The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

I really wish I hadn’t seen the film of this book even though it was so many years ago. The incredible force that is Maggie Smith still pervades the book, which I’m re-reading for the NSW Art Gallery lecture series on at the moment. I like reading it as a mature person though as it puts the foolishness of Miss Brodie into perspective. What a character. And of course it really is all about her, with the six girls and the drawing and music masters, all lightly drawn, orbiting her like the sun. Everybody is a bit in love with Miss Brodie, and more than a few them get burned by the heat. She really is a very dangerous woman when let loose on a bunch of impressionable children. This is a one of those delightful pieces of writing where the characters and the story are teased out in the retelling, and although it all seems quite genteel when you read it, it’s really a story about sex and lust and procurement and manipulation. One thing I really enjoyed abut her character is that she is a ringer for a friend I had once, a similarly dangerous person who is utterly convinced and religiously fanatical about her beliefs. I hear her speaking every time Miss Brodie opens her mouth to make one more confident pronouncement. Isn’t that great writing when a character is so authentic?