Product Description

She was a schoolmistress with a difference. Proud, cultured, romantic, her ideas were progressive, even shocking. And when she decided to transform a group of young girls under her tutelage into the 'creme de la creme' of Marcia Blaine school, no one could have predicted the outcome.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79527 in Books
• Published on: 1973-04-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Review
An attention-getting writer (novels, Memento Mori. The Ballad of Peckham Rye, The Bachelors, and short stories, The Go-Away Bird) pursues her multi-personae interests, her concern with religion, and her refusal to allow the reader to be at one with her purpose. Here she disperses her story (a loose but provocative thing) over an extended - and interrupted - period (thirty years) during which Miss Brodie, (in her prime) holds young minds in thrall, at first in delight at the heady freedom she offers from the rigid, formal precepts of Edinburgh's Marcia Blaine (day) School, later in loyalty to her advanced sedition against the efforts to have her removed. Finally the girls grow up - and Monica, Rose, Eunice, Jenny, Mary, and Sandy, (particularly Sandy with her pig-like eyes) separate, and the "Brodie set" dissolves- with war, death, marriage, career, and conversion to Catholicism. But there still is a central focus - who among them betrayed Miss Brodie to the headmistress so that a long-desired dismissal was effective? In this less-than-a-novel, more-than-a-short story, there is the projection of a non-conformist teacher of the thirties, of a complex of personalties (which never becomes personal lives), and of issues which, floating, are never quite tangible. But Muriel Spark is sharp with her eyes and her ears and the craftiness of her craftsmanship is as precision-tooled as the finest of her driest etching. With the past record, the publisher's big push, and The New Yorker advance showing, this stands on its own. (Kirkus Reviews)

Synopsis
She was a schoolmistress with a difference. Proud, cultured, romantic, her ideas were progressive, even shocking. And when she decided to transform a group of young girls under her tutelage into the 'creme de la creme' of Marcia Blaine school, no one could have predicted the outcome.

About the Author
Muriel Spark's many novels include Memento Mori, The Girls of Slender Means, A Far Cry From Kensington, The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (adapted for film and theatre), Aiding And Abetting and her final novel, The Finishing School. She was elected C. Litt in 1992 and awarded the DBE in 1993. Dame Muriel received many awards, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the FNAC Prix Etranger, the Saltire Prize, the Ingersoll T. S. Eliot Award and the David Cohen British Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. Dame Muriel died in 2006.

Customer Reviews

Returning in my prime
Was inspired to read Miss Brodie - for the umpteenth time - by seeing the film again on television last week. The first time I read this book, I was about the same age as her pupils ... now you might kindly describe me as in my prime! (Like Miss B, I'm not quite sure how long prime lasts!)
This is a book I have enjoyed more each time I have read it. Spark's wonderful spare writing and dry observation (Whatever possessed you? said Miss B in a very Scottish way, as if Sandy had given away a pound of marmalade to an English duke ... )
Of course, she is a silly, preposterous, dangerous woman, but you know you would have wanted to be chosen as one of her girls. But this reading I grasped how her tragedy was rooted in World War I, that she was
part of that generation of vigorous post-war spinsters who espoused causes instead of men. How different her life would have been had Hugh, her first pure love, not died on Flanders field ...

Skilful and sometimes witty prose
This short novella tells the story of a school mistress named Jean Brodie, who works at an expensive private school in Edinburgh. It also tells the story of a group of girls who are heavily influenced by the words of Miss Brodie as they make the transition from children to adults.

With wit, and sometimes a pinch of snobbery, Jean Brodie advises the girls on many different aspects of life, in a sense trying to prepare them for their futures, encouraging them to do great things with their lives.

Much of the dialogue is subtly humourous, and the amorous attentions of two of the school's male staff, towards Jean Brodie, are the focus of many of the young girl's conversations.

A gradual shift away from Miss Brodie's influential words occurs as the girls move further and further from their childhoods. Then, when the girls are in their late teens, eventually a parting of the ways occurs, together with the romances of several of the girls, and one of the girl's eventual betrayal of Jean Brodie, with regard to her unconventional teaching methods.

This is an enjoyable story, told with wit, attention to detail and great deftness of prose. Which makes it's status as a modern classic quite understandable.

McEwan makes Jean Brodie live
Of all the audio books in my collection, this is the one I return to time and time again. I can almost hear Brodie calling across the playground to her girls when I think about it. It's a succinct but skilful rendition of the book, cleverly edited so it retains the essence of the story and flows beautifully. The important parts of this intriguing book are all there, but what you loose when you read the novel is Geraldine McEwan's immaculate interpretation of Jean Brodie.

I thought the film was feeble after reading the book. But this isn't it. Please can we have it on CD as I'm running out of places to play the tape?