Review: The Prime of Miss Jean Brody

This review contains mild spoilers.

“Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.” 

Title: The Prime of Miss Jean Brody

Author: Muriel Spark

Year: 1961

Pages: 128
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Through the eyes of Sandy, Rose, Jenny, Monica, Eunice and Mary, the character of Jean Brodie is introduced. She was their teacher all throughout their teenage years. A remarkable teacher, one they will never forget. At first this seems to be because of her strange way of teaching, not bothering with the curriculum at all. The six girls were also Miss Brodie’s favourite which meant they were invited to all sorts of activities outside of school. As a reader our insights grow along with the girls, and as they get older, they become aware of their teacher’s strange behaviour, manipulations, and fascist ideas.

Spark based the character of Miss Brodie on her own teacher, Christine Kay, “a fiercely independent Edinburgh school ma’am, determined to tell her charges all about life’s pleasures, rather than teach them the boring curriculum” (Roberts). The character of Sandy represented Spark herself, who was obsessed with her teachers’ personal life (Roberts).

The novel starts out whimsical and cute, both in plot and in writing style. The former in the sense that the children are so excited and loving towards their teacher as well as the other way around. The writing style fits in this due to the comical repetitiveness, mostly when people are introduced, and later described again as if they had never occurred before. Moreover, the title of the novel is constantly emphasised – Miss Brodie was in her prime. This, unfortunately, became too repetitive, to the point of annoyance. This style changes, though, just as the plot does. It turns darker and darker as we learn about Brodie’s secret agenda as well as Sandy’s betrayal. This makes for an engaging dynamic between style and plot.

Another interesting shift takes place, namely one in focal point. The character all action revolves around throughout the first part of the novel is Miss Brodie. Around two thirds of the novel, the focus turns to Sandy and it turns into a story about her unmasking of the teacher. At that point the novel transforms into a much more difficult and layered piece of literature. The reader is pro Miss Brodie, not fully aware of her faults just yet. Sandy is despised as her actions seem solely driven by jealousy. As a consequence of the shift, though, these ideas are juggled and shaken. The real importance of the story becomes clear and one is left feeling cheated. Just like the Brodie set.

All these changes in the story made me want to read the story again, right after I finished it, trying to see if I could read the novel trying to detect all unethical aspects to Miss Brodie’s teaching, and this way allowing me to be more judgemental towards her. This is what Judy Suh also addresses in her study of the novel, and she states that “the novel does not as a result of featuring such a magnetic character posit the impossibility of judgement” (87). While presently I cannot fully agree with this statement for as I said before, I feel the novel tricked me into liking Miss Brodie too much, but I am interesting to see how I would view her the second time around.

Review: The Robber Bride

"Where to start is the problem, because nothing begins when it begins and nothing's over when it's over, and everything needs a preface: a preface, a postscript, a chart of simultaneous events." 

Title: The Robber Bride

Author: Margaret Atwood

Year: 1992

Pages: 564

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Zenia is dead. As she has caused for enough drama in their lives, Tony, Roz and Charis are relieved. But five years later she reappears. The story evolving from that is one of a dark past. Each friend explains how Zenia infiltrated and influenced their lives prior to her death. The question is whether the knowledge about Zenia’s manipulative nature prepared them enough to deal with her one more time.  

The title of the novel alludes to a Grimm’s tale, “The Robber Bridegroom”, on which the basic plot is loosely based. However, there is much more intertextuality present in the novel, and in an article in which she tries to uncover these references as well as figure out why Atwood used those particular ones, Donna Potts states that “The Robber Bride relies on intertexts that, by Atwood’s own admission, are atypical either of popular contemporary accounts of women or of Canadian Literature” (282-3). By creating the character of Zenia, Atwood feels she has brought the tabooed subject of strong supernatural women into Canadian literature. “When people in Canadian fiction die, which they do fairly often, they usually stay buried” (283), Atwood once said. Her purpose thus, with this novel, is to use non-Canadian interext in order to break Canadian conventions.

While reading the novel, what struck me was the way in which almost every name in the novel has been changed at one point. Characters such as Roz, Tony, Charis and West were first called differently, but also shops and magazines undergo a change of name. This immediately had me think of a completely different novel: Beloved by Toni Morrison. Here, former slaves made up words and names: slavery had destroyed their identity, and allowing them to rebuild part of their lives helped them establish autonomy. In The Robber Bride, the changes are not always explained, but some that are, fit into this category. Right before changing her name, Charis explains that “[a] lot of people were changing their names, then, because names were not just labels, they were also containers” (315). Changing her name would allow her to escape a horrible past. Outside that container she was a different girl. For Roz, the name change also allowed for a proper identity forming: she regained her Jewish name as soon as her parents gained enough confidence that they were safe. 

Novels written by women are often looked at through feminist eyes. This novel, though, does not allow that vision. Even though at first hand, because of Atwood’s elaborate description of the women, we assume they are strong and independent, giving it a closer look, we see this is not at all the case. They are, in fact, entirely dependent upon their men. Zenia successfully shatters the women’s lives by taking away these men, even though throughout the novel it becomes clear that they, too, are weak. The only strong, independent character in the novel is Zenia, and she manipulates everyone by pretending to be just like them: vulnerable and reliant.

[If you have not yet read the novel, I’d suggest you stopped reading here, read the novel – because it is absolutely brilliant – and read the next couple of paragraphs afterwards, because they will spoil!]

Perhaps even more disconcerting is the fact that there seems to be little change, even though many years have passed. In those years, they have confided in each other, telling the others everything Zenia is capable of. Yet, when Zenia reappears and again tries to manipulate them into believing a tragic story for why she needs their help, most of them hardly hesitate to lend a hand. This made me wonder about the character of Zenia, and throughout the novel I kept hoping for a chapter from her perspective. But there is none. While at first I was disappointed, the New York Times review left me with a satisfying answer: “perhaps Ms. Atwood intended Zenia, by the end, to be a symbol of all that is inexplicably evil: war, disease, global catastrophe. Zenia is meant to have no voice of her own: she is only a mad reworking of everyone else's” (Moore). But still, why are the other characters so incredibly weak?

I do not have an answer to that question, and I can imagine how some feminists may be annoyed with this book for this very reason. However, I still feel that The Robber Bride is a highly enjoyable novel. Not only is it mainly plot-driven, which allows the reader to fly through it, the writing is also beautiful and the characters are extremely well fleshed out.

#FridayReads

Happy Friday!

It's time for another #fridayreads, and this week, I have little of interest.
Firstly, I'm still reading my buddy read book by Kafka, which I'm sort of enjoying but not really understanding..
Then I'm also reading The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, a story about a fifteen-year-old boy, who falls in love with a grown woman. I do like the novel, but I am waiting for some more progress in the story, or some development in the characters. I'm about half way through, and I'm pretty sure I will finish it over the weekend.

What are you currently reading?


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Review: Perfume

"...Talent means nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything."

Title: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Author: Patrick Süskind

Translator: John E. Woods 

Year: 1985

Pages: 263
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Jean-Baptiste Grenouille never was anyone’s favourite person. Growing up in an orphanage where he was always seen as the odd one out, he never really learned how to love and be loved. But Grenouille is gifted. He can identify every single odour, and he finds a perfumer so he can be his apprentice.

Now, the subtitle of the novel does not hide the fact that this is not a happy story. Grenouille becomes obsessed with distilling every single smell, and when he smells the scent of a beautiful virgin, he decides what the odour of his perfect perfume is going to be.

Confession time: I saw the movie well before I read the book. I saw it twice. Loved the weirdness of it. Unfortunately, it ruined the novel for me. First off, because I knew what was going to happen as the film is quite true to its source. Secondly, because it had left me with high expectations: to be weirded out, yet love it. And I was disappointed.

The story itself is sublime: so clever, so original, and so mesmerizing. But I didn’t enjoy the writing at all. I understand there have to be many descriptions in order to understand what Grenouille is feeling, and more importantly smelling, but to me, it was too much and it felt it slowed down the novel. Also, the novel focusses very little on the moral choices Grenouille has to make and doesn’t seem to judge this culprit. Now I sort of understand that, as it is written from his point of view, but it angered me to some extent. This was probably influenced by the film as well, because there we do get to see several points of view.

Now, I don’t want to spoil the novel but I do want to add that I didn’t like the ending. In its own way, the entire novel is at least slightly realistic, and I felt the ending lacked this.  

If I hadn’t seen the film, the reading experience of Perfume would have probably been a lot different. So if you’re still interested in reading it (and I must say, I would still be – the premise is beyond intriguing), please take my advice and don’t watch the film beforehand.

The main theme is love. Everything Grenouille does is instigated by his desire to be loved. Perhaps that is the creepiest part of the novel: sometimes we may feel for Grenouille, because, who doesn’t want to be loved?

Review: Blue is the Warmest Color

"There is only love to save this world. Why would I be ashamed to love?"

Title: Blue is the Warmest Color
Author: Julie Maroh
Translator: Ivanka Hahnenberger
Year: 2010
Pages: 156
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In this graphic novel, we follow Clementine and her journey of growing up. It's a love story, but also a story about friendship and about finding yourself.

Boy, this was an emotional ride and I loved what it did with my emotions. Happy, sad, angry, annoyed, happy, sad, angry, sad, angry, sad. I really liked the art style as well, and I’m always hesitant of judging a writing style in a graphic novel, but in this one it really worked because the conversations felt very realistic and not at all forced.

But unfortunately I didn’t love it as much as other people did. For one, there was instalove. That’s a deal breaker for me because it just does not make sense. A crush at first sight, sure, but this level of obsession? No. I also wasn’t sure of what I thought of the main characters. I understand that they are confused and they feel like the odd ones out, but this theme seemed too repetitive. It’s like young adults in literature aren’t allowed to explore who they are slowly – they have to figure it out there and then, and easily come to terms with it.

Still, though, the over-all story did impress me. As I said, no feelings were spared and I thought was very well structured and beautifully drawn. 

Review: The Dinner

"All these heads, I thought. All these heads into which everything disappears"

Title: Het Diner / The Dinner

Author: Herman Koch

Year: 2009

Pages: 301
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The setting is a family dinner. It’s tense, and we know that something is off. Gradually, we figure out what it is.

I don’t read much Dutch fiction. This mostly stems from my predilection for English literature, and as I was an English student until recently I honestly only really read books in English. I’m trying to switch things up a little, because I started to notice a decline in my ability to read and write in Dutch. The Dinner was my first serious attempt to restore this.

So I expected a lot of this novel. Everybody loves it, not only the Dutch. Both for the plot – which is not something Dutch books are known for – and for the writing style.

The first half of the novel, I thoroughly enjoyed. It was mysterious, yet nothing much was going on.Dutch fiction, I may have to explain, is generally not plot-driven. Characters, themes, anything else but plot, drive the story. Here, plot was certainly the main focus. The characters were all quite fleshed out, but they didn’t necessarily stand out from each other: they were all kind of the same. Moreover, the writing style seemed to change at the half-point, as if the author didn’t care about his prose anymore and merely wanted to get his story out into the world.

The writing was interesting and refreshing. But suddenly everything changed. What I thought was a novel classified as literary fiction suddenly became a thriller, and an intense one at that. Everything exploded and out of nowhere there’s a whirlwind of events. Although extremely cleverly thought out and well-structured, I did not like this shift. I can’t fully explain why, but I think it was mainly because I was expecting an amazingly written work of Dutch fiction. Now,

It may be just because I wasn’t prepared, or in the mood for it. It doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the read. I finished it quickly, and I didn’t want to put the novel down. But I didn’t feel satisfied upon finishing it. I felt it lacked something, and I was disappointed at the change of genre and pace towards the middle.

#FridayReads

It's time for another #FridayReads!

I'm not reading too many books at the same time now. I'm still reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, which I am enjoying, but not loving immensely. It is a novel narrated by ninety-something old Jacob, who is remembering his days working at a circus.
This weekend I'm also going to start Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Kafka, which I'm going to be buddy-reading!

What are you reading?