BookPalaver: The Prime of Muriel Spark

When I was planning a trip to Edinburgh last May someone recommended I read or watch the movie version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.  I found this confusing, because I had always thought that movie was about slavery and the civil rights movement and starred Cicely Tyson.  Evidently that was The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.  I felt like my life up to that point had been a lie.

Anyway, I did read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark, and loved it. Dame Muriel was born 80 years ago today in Edinburgh, and died in 2006 in Florence.  In her honor, here's a passage from the opening pages of the book:

These girls formed the Brodie set.  That was what they had been called even before the headmistress had given them the name, in scorn, when they had moved from the Junior to the Senior school at the age of twelve.  At that time they had been immediately recognisable as Miss Brodie's pupils, being vastly informed on a lot of subjects irrelevant to the authorised curriculum, as the headmistress said, and useless to the school as a school.  These girls were discovered to have heard of the Buchmanites and Mussolini, the Italian Renaissance painters, the advantages to the skin of cleansing cream and witch-hazel over honest soap and water, and the word "menarche"; the interior decoration of the London house of the author of Winnie the Pooh had been described to them, as had the love lives of Charlotte Bronte and of Miss Brodie herself.  They were aware of the existence of Einstein and the arguments of those who considered the Bible to be untrue.  They knew the rudiments of astrology but not the date of the Battle of Flodden or the capital of Finland.  All of the Brodie set, save one, counted on its fingers, as had Miss Brodie, with accurate results more or less.

(For the sake of full disclosure, I recommended it to mysterywriter, who was bored by it. Perhaps she should read The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman instead.) 

I also rented the movie version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, starring a thirty-five year old Maggie Smith (I'd never seen her so young).  I didn't like it as well as the book, which told the story through the third person but to a large extent from the point of view of the girls who made up the Brodie set, primarily Sandy, the imaginative one who was "famous for her vowel sounds."  The girls begin by idolizing Miss Brodie, but their views change as they mature and grow to see her for what she is.

The young actress who played Sandy, Pamela Franklin, looked hauntingly familiar to me. I looked her up on imdb and realized both why she was so familiar and why I couldn't say why. In addition to having a niche co-starring in B horror movies such as The Legend of Hell House with Roddy McDowall, she was evidently in every single television show made in the 70s, including Barnaby Jones, Police Woman, Trapper John, MD, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, Hawaii Five-O, Mannix, Cannon, Bonanza, Petrocelli (no one will remember that one but Dubliner), The Streets of San Francisco, The Six Million Dollar Man . . . .  I must have seen her on tv every other night.

And, as a bonus, the movie ends with the song "Jean," by Rod McKuen -- I never heard of him, but the song brought back memories from the deep recesses of my mind ("Jean, Jean, you’re young and alive . . .").

Comments

[sybil]

I rented the movie a couple of years ago, after reading an obit of Muriel Spark, and because I remembered Maggie Smith winning (or at least being nominated) for an Academy Award and watching the show on tv as a kid. I thought the movie was a little dated, but interesting, especially the facism angle....maybe I should read the book....

And I remember Pamela Franklin from 70s, tv, too! Not to be confused w/ Pamela Sue Martin, of Dynasty and other fame.....

[NorthernOutlaw]

I *LOVED* Petrocelli growing up. Fighting for the unfairly accused, while struggling to build his own house. Living in a trailer, the frayed ends of his personal life. It was a parallel of the post Nixon, post oil-shock societal transformation. Or perhaps because it was the last show I was allowed to watch on a Saturday night before being sent to bed?

[Jabber]

I need to go get this book, not because of the Scotland angle (although that would interest me too) but because I've always meant to read it, as "Jean" and "Brodie" are two of my mom's original names. If they just added one more name, it would be all about her. So now you've reminded me, and next trip to Politics and Prose...

[mbpalaver]

I am amazed that NorthernOutlaw remembers Petrocelli, as his lovely wife/my sister, who grew up on this side of the pond, does not (nor, I suspect, do most of the people I know). I guess we've always exported our best art . . . .

[contesssa]

I've got a book of Rod McKuen's poetry -- small, orange cover -- or at least I had it for decades on the shelves at my parents' house. He was a pop culture phenom in the late '60s/early '70s -- you're just a little too young. He was regularly on talk shows; bet you'd find him with Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin ...

[sybil]

I remember Petrocelli, too! I definitely remember the trailer he lived in and I remember liking the actress who was his wife on the show (Susan Howard?)

I picked a Rod McKuen poem in 10th Grade English and my teacher, the formidable Barbara Wagner, was horrified. Said he wasn't a "real" poet.

[Joanne McMullan]

I remember Petrocelli too! It even made it as far as these distant shores.....I fear I might even have had a slight crush on him....oh dear, signs of a mis-spent youth!

[mbpalaver]

I think I was a bit sweet on Petrocelli too, Joanne -- which would seem odd, unless you knew the rest of the list of odd crushes I had as a young girl (see, e.g., Larry Storch).