The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

By: Muriel Spark

Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes

"You girls are my vocation... I am dedicated to you in my prime."

So says Miss Jean Brodie, a teacher unlike any other. She is proud and cultured. A romantic, with progressive, sometimes shocking ideas and aspirations for the girls in her charge. When she decides to transform a select group of pupils into the 'crème de la crème' at the Marcia Blaine School they become the Brodie set. In exchange for their undivided loyalty, the girls earn a special place of honour and privilege within the school. Yet they are also introduced to a startling new world of adult games and intrigues, and as boundaries are crossed so the difficulties start to unfold.

Miriam Margolyes, one of Britain's finest character actors, gives a highly accomplished performance; rediscover this classic on the 100th anniversary of Muriel Spark's birth.

©1961 Copyright Administration Ltd (P)2011 Canongate Books

Primed for Classics

"I shall remain at this education factory where my duty lies. There needs must be a leaven in the lump. Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life. The gang who oppose me shall not succeed."
- Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Published in 1961 and set in a Scottish girl's school in the pre-World War II period (1930s) when Fascism was favorable (among those in their Prime) and on the rise, 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' tells the story of an unconventional teacher and her influence on a group or six girls (more probably, but the story focuses on six). It isn't original to say this, but it does read a bit like a female version of Dead Poet's Society, or perhaps A Separate Peace, but no not quite Lord of the Flies. Emotionally, the book resonates like Madame Bovary. Perhaps, one of the reasons the book vibrated so strongly with me is one of the pupils of Miss Brodie in her Prime reminds me of how I imagine my wife was in her tweens (Sandy).

A couple things sold me on this book. I loved its style and prose, and was enraptured by Miss Brodie with her unconventional, romantic, and desperate need to matter, to influence, to be something. As fallible as she is, and as amoral as methods (both in love and politics) become, there is something VERY human about her. The other character I loved was Sandy. Influenced by Miss Brodie, in her Prime, but just not in the way Miss Brodie intended, Sandy's romantic view of life mirrors in some ways Miss Brodie. But I loved the 10-year old Sandy with her wild fantasies about Alan Breck (see Kidnapped) or Mr. Rochester (see Jane EyreJane Eyre). Later her fantasy turns its full attention on Miss Brodie and her lovers. It is perfect.

Anyway, I read this because my natural man tends to gravitate more towards books written by men (just the statistics of classical books would do this), so when I think about it, I try and read a book I would normally pass over. I'm glad I found the radical Miss Jean Brodie while I was in my prime.

it's only possible to betray where loyalty is due'

Of Mussolini,
Don't Preach,
To the Teenies
Where You Teach

"it's only possible to betray where loyalty is due"

Sandy, now Sister Helena of the Transfiguration, is the omniscient narrator of the story looking back at her time in the 1930s at a Catholic grade school in Edinburgh, Scotland, time spent as part of the set of six girls who their teacher Miss Brodie called her "creme de la creme." Ms. Sparks used a number of flash-forwards to most effectively and methodically convey the ultimate betrayal of Miss Jean Brodie by one of set, which ruined Miss Brodie's teaching career. Miss Brodie died the year after the end of World War I without knowing which girl did the deed, though the mystery obviously bothered her during the decade prior to her death.

Ms. Brodie was smart, snod, unconventional and a bit daft, holding potentially harmful sway over the set who she taught off and on from their tenth year to their sixteenth, providing lessons on her love life, her travels particularly to Italy, a great deal of art history and on fascism and her smite with Benito Mussolini. Ironically, it wasn't her questionable methods outside the classroom (such as providing a place for one girl then 13 to pose nude for a male artist to paint her, then suggesting the same girl at 16 have an affair with a married teacher as a sort of surrogate to requite Ms. Brodie's love for him) that led to Ms. Brodie's fall, but the pro-fascist views she espoused.

While I found the book had a certain charm and I understand the reasons for its popularity upon its publication in 1961, I think this is among those books whose literary force has been somewhat dulled by the novel being dated.

This perfect gem is a Margolyes triumph

Set in the 1930s at a private Edinburgh school for girls, this charming, bewitching (not a word used much now but this book does cast a spell) account of an eccentric teacher and her far reaching influence on the lives of a group of her pupils is the author's best known work.

To judge by this truly wonderful, magical reading by Margolyes it might also be, without qualification, Spark's best work. Her clever books are always full of surprises, dark humour and puzzles for those that wish to think about what might lie below an apparently uncomplicated surface. This time all those qualities, and more, are present but there is also a depth of emotion and real feeling that is a surprise.

A book that will expand to touch all of your imagination and you will be the richer for the experience. It is the exemplary reading that so elevates it. I have never heard better.

Captivating performance of a wonderful book

Really can’t recommend this highly enough! Miriam Margoyles gives an absolutely wonderful performance of Muriel Spark’s remarkable novel. It’s difficult to stop listening to, truly.

SUPERB

A wonderfully written, intellectually complex, and insightful book. 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' is a cautionary tale about what it is to teach and what it is to learn. Unfortunately for those who would teach, our best pupils may understand and apply what we teach more than we realize or welcome.

Good Book, Great Narration

This is a semi-biographical novel about the 1930s written in the early 1960s primarily following a group of female students from pre-teen to womanhood along with their influential teacher Miss Jean Brodie.

I was not a fan of the movie and put this book off for a long time. I enjoyed the book much more than the movie, but, for me, it did not quite rise to greatness or a must-read. The prose are very good, the narration and characters compelling and the story (mildly) interesting. The evolution of the Brodie girls over years and the changing relationship to their teacher is makes this book worth the time.

The narration is excellent.

Just a delight to listen to

Days are rife with political despair, violence and personal difficulties. This book just warms you and pulls you into the prime of Ms. Brodie and her elite students.

A well woven tale, as sad as it is funny

A wonderful reading of a richly told story of a ridiculous woman, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a slow burn of a tale. Not much happens but an awful lot is said through the wonderfully witty prose of the author. The writing/story is a strange hybrid of Great Expectations and Gosford Park with a dusting of Anne of Green Gables—bits of the main heroine’s imaginative fancies worked into and between non-sequential scenes and expansive, illuminating dialogue, much by the ridiculous titular character. It’s the kind of story in which I wasn’t sure I actually liked it until the very end. The author’s almost obnoxious obsession with sex started out funny but became quickly tiresome, however the quality of the writing pulled me through the sagging middle act. A story as sad as it is funny, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a must read for anyone who enjoys a well-woven and witty tale.

Excellent story and outstanding reader.

This classic story really comes to life as read by Miriam Margolyes, with her beautiful accent and the way she is able to help create each character in your mind with the voices she gives them. I was sorry when this audiobook was over.

People say stuff that they want to be true

This story accidentally explained for me why Republicans in the United States speak the way they do: saying things that they want to be true, in the moment, for reasons that they cannot say out loud. Miss Jean Brodie does that. She rules over a group of six young women, manipulating, cruelly insulting, all with a smile and a pat and a pose of propriety and care.