When actor Maggie Smith died in late September, the media highlighted memorable clips from her long screen career. The witty dowager, the professor of sorcery, glimpses of Shakespearean scenes. No role seemed to be featured more than her Oscar-winning performance in the film adaptation of Muriel Spark’s novel “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” That 1961 book became a popular play, adapted by Jay Presson Allen; it was a hit in London and New York. The film version, directed by Ronald Neame, was released in 1969.
I first read the novel 30 years ago. Not yet in my prime, I was unpublished, reading to study and learn craft. The thing I remembered most about Spark’s book is the way it handles point of view and time — flashing forward thrillingly now and then in order to reveal the long-term effects of a charismatic teacher on her students. The point-of-view trick is unique to the novel, something even the magic and money of filmmaking couldn’t achieve.
In the wake of Dame Maggie’s death, the film clip I’ve seen most often is the one in which Miss Brodie defends herself to her headmistress, who is intent on getting rid of her. Miss Brodie protests, “I am a teacher, first, last, always!” Eyes flashing, voice trembling, she sounds here like the patron saint of teachers: noble, defiant, the victim of uncaring school administrators.
That’s not the story I remember. But the clip played so often I began to wonder if I’d missed the point completely when I read it. Totally possible! So I found a copy of the book and reread it. (It’s super short. The entire novel was first published in an issue of The New Yorker.)
Thirty years later, the book dazzled me again. And it was a relief to see I remembered the story accurately. Miss Brodie is not a talented, dedicated or virtuous teacher. She’s a narcissist, demanding her students’ unwavering attention — on her. She is, after all, in her “prime.” She soon becomes an object of fascination among her students, in part because she avoids dreary textbook subjects and lectures her students instead on topics she prefers, things such as skincare, school gossip and her own tragic love life.
Many of us have known a teacher like that, haven’t we? The one we knew we could distract from the lesson with the right personal question? We loved those teachers.
But what does it mean when a teacher is not actually teaching? When education is disrupted and the class is held captive by a charismatic narcissist, who or what does that benefit? The novel is set in 1930s Scotland, and Miss Brodie’s occasional praise of Benito Mussolini’s work in Italy — “They are doing splendid things, I shall tell you later” — passes by without her students having any clue what she is talking about. They’re too busy, anyway, writing top-secret fan fiction about Miss Brodie’s imagined romance with a male teacher on staff.
Miss Brodie is supremely confident (one might even say authoritative), a quality that impresses and even inspires her girls. She assures them that because they are in her classroom, listening to her wisdom, they are the best: “the crème de la crème.” In one scene, Miss Brodie directs their attention to a poster on a wall, a portrait of United Kingdom Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin with the slogan “Safety First.” Not so, Miss Brodie informs the girls gravely. “Goodness, truth and beauty come first. Follow me.” Later, she asks a student to give her the name of the greatest Italian painter. When the child answers Leonardo da Vinci, Miss Brodie corrects her: “The answer is Giotto. He is my favorite.” Quite often, we discover, Miss Brodie mistakes her opinions for facts.
Flash-forward to the present. Wild, isn’t it, how familiar Miss Brodie feels to us now? Her favorite subject, “first, last, always,” is herself. She routinely mistakes her opinions for facts. She complains constantly about enemies who plot against her, and she rallies her troops, uneducated and vulnerable, for support. The novel makes us laugh, at first. The words that come out of Miss Brodie’s mouth may be hilarious, ridiculous. But as the story suggests, the years during which she stands before her students — her term of leadership and power — will prove to have dangerous, even deadly consequences.
Sixty-three years after it was published, Spark’s slim masterpiece may be one of the most relevant books of 2024. I only hope a lot more than half the class is paying attention.
James Klise is a school librarian and writer in Chicago. His most recent novel, “I’ll Take Everything You Have,” is out from Algonquin Young Readers.
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