The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - The Book

Paradox,

Not everyone will understand your signature, if they haven't seen the movie, or read the book, "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie." Cranberry has helped a great deal here. Too bad we can't have the whole movie on youtube. :-(

 

Thank you Elle, you are too kind. You and the FFJ members are scholars on this case, so I read and learn from you. I would like to read the play and see the movie someday. I find the book fascinating.

 

Also found this in my notes: Towards the end of Easter holidays when Jenny was accosted by the man exposing himself. Sandy fell in love with the unseen policewoman. Inventing new speech, image and name for her.

 

Sandy is the real star of the book. She is also an alter ego of Muriel Spark; the intuitive, cynical observer of people. She is an imaginative dreamer.

I wonder what Patsy was trying to tell the world by performing a soliloquey from the play/book/movie?

Thanks for the thread Cranberry.

 

Telling

IMO, maybe 'there was nothing new in the idea, it was the reality that was new.'

 

Thanks, Cranberry, for starting this thread and the work you've put in to the synopsis of TPOMJB.

I couldn't help but notice the word "attache" used in the above sentence in addition to the book's reference to correct spelling of the word "possession" (already mentioned). Patsy's indentification with TPOMJB was much more than a mere dramatic reading from its text.

 

Thank you Cherokee. Also interesting that books were kept in the attache case.

 

Being a word person Cherokee, you might find this interesting; in the works of Spark that I have read so far she uses the phrase "at this time" or "at that time" repeatedly. It really does stand out.

Cranberry, you will find the play very interesting. The text for Patsy's soliloquey comes from the play, not the book. The scene that I think was portrayed by Patsy is one of the best done by Maggie Smith in the movie, which is a must also. The movie really brings out the importance of the color purple, which you found has a place in Proverbs.

 

I've read the titles: "Kiss of Death" and "Deadline" attributed to PR's talent portion of Miss WV and Miss America, based on Muriel Spark. Also the HS national program. I'm not sure what the title was for each performance, but it would be interesting to know.

 

Linda McLean, in her book, says the re-write was titled "Deadline". I remember Patsy said something about death when asked about her pageant performances. But I don't remember the re-write ever having been mentioned as having the title "Kiss of Death".

 

The "Kiss of Death" is mentioned at the beginning of the 4/97 PR interview, I believe, when they asked her background information. I wonder what scene the kiss was from? There are a few to choose from. Thanks.

 

I seem to remember the death or kiss of death phrase used as a comment on her anxiety about performing rather than a comment on any one particular performance.

 

I though "kiss of death" meant that she won the Talent Award at Miss America, and that if you win that, you don't make top ten, like singers or violin players do.

 

That's very interesting wombat, it makes sense, thanks.

 

Thank you for the info wombat, I haven't read or heard that before. The transcripts do have typos/errors pop up; it was in quotes so I thought it was the title. That would be a difficult scene to perform, even for a duo actress.

Here it is (from ACandyRose site):
PR: Yes. I uh, there was some scholarship for winning Miss West Virginia. I can’t remember exactly how much and then at the Miss America pageant I won a non-finalist talent award and I think it was a $2,000 scholarship for that.

TT: I’ve got to ask which talent.

PR: (Laughter) “The Kiss of Death†dramatic dialog.

??: (Laugher)

ST: (Inaudible) Miss Jean Brody.

PR: Your right.

TT; Was that, was that earlier?

PR: “The Pride of Miss Jean Brody.†Well actual. . . no it wasn’t, actually what happened, uh, I did the Miss Jean Brody, I competed in high school with that and uh, placed nationally with it and then I had done that for Miss West Virginia and won with that and then when you go to Miss America you have to do through this.......
---------------------------------------------
'Deadline' is written about in newspaper articles, etc. so maybe it's the title for both?

 

I remember reading Linda McLean helped Patsy to write the winning speech by zapping up another one "overnight" related to copyright and censorship, due to not being able to use the actual speech from "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" because of copyright. The title "Deadline" seems to fit.

 

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The portrait of Rose looked like Miss Jean Brodie. Artist Teddy Lloyd’s wife Deirde (re MJB): “Is she fair?†“No, she’s dark.†Red velvet draped made Rose look one armed, like the artist himself.

Also painted Monica and Eunice in her harlequin outfit. Sandy was fascinated by the economy of Teddy Lloyd’s method, as she was by Miss Brodie’s variation on the love story. Economical, most expedient, most suitable at the time.

Sandy: Keep together the Brodie set at the expense of the newly glimpse of individuality of its members.

A painting of the Brodie set: “We’d look like one big Miss Brodie, I suppose.â€

“The near blackmailing insolence of her knowledge.†He kissed her.

There was nothing for her to do but follow him downstairs. The sitting room. “Oh play to me Gipsy.â€

Teddy Lloyds wife: “Bring Miss Brodie to tea.†“Pass me a fag.â€

Miss Brodie was always careful to impress the parents of the set and win their approval and gratitude.

Golf. This was a clever question because it articulated what was already growing in Sandy’s mind. Jenny had bored her this year, and it left her lonely. Miss Brodie towering above her, for Sandy was playing out of a bunker. Sandy gave a hack with her niblick and said, “Yes, a bit,†sending the ball in a little backward half-circle.

Difficult to follow Miss Brodie’s prophetic moods. One had to wait and see what emerged.

Eunice will settle down and marry some professional man. Monica will get her B of Sc with honours, no spiritual insight, bad temper, and she understands signs, symbols and calculations. “Everyday is the Lord’s day.â€

Miss Brodie to Sandy: “You must get spectacles.†You have got insight, perhaps not quite spiritual, but you’re a deep one and Rose has got instinct.

Sandy: At St Giles Cathedral contemplates these emblems of dark and terrible salvation, which made the fires of the damned seem very merry to the imagination by contrast, and much preferable. Calvinism
Lower social status, she felt deprived of it, however undesirable it might be, she didn’t want to be protected by it. She desired something definite, like Calvinism, to reject. She desired this birthright...see the blackened monuments and hear the curses of drunken men and women and comparing their faces with the familiar faces, she saw, with stabs of new and exciting Calvinistic guilt, that there was not much difference.

Miss Brodie with more exotic suicidal enchantment than if she had simply taken to drink like other spinsters who couldn’t stand it anymore.

Rose and Sandy had been chosen be the crème de la crème.

Miss Brodie liked to take her leisure over the unfolding of her plans, most of her joy deriving from the preparation, and moreover, the girls were too young.

“Sandy will make an excellent Secret Service agent, a great spy.â€

Sandy slept with Teddy Lloyd and Rose carried back the information.

Panama hats, each adorning, in magical transformation, a different Jean Brodie.

Sandy: Miss Brodie looked misled, looked beautiful, fragile, just as dark heavy Edinburgh itself, when light fell on it. Miss Brodie’s features, clear and sweet to Sandy. When viewed in the curious light of the woman’s folly.

Brodie set: no team spirit at school. Theatres and teas. Neglect and Lowther. Sandy: Miss Jean Brodie stopped sleeping with Lowther because her sexual feelings were satisfied by proxy. Rose was predestined to be his lover.

MJB renounced Teddy Lloyd. Lowther was useful. Sandy: MJB renounced Teddy Lloyd only because she was aware that she could not keep up this beauty. It was a quality in her that came and went.

Next term, after Mr. Lowther returned from his honeymoon, MJB put her spare energy into her plan for Sandy and Rose and political ideas.

 

In Chapter 5, the Brodie set are growing up and finding their own way. Sandy is fascinated to see a different, darker side of real life that she already had embraced in her thoughts. I think this is a turning point, and would like to know: Were the depths of destruction her reality?

 

I think the realization of the depths of self destruction and hypocracy were her reality at this point. The following line is classic Spark;

"In this oblique way, she [Sandy] began to sense what went to the makings of Miss Brodie who had elected herself to grace in so particular a way and with more exotic suicidal enchantment than if she had simply taken to drink like other spinsters who couldn't stand it any more."

In that sentence Spark allows Sandy to reach the bottom line; what Freud called the death wish, self avoidance/self denial to the point of self destruction.