The 306 Greatest Books #152 - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. This book can be found on the Observer Book List.

I went into The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie knowing absolutely nothing about the book or the author. All I knew was that it was fairly short at 125 pages. So I dived headfirst over a camping trip and was able to finish it over the weekend. The book takes place during the Great Depression at a women's school where one of the teachers, a Miss Jean Brodie, has a rather unique method of education. She likes to tell stories about her past and use them to influence a select set of girls within her class of middle school age girls. Miss Brodie keeps telling the girls that she is in the "prime" of her life (hence the title) and that she is fully able to mold the girls into proper adults. The story is interestingly laid out, with the narration of the story bouncing around each of the "Brodie set" (the girls she is influencing), both in the story "present" as well as in their future, long after school is over. But the narration also dances around the girls heads, like if they are having daydreams, it flows with part of the story. It's a story that I could get behind ... in theory. However there were several factors of the story that irked me. The author repeated herself on many points, many, many times. She would say the same thing about the girls repeatedly. And while I can see that as a useful tool so that the reader could distinguish between the girls, it got old very quickly. The story is not that long that you need to repeat the same part 5, 6, or 7 times. Also the main girl, Sandy, I rather hated. I feel like she was written so the reader didn't like her, but it makes for a tiresome book when you don't like the main character at all. The molding of the girls was rather interesting, though. I liked how the story evolved in that sense, how the girls changed throughout the story due to Miss Brodie's influence, and how that influence could be seen as a helpful or harmful thing. While reading the story it also felt like the part about it being set in the 1930's was not at all relevant to the plot, but it winds up being a major factor in the end of the story. An interesting story indeed. So overall, I'd say that this book was good in concept but left me with a bad taste in my mouth in execution.