Welcome to the Slaves of Golconda forum for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.

Discussion of this and her other books is set to begin June 30, 2006.

All are invited to post their SOG book reviews on the new Slaves of Golconda group blog.

To join the SOG blog, contact Jeff the Bibliothecary at Quillhill at Quilldrivers dot com. (corrected)

The next SOG book will be chosen by Stefanie of So Many Books. Thanks Stefanie!

Have fun everyone!

That contact is Quillhill -at- Quilldrivers -dot- com.

Thanks Sylvia. Love your avatar!

I put a special place on the home page for people to follow along with your activity. So if you can, when making your entries, select the appropriate category (your book group and author) and your entries will show up in that list.

I tried!  I’m not sure it worked though.  I selected the Slaves of Golconda book group before I submitted, but I’m not sure it’ll get added to the list.  Ah, I think it did work.  Cool!

I have posted mine--my very first post here.  But I am not sure how to attach the little box that says “forum topic”.  I did select the slaves of golconda and Muriel Spark.  Was there something more I should have marked?

Danielle

I’m going through and making sure everyone’s posts are categorized correctly. On the entry page, hold down the “ctrl” key (command for Mac users) to select more than one category.

Unfortunately, the only way to add the forum reference is through the control panel, so I’ve been doing it myself. If for some reason you want to input your entry there (or ever want to edit an entry) - log into http://metaxucafe.com/ee/index.php and you’ll see the entry screen, which should have a “forum” tab, then add the forum number there.

this forum # is 66

But you don’t have to do any of that, I’m happy to facilitate.

Does anyone find it strange that Miss Brodie is unable to put 2 and 2 together and figure out which of the girls betrayed her? I find it odd that she never suspects Sandy, especially when she constantly tells her “One day you will go too far Sandy.”

It is strange, Stefanie. Is it something that she unconsciously knows, but denies? Is she testing Sandy’s loyalty or honesty in some way?

I don’t think she is testing Sandy’s loyalty. Miss Brodie is not one to mince words and I think if she thought it was Sandy she would say as much. She might be in denial about it, she probably is, but I can’t imagine after years and years why the scales don’t fall from her eyes so to speak.

Danielle has admitted to not remembering much of Prime after her first reading, so I begin to feel better that, with several others, I am not alone in this.

The way Brodie teaches, what she wants the children to learn--isn’t that the way nearly all teachers teach? I had a literature class in which the instructor assigned several books, and then put the choice for a final book to the class. After the class chose The World According to Garp, she refused to teach it--she thought it was vulgar, or some such thing. We all have biases, and I can’t imagine teachers can always set these aside in their classrooms.

It sounds as if a key element of Spark’s writing is the complexity of her characters. For any positive trait, she seems to give a balancing negative trait. And then of the books I read, I understood the motives of only Fleur Talbot, everyone else just acted and we are left to try to make sense of it all. Spark certainly makes her readers participate.

It is strange, Stefanie.  I’m not sure I know why Brodie doesn’t get that it’s Sandy, but there must be something in her mind blocking the realization, but she seems plenty smart enough.  She doesn’t want to know, I suppose.

Why do you think Sandy becomes a nun?  I was surprised when I found that out.  I know Spark converted to Catholicism, but I’m not sure I understand how that’s affecting the book, if at all.  I mean, what are we supposed to think about Sandy becoming a nun?

Sylvia’s reading gives us a glimpse into how a writer converts life into fiction. Her shading of her experiences to fit a novel is not unlike Brodie’s shading of her experiences to fit her circumstances.

Sandy compares Brodie to God, and when she breaks from the Brodie set, she becomes one of the God set. Perhaps it is Spark telling us that when we give up our allegiances to false gods, we take our place with the true God.

I think the passage where Sandy says that Miss Brodie is the God of Calvin or something like that is important. If I am recalling correctly, Calvin believed that only a few elect would go to heaven and everyone else was out of luck but no one knew who would be chosen and who wouldn’t. Neither good works nor faith would save you. Everything was predetermined. Pretty harsh. Maybe Sandy became a Catholic because she wanted a more forgiving view of the world, something less deterministic. Though why she had to become a nun is something I don’t quite understand either Dorothy.

Quillhill - 30 June 2006 11:08 AM

Sandy compares Brodie to God, and when she breaks from the Brodie set, she becomes one of the God set. Perhaps it is Spark telling us that when we give up our allegiances to false gods, we take our place with the true God.

Excellent point.

It makes sense that Brodie could not figure out who “betrayed” her. She who pretended to understand everything didn’t understand herself or her girls. Perhaps that is part of her “godlike” character--she wanted the world to be what she wanted it to be, rather than what it was. I think we all know people (and politicians) like that!

I’m having one of those moments when I just can’t find this really crucial passage ... you know what I mean, Stefanie But I remembered a place where Spark says something about Sandy being even more controlled as a nun than she was with Brodie.  It seemed just a bit critical of Sandy’s decision.  I guess I’m just not buying that this is a “Catholic” book in any traditional sense—it seems to me that Sandy is running from one authority figure, Brodie, to another, the Church, but she ran from Brodie because she saw moral disorder in her.  I think she wanted some order and clear moral guidelines.  She was so interested in Calvinism, and I think it’s because of the certainty there is in it: Spark says “it was the religion of Calvin of which Sandy felt deprived ... she desired this birthright; something definite to reject.” And I think as an older woman, she is beginning to question the value of the tight control and order of both Brodie and the church: “It was twenty-five years before Sandy had so far recovered from a creeping vision of disorder that she could look back and recognise that Miss Brodie’s defective sense of self-criticism had not been without its beneficent and enlarging effects.”

I think maybe at the end she recognizes that while Brodie is flawed, there was something about her sense of herself that is good—Brodie’s feeling of living in a state of grace.  Her “state of grace” isn’t one sanctioned by the church, but one she created for herself.

Yikes, this book is complicated.