literary creation. Ultimately that is the most puzzling thing about the book - on one level it's just a quirky story about a slightly weird teacher, on another more profound level we thought Miss Brodie is meant to mirror her fascist leader heroes. Like Hitler, Miss Brodie employs slogans, charisma and mind control to subjugate a group and attempt to force them to comply with her own twisted agenda.

This is unusual, weird and very good. It's also very short and simple to read - it's well worth a couple of hours of your time.

Nick 8.5 / Tristan 8 / Nigel 7 / Keith 7 / Roland 3 / Robin 8 / Hamish 7.5

Achtung Baby (1991) by U2

Most were impressed by U2’s Achtung Baby. Some found Bono and his messiah complex irksome.

The Sting (1973) directed by George Roy Hill

A flipping marvellous story with real heart which has hardly dated at all despite being nearly 50 years old.

A great cast, most notably Robert Shaw, Robert Redford and Paul Newman just superb, along with all the supporting actors

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