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kneuk's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I did not expect this book to be as funny as it is. The middle-school girls trying to understand sex had me in stitches.
renya_popcornbooks's review against another edition
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
the_sunken_library's review against another edition
3.0
I am afraid I was rather disappointed in this critically acclaimed novel. I enjoy Muriel Spark, absolutely celebrating another of her novels, "The Drivers Seat". Clever with intricate plot twists and multilayered characters with delightfully nuanced mannerisms. I think that's perhaps why this fell flat for me. I found the writing far too jumbled for my tastes. It darted around through time and space, mixing events with conversations that occurred years later. It was repetitive and I found the Brodie Girls boring and inflexible. Miss Brodie was about as charming and seductive as a cup of spilt milk.
sanfordc11's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This book reminded me of how it feels to read something I absolutely don’t enjoy, per se, but that makes me think and is carefully and beautifully constructed. Can’t say I’ll ever recommend it, but I’ll think about it for years to come.
aswinney's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
paola_mobileread's review against another edition
4.0
Compelling portrait of an unconventional, "protofeminist", strong yet naive woman, controlling and idealistic at the same time, and destined for the inevitable disappointment.
As central to Mrs Brodie is her "set", the girls she groomed to became her ideal of womanhood personified - which of course was never to be.
There is room for fun and tenderness in what is after all a sad story of sad lives, a world where everyone, including Mrs Brodie, seek power and control to impose their own view of life to those around them.
At the same time, an interesting insight into the Edinburgh of the times. Lovely little read.
As central to Mrs Brodie is her "set", the girls she groomed to became her ideal of womanhood personified - which of course was never to be.
There is room for fun and tenderness in what is after all a sad story of sad lives, a world where everyone, including Mrs Brodie, seek power and control to impose their own view of life to those around them.
At the same time, an interesting insight into the Edinburgh of the times. Lovely little read.
emeraldgarnet's review against another edition
4.0
"Why are you obsessed with that woman? Can't you see she's ridiculous?" (Ch. 6)
Jean Brodie is most certainly a ridiculous woman and yet she manages to cultivate a group of students who, for several years, take her word as gospel. She values instilling her pet beliefs about the arts and politics over teaching science and mathematics. It is obvious that Brodie has little concern about the students' futures as she refuses to teach them anything that will be useful for the exams. She is an awful, delusional woman and a dangerous influence on the Brodie set. She harms some of the students, especially Mary, while having a negligible influence on the adult lives of others in the Brodie set. Yet, Brodie sees herself as a wonderful guiding light to all and sundry saying, "give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life" (Ch. 1).
For Brodie any opinion that does not match up with hers is immediately wrong. For instance, Brodie asks the students who the greatest Italian painter is. A student responds that it was Da Vinci. Brodie then replies that this is incorrect because Giotto is her favourite. Here, Brodie has failed to grasp that 'the greatest' and 'my favourite' are not necessarily the same thing and, in any case, determining who or what is 'the greatest' is quite often a subjective matter.
I was cheering Sandy on when she turned against Brodie. Brodie was so blind to anything that was going on around her and so self-obsessed that she could not even conceive the possibility that Sandy might have turned her in. I do not use the word 'betrayed' here as, like Sandy, I believe that you can only betray someone if you owe them loyalty. Not a single member of the Brodie set owed Brodie any sort of loyalty.
I enjoyed the plot and characters as well as Spark's general writing style.
Jean Brodie is most certainly a ridiculous woman and yet she manages to cultivate a group of students who, for several years, take her word as gospel. She values instilling her pet beliefs about the arts and politics over teaching science and mathematics. It is obvious that Brodie has little concern about the students' futures as she refuses to teach them anything that will be useful for the exams. She is an awful, delusional woman and a dangerous influence on the Brodie set. She harms some of the students, especially Mary, while having a negligible influence on the adult lives of others in the Brodie set. Yet, Brodie sees herself as a wonderful guiding light to all and sundry saying, "give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life" (Ch. 1).
For Brodie any opinion that does not match up with hers is immediately wrong. For instance, Brodie asks the students who the greatest Italian painter is. A student responds that it was Da Vinci. Brodie then replies that this is incorrect because Giotto is her favourite. Here, Brodie has failed to grasp that 'the greatest' and 'my favourite' are not necessarily the same thing and, in any case, determining who or what is 'the greatest' is quite often a subjective matter.
I was cheering Sandy on when she turned against Brodie. Brodie was so blind to anything that was going on around her and so self-obsessed that she could not even conceive the possibility that Sandy might have turned her in. I do not use the word 'betrayed' here as, like Sandy, I believe that you can only betray someone if you owe them loyalty. Not a single member of the Brodie set owed Brodie any sort of loyalty.
I enjoyed the plot and characters as well as Spark's general writing style.
gracehickman's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
sidharthvardhan's review against another edition
5.0
“It occurred to Sandy, there at the end of the Middle Meadow Walk, that the Brodie set was Miss Brodie's fascisti, not to the naked eye, marching along, but all knit together for her need and in another way, marching along. That was all right, but it seemed, too, that Miss Brodie's disapproval of the Girl Guides had jealousy in it, there was an inconsistency, a fault. Perhaps the Guides were too much a rival fascisti, and Miss Brodie could not bear it.”
One commonly featuring theme with all the governments of last century that have gone wrong (whether they were fascists, ultra-nationalists, communalists, communist, anti-communists) is that they all paid special focus on education of children. And it is only to be expected, children are highly impressionable and, a simple application of Butterfly effect or any of psychological theories (except Humanism), shows what an effect a small change early on can have on one’s life – those early stages are the perfect opportunity for anyone wanting to play God:
“Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.”
And Fascism basically means allowing one man to play God. But this book is not about politics, not unless you see it as an allegory. It is about education.
And so, the questions arises, what should children be taught and who should teach them? Ideally, I dare say that they should be taught how to live a life before they are taught how to earn a living – which might include teaching them about self-discovery, sex-education and how to be good parents, how not to let yourself be influenced by propaganda, how to check if you are prejudiced against some section of society, a habit of putting oneself in other’s shoes etc. The list is too long and as you can see literature can help with several of them. A well-written novel with racism or sexual violence, for example, can be used to teach how these tendencies work in society; how to put oneself in victim’s shoes, clothes and skin; and how one must be guard oneself in being cause of and suffering from such things.
What we really do though, is we play defensive, and don’t want anything too 'dangerous’ for children's stupid heads to be a part of their education. And so anything even remotely out of Disney world is excised out of books.
And what about teachers? We can’t censor teachers but we have an ideal for them, which they must follow. Now, in my mind, the image of this ideal teacher is that of a sentinel of discipline and traditions, yearning for good old times - a strict and, if I may dare use the word, sexless old thing with no sense of humor … you remember prof McGonagall? Exactly. Now you can’t expect every teacher to be an old woman, and so, what we do is we socialize teachers to act in that way while their students are observing them.
And, so, you see in school/college corridors, young teachers pretending to be angry at a behavior in their students which they had enjoyed only a few years ago or might still enact back home (since most of them are terrible actors, I don’t know how come most students don’t see through them, I for one was never fooled. Thanks!), scorning at the very jokes they might themselves find funny, and asking students to follow rules they themselves see injustice in (In this one scene in the third book, McGonagall refuse to sign Harry’s permission to visit the Hogsmeade, though she felt sorry since he was the only in. whole class not allowed to, for no mistake of his).
Now Miss Jean Brodie is no fan of this McGonagallism school of play-acting, she is a rebel (the only good thing about her) and she does seem to believe in teaching children about lifestyle choices. Unfortunately, her syllabus is highly dependent on her whims and she happens to be in her prime.
“One’s prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full.”
And since she isn’t wearing McGonagall masks, the personal life of this narcissist woman directly affects her students. She loses her initial idealism in a desperate effort to enjoy her life and ends up using her girls as pawns, causing a permanent damage in life of at least one, Sandy. You may make sure that the person teaching isn’t racist, communalist or have some undesirable political philosophy, but they will have much going in their personal life. And unless the teachers are maintaining so-called ‘respectable’ distances, you can’t save a student from their personal life. Now this might serve for the meek to want to argue in favor of sticking to safety of old-fashioned McGonagallism, but I don’t agree and my ex-career as class rebel and class-clown (obviously) has nothing to do with that.
One of the best and most humorous books I have read this year.