March 2022
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
by Muriel Spark
Moderator:
Helen Houston of Scottish Blethers
Host:
Trish Feaster
Book available from:
Biblio, BookShop, Amazon, Audible Open Library, and Alibris
Back to Guide Collective Book Club
BOOK CLUB EVENTS
Recordings of these events will be available one week after their scheduled dates at the bottom of this page.
• INTRODUCTION: Monday, March 7, 2022 | 11am PT | 2pm ET | 7pm UK
Scottish Blue Badge guide Helen Houston begins this month’s GCBC with an introduction to author Muriel Spark and her novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie with a live presentation on the Guide Collective Facebook Page. Be a part of the event: tune in and participate in the chat feed during the show.
• BONUS EVENT: Schools in Edinburgh | Friday, March 18, 2022 | 11am PT | 2pm ET | 6pm UK
Miss Jean Brodie was a teacher at Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh in the 1930s. This is a private fee-paying school. Today Edinburgh has 15 independent schools many of which date back to the 18th and 19th century and served a very different “clientele” then.
In this bonus event Helen will explore the background of some of these schools and trace their development to meet the needs of today’s pupils.
Stewart’s Melville College
Image | AlasdairW, Wikimedia Commons
• Scotland and the Spanish Civil War | Monday, March 21, 2022 | 11am PT | 2pm ET | 6pm UK
Miss Jean Brodie paints a very different picture of fascism in her lessons to “her girls” to that which most people in Scotland believed. The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 captivated Scotland. Scots spoke out vehemently against General Franco's nationalist coalition. Nearly 600 men and women volunteered to serve in Spain; a quarter of them never came back. In Scotland itself, an unparalleled aid movement materialised driven by working-class women.
Helen will look at what was happening in Scotland at this time and the reasons so many men and women felt impelled to “do something. “
La Pasionaria statue in Glasgow
Image | Ciaran Roarty, Wikimedia Commons
• DISCUSSION: Monday, March 28, 2022 | 11am PT | 2pm ET | 7pm UK
GC Book Club Members will connect live with Helen via a member-exclusive Zoom session. Members will be able to share their own insights from the reading, engage with one another, and ask about questions related to the book. Bring your book and feel free to enjoy your favorite snacks or drinks!
To become a new GCBC member and receive the Group Discussion Zoom link, please email GC at theguidecollective@gmail.com. Link will be sent via email by 9pm PT on Sunday, March 27, 2022.
Note: Existing members who are already on the GCBC mailing list will automatically receive an email with the link.
• Throughout the month, share your reading progress with GCBC in the comments below on our social channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
ABOUT THE BOOK
"You girls are my vocation... I am dedicated to you in my prime."
Muriel Spark’s timeless classic about a controversial teacher deeply marks the lives of a select group of students in the years leading up to World War II
"Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life!”
So asserts Miss Jean Brodie, a teacher unlike any other. She is proud and cultured. A romantic, with progressive, sometimes shocking ideas and aspirations for the girls in her charge. When she decides to transform a select group of pupils into the crème de la crème at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh, they become “the Brodie set.”
And she doesn’t stop with just their intellectual lives. She has a plan for them all, including how they will live, whom they will love, and what sacrifices they will make to uphold her ideals. When the girls reach adulthood and begin to find their own destinies, Jean Brodie’s indelible imprint is a gift to some, and a curse to others.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Muriel Spark (1918–2006) was a prolific Scottish novelist, short story writer, and poet whose darkly comedic voice made her one of the most distinctive writers of the twentieth century. Spark grew up in Edinburgh and worked as a department store secretary, writer for trade magazines, and literary editor before publishing her first novel in 1957. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), considered her masterpiece, was made into a stage play, a TV series, and a film. Spark became a Dame of the British Empire in 1993.
Muriel Spark
Image | Britannica
