The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in Never too Late to Read Classics

Mar 07, 2017 Chrissie rated it liked it

Shelves: scotland, audible-uk, religion, life-stages, classics, hf, 2017-read, relationships, humor

The central theme of this book focuses upon the pivotal role a teacher can play in the lives of young students. As young adults mature there is that point where seeking to become independent and searching to find a foothold in the adult world, peers and parents and all those one has relied on must be discarded. Sometimes it is a teacher that fills that hole. Then let's keep our fingers crossed that that teacher is a good one. Reading this book will make you think back to your own youth and that The central theme of this book focuses upon the pivotal role a teacher can play in the lives of young students. As young adults mature there is that point where seeking to become independent and searching to find a foothold in the adult world, peers and parents and all those one has relied on must be discarded. Sometimes it is a teacher that fills that hole. Then let's keep our fingers crossed that that teacher is a good one. Reading this book will make you think back to your own youth and that teacher who meant the world to you. What if that teacher is completely off course? That is the case here! It is disturbing to recognize the power they hold and watch the trust invested in them being misused.

Here the teacher is Miss Jean Brodie, teaching in a girls school in Scotland during the 1930s. So I thought, “Why Scotland and why the 30s?” In Scotland Calvinism had a strong hold and in the 1930s Mussolini and Franco and Hitler came to power. So what is the author saying? Something about fascism and religion and predestination, a central tenet of Calvinism? The connection between fascism and Miss Jean Brodie was not hard to draw. One of the students becomes a Catholic nun. Well as you might guess, I was very busy thinking.

Miss Jean Brodie and the school's headmistress are on opposing sides in relation to how the girls should be taught. We are told early on that one of Miss Jean Brodie’s girls would betray her to the headmistress, giving the headmistress the opportunity to force Miss Jean Brodie into early retirement. So of course you want to know who this student might be. Then when you find out, you have to understand why. The book kept me thinking. Religion and politics and morals and sex and coming-of-age and the singular power a teacher can have in the lives of their students are all intertwined in this novel. We are shown not only what happens to Miss Jean Brodie, but also what became of her six chosen students.

The book maybe sounds serious. It is, but it is also extremely amusing. Do you remember back when you were a young adult? You've got to laugh at the things that are said by Miss Jean Brodie's six kids, her six special students who were to become the crème de la crème, molded and shaped in the image of Miss Brodie herself.

I enjoyed this book. It kept my head twirling. What is happening? Why? Will there be revolt?

The book also gave me problems. I never felt close to any of the characters. Spark repeats umpteen times the respective traits of her six chosen girls. On closing the book I really was not at all sure I understood why Sandy became a nun. I do understand why she (view spoiler)! I think she became a nun because first in (view spoiler) More could have been done in developing the other five girls. I cringed at the mobbing of (view spoiler). It is hammered in and not a soul comes to her rescue. It is put in your face and nothing is done with it.

I very much enjoyed the audiobook narration by Miriam Margolyes. She used different inflections for different characters. She made the humor sparkling clear. Some of the lines of the young girls totally cracked me up. The speed was perfect, and I liked how the men spoke.

I don’t have answers to all the questions I think the book poses.

*********************

I was told by a friend here on GR that Miss Brodie was based on a real person, Christina Kay. For two years she was one of Spark’s teachers at James Gillespie's School for Girls. Thanks, Bette, for providing this information. ...more

37 likes · Like · see review

May 12, 2010 Laura rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: british-literature, read-2012, audio-books, fiction-20th-century, 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, scotland

Read by Wanda McCaddon: 4.0 Hours • UNABRIDGED

This is the story Miss Jean Brodie, school teacher at the conservative Marsha Blaine School For Girls.

It portrays the costumes in Edinburgh in the 1930s when Miss Brodie tries to change the codes of behavior of the next generation girls, "the Brodie set".

This story has been dramatized into the movies The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) with Maggie Smith starring as Miss Brodie.

...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Mar 20, 2019 Kelly_Hunsaker_reads ... rated it liked it

Shelves: classics, read-in-2019, 1001-books

This was fun and at times quite funny, but I wasn't engrossed in the story or the lives of Miss Brodie and her students. The latter is ironic since the major theme of the book that I saw was the lack of individualism in the educational institution. Miss Brodie expected to live her life through the lives of her students. She expected them to do and be exactly what she asked of them. I found her quite unlikable just as the author planned. Unfortunately though I didn't find much redeemable in her. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Feb 04, 2017 Rachel rated it liked it · review of another edition

I really wanted to like this book more based on the description and the reviews. But overall the book left me feeling rather flat and I was glad to move on to a more compelling story. The story follows the lives of Jean Brodie, a teacher in a private girls school and her six students known as "The Brodie Set" whom Miss Brodie mentors through their school years.

Miss Brodie seems like a pretty lousy teacher from the outset and eschews things like math and science lessons for lecturing the girls a ...more

Like · see review