The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Name: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Author: Muriel Spark

Muriel Spark · 1961

A schoolteacher in 1930s Edinburgh selects six favorite pupils, tells them they are the crème de la crème, and slowly reveals a fascist sympathy that will betray them all. Under 130 pages. Narrative flash-forwards announce who dies before you know who they are. Spark's economy is brutal: sentences like ice, structure like a trap snapping shut.

The case against

on Miss Mackay
“Miss Mackay, the headmistress trying to get rid of Miss Brodie, is clearly the antagonist”
two stars · a book blog
on the characters
“I form an emotional connection with the characters and that just didn’t happen here”
a book blog
on the girls
“The girls were rather indistinguishable to me”
a book blog
on Jean Brodie
“I found the character of Jean Brodie shallow and uninteresting”
a book blog