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

An unorthodox teacher at a 1930s Edinburgh girls' school selects six young acolytes whose lives will be changed, as will her own.

Book Review: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, although best known because of the film adaptation, is a classic because Jean Brodie is one of the great characters of literature. She is independent, unpredictable, original, nonconformist, eccentric, all of which are adjectives that apply equally well to Muriel Spark's novels, of which this may be the best. She is both adorable and unlikable. Miss Brodie is known only through the thoughts and observations of others, mostly her girls, and we never see inside her mind. She resorts to a few standard phrases: her mantras, precepts, incantations, talismans, which give order and hope to her life. She is in her "prime," her girls are the "creme de la creme," her opinions become facts and facts are whatever she wants them to be. Miss Brodie instructs her girls not in the academic curriculum but in life as seen through her unorthodox eyes. She is a character of bewildering complexity. She is barely holding on to her prime, her girls are not the creme de la creme, but that is the world she is trying to create by pure force of will. She admires fascism and art equally; she travels the world; she is ruled by her passions. Miss Brodie aspires to put her stamp on her followers. She fascinates her girls, who are drawn irresistibly into her loves, her affairs, her attitudes, as they examine their budding thoughts about sex, life, and the world. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, like Muriel Spark and Miss Brodie herself, is never predictable or simple, it contains contradictions, mixed motives, uncertainty. This is best illustrated by the moment in the book, repeatedly acknowledged beforehand, when Miss Brodie is betrayed by one of her girls. The discussion of the incentive for the betrayal is nearly infinite and endlessly arguable. Is it that she happily lived in fantasies until Miss Brodie's fantasy world became too real? Muriel Spark is never easy, her world is one of endless shades of gray. She cannot be fit into a box, there is subtlety beneath the subtlety, and her novels (novellas really) bear repeated reading. She is an exacting craftsman and a veiled philosopher. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie may not be for everyone in its careful construction and gem-like perfection, but for the right readers it is treasure. [5★]