Before we begin, I was in central London this morning and noticed a huge poster advertising Suzanne Shaw's perfume. How many people wake up in the morning and think: today, I want to smell like Suzanne Shaw? My guess: not many.
Moving on. Really enjoyed re-reading The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie this month, for one main reason: I had forgotten how funny it is. The appropriately-surnamed Muriel Spark has such a waspish way with her prose, each page glitters with vicious observations and sharp commentary. I particularly enjoyed the first half of the book where the girls are pubescent children filled with beady curiosity, watching the adult world, and, while not entirely understanding it, somehow picking up the truth of it, so that they catch onto Miss Brodie's love triangle long before any of the adults do. The fake letter they write from Miss Brodie to her lover Gordon Lowther is typically priceless:
I was proud of giving myself to you when you came and took me in the bracken on Arthur's Seat while the storm raged about us. If I am in a certain condition I shall place the infant in the care of a worthy shepherd and his wife, and we can discuss it calmly as platonic acquaintances. I may permit misconduct to occur again from time to time as an outlet because I am in my Prime.
Miss Brodie herself is a fascinating, grotesque, as simultaneously attractive and monstrous as any fascist leader, which is of course what she is to her girls. Marrying the portrait of Miss Brodie to the story of fascism in 1930s Italy and Spain, Muriel Spark spins a brilliant satire, where the power struggles are no less momentous for taking place against the smaller backdrop of a school. The book skillfully intertwines its twin themes of female sexuality and female power dynamics, reading as a sort of female Lord of the Flies, except much, much funnier.
I'll announce next month's book, um, once I've decided on one...
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Like many people, I read the book after seeing the movie, and the first time I read it, as a teenager, I remember being rather taken aback to learn that one of the girls was "famous for sex". The book was rather over my head at that time. I was a late-bloomer, rather dense about social signals (unlike Sandy, who starts picking them up at the age of eleven when she first notices the "Edinburgh good morning"), and was confused by the line of the book's narrative which runs back and forth in time, rather like poor Mary McGregor in the hotel fire. Also, I don't recall ever having a crush on a girl, and am beginning to wonder if I missed a crucial stage of development. (It would explain a lot.)
Re-reading it this time (or rather, listening, as I had the audio-book version with Geraldine McEwan narrating), I was struck by how much I most clearly remember of the movie is not in the book. Jean Brodie is dark with strong Roman features, for example. Even on the cover of the audio-book, a water-colour portrait shows her with short, red hair. Maggie Smith certainly left an indelible impression on us as Jean Brodie.
Other quotes I treasure ("And the aieege of chivalry is daieed!" or "Mary McGregor. I always wondered by you called her by her full name. I think it's because you had trouble remembering who she was.") don't appear in the book either. The screenwriter was Jay Presson Allen adapting his stage play, so the characters are streamlined (four Brodie girls instead of five, with Mary McGregor covering for two characters in the book, a strictly chronological story line, etc.) skilfully, mind, but it's a very different story, isn't it?
The book is an unflinching look at the childhood and adolescence of girls, with all its subtle cruelty and thoughtlessness and bewilderment.
At the close, my thoughts keep being drawn back to the heart-breaking fate of Mary McGregor, always the scapegoat, always at fault, running back and forth helplessly in the hotel corridor, trapped by fire.
Actually, come to think of it, I didn't find the book that funny at all. Maybe I really did need a girl-on-girl crush...
Hi there Marie,
Thanks so much for choosing this book. I have been meaning to read it ever since a colleague, after spending a week with me on a work trip to Africa, said she felt like she had been travelling with 'a cross between Miss Jean Brodie and Mary Poppins'. I think I can see what she means.
Anyway, I loved it - and agree with you it is very funny. The letter you quoted was absolutely my favourite part of the book, including as it does the brilliant line: "Allow me, in conclusion, to congratulate you warmly upon your sexual intercourse, as well as your singing".
With fondest joy,
DC Diary
Unfortunately time pressures have meant I haven't reread this dammit. I adore Muriel Spark and Marie has summed up pretty much my memories of it. I seem to remember it being serialised on tv at school and I was never allowed to watch it (my peers used to come in every day saying I am in my prrrime, and I knew it was special!). It wasn't till I saw the film that I realised why...
I think it is very witty and dark, but also immensely cruel too. And Jean Brodie is monstrous. From memory though, I seem to rather remember thinking Sandy in the end had turned into something of a self righteous prig, but that may be my memory at fault.
Will definitely try and reread it, but erm, probably not this week!
PS Persephone I never had a girl crush either. Or a crush on a teacher, which is something they were always going on about in Malory Towers/St Clares. I thought it made me rather odd (-:
The final line of that letter! How could I have forgotten it when I was looking for quotes? Thanks so much for mentioning it, Mrs DC. Who wouldn't want to read a book with that line in it?
Just to say, I HAVE read the book (brilliantly funny) but I'll be adding comments when I'm a bit more recovered (was ill last week)
Okay, very belatedly indeed but here is a more substantial few thoughts.
Other versions: I saw the film - or a large portion of it - at a friend's shortly before reading this book. It was certainly interesting how much of it differs from the book (and I'm especially grateful to Persephone for her information on the screenplay which manages to keep the spirit of the book whilst giving a very different, inevitably cinematic conflation of characters and events). I also have residual memories of the 1978 series with Geraldine McEwan: I'm not sure whether I really remember watching it, but like JH I at least vividly recall the impact it had.
What strikes me now, having read the book and found its many differences and subtle/not-so-subtle changes, is how the text is so much more savage and poetic. Yes, brilliantly funny in a horrifically cruel way (poor Mary McGregor), but the language and its writing about writing! There are so many instances of rhythmic repetition that it is almost like a pulse -- a highly sexualised one inevitably. For example: "held in suspicion" twice within a paragraph near the start of chapter 1; the endless repetition of Brodie's stock phrases - "in my Prime" just being one. The constant reference to the reasons why the girls were famous (most famously being 'famous for sex').
In terms of literary references and echoes, pastiches and reinventions of writing styles we find not just the brilliant Romance inflected narratives of Sandy and Jenny, but also Sandy's later 'The Transfiguration of the Commonplace' (who wants to read that? I'm certainly intrigued) and staples of young people's fiction such as 'Kidnapped'.
Overall, I can't say I liked Miss Brodie, but I could truly appreciate her literary version of the heady cocktail of hormones and impressionability that is puberty, and I feel very pleased that I finally caught up with this book. thanks Marie for the push to read it! Can't wait for the next one!
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