Time Magazine Top 100 Novels

Book 75: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

This is a series of reflections reading through Time Magazine’s top 100 novels as selected by Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo published since 1923 (when Time magazine was founded). For me this is an attempt to broaden my exposure to authors I may not encounter otherwise, especially as a person who was not a liberal arts major in college. Time’s list is alphabetical, so I decided to read through in a random order, and I plan to write a short reflection on each novel.

Muriel Spark’s book The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is set in 1930s Edinburgh where Jean Brodie is an influential teacher to six girls (Sandy, Rose, Mary, Jenny, Monica, and Eunice) which become known throughout their school years as the Brodie set. Jean Brodie continually challenges both the educational and social norms of the school where she teaches and the headmistress, Miss Mackay, is continually trying to find a justification to force Jean Brodie to retire. Miss Jean Brodie considers herself to be in the prime of her life and believes that the Brodie set are the beneficiaries of her enlightened ideas.

I struggled with this short book. Partially it was Jean Brodie’s enthusiastic reception of both Mussolini and Hitler, knowing how history would play out. Partially it was the emotionally formal atmosphere of English/Scottish society in the first half of the twentieth century, a formality which Jean Brodie actively rebels against, but it forms the world of the story. Mainly it was her desire to set up one of her students to have an affair with a teacher who she loves but refuses because the teacher is married. I found the character of Jean Brodie shallow and uninteresting and her desire to utilize one of her students to vicariously experience this sexual relationship crossed an ethical line for me. I know this is a well-loved book by many people, but it was not for me.