The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - The Book

also this.....

This is truly a deep and disturbing book, one that should not be approached lightly or taken at face value.


I've never read or seen it. I do intend to order the book. Thanks for the interesting discussion guys.

 

Luv your statement JJ: This is truly a deep and disturbing book, one that should not be approached lightly or taken at face value, but you're ordering it anyway.

Good luck!

 

Well, hell Thor, you were right! I owe you a bottle of wine. Talking about the movie, "The Pride of Miss Jean Brodie," I wanted to check out something at the beginning of it, and about half an hour ago, I put it on, and what did I see, Jenny with reddish blonde hair, not carroty red, but more of a ginger colour. Ok:toast: :shamed: :rose: Thor, you win.
My excuse is being a Senior. :-( Big mouth now shut.

P.S. I owe you a bottle of wine.

 

LOL Elle, that really makes it sound like I'm someone that likes deep and disturbing. I didn't realize how that sounded until I read it this morning. I am interested in the many things Paradox says about the similarities with this and Patsy. Now Patsy did a "skit" on this, didn't she? For one of the pageants she was in?

 

Some people are just a "natural.". Maybe you should be writing for the TV.
I am interested too JJ, in what Paradox has to say, and it makes sense to me that if, hypothetically Patsy Ramsey did kill JonBenét accidentally, up all night trying to cover it, with or without the help of John (?), her mind must have been working overtime, and it also makes sense to me that thoughts were flying through her head as she was writing the ransom note, and being tuned into "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" she was drawing ideas from it.

Patsy Ramsey was scheduled to make the famous soliloquy of Miss Jean Brodie at a Virginia beauty pageant, which she had made before, but this time around, she couldn't get the copyright, and as a result, with the help of a friend they wrote another speech on "copyright." Patsy won the talent trophy at this pageant.

Don't know if this what you meant (?).

 

Yes Elle, that is what I meant. Thank you

 

Speaking of meeting of the minds, jmpo, but I can't see the fictional book character Sandy Stranger and Patsy Ramsey having any common spirit. None whatsoever. Which is why I fail to understand you putting "Sandy Stranger killed JonBenet" in your signature. I know we've had controversial discussions about this here before and don't want to rehash it, but to me, Patsy and Sandy are as different as chalk and cheese.
My guess is if an astute type like Sandy Stranger had committed this crime, she would have done a far better staging job than Patsy Ramsey.

jmo

 

I have problems with this too rashomon. At the moment I am just dealing with other similarities. I don't think I will be discussing the Sandy Stranger part. It's too deep for me.

I know you and Paradox discussed this before, and you weren't convinced. I personally was relating Patsy more to the character of Jean Brodie.

 

Paradox

Paradox, at what age does Sandy Stranger become a nun? This really is a spoiler for me. Sexy Sandy as a nun. No way! I don't expect she ever posed nude again (?).

 

In the book Sandy is critical of sex and very analytical of people. She lives in the mind rather than the body. She becomes Lloyd's lover to spite Brodie, I think, rather than out of her own sexual awakening. The book doesn't say when she converted. Muriel Spark converted to Catholicism. The character Sandy was more autobiographical than the character Brodie for Spark. If Patsy had a thing for Spark, as I think she did, then she would identify more with Sandy than Brodie.

 

Thank you, Paradox. I see where you're coming from with this information. Yes, I knew Sandy became Teddy's lover to spite Miss Brodie.

 

A picture is worth a thousand words:

The Scottish plaids:

http://www.maketoast.com/wedding/19.jpg

http://www.maketoast.com/familyphot...thjonbenet.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cu...s=books#gallery

Like mother, like daughter:

Go down the page to see the comparisons made by the great, late poster Ruth/Panico: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/nebula/9337/puzzle.html

http://www.maketoast.com/familyphotos/patsymomma2.html

http://www.maketoast.com/photos/2JBenetRa.html

http://www.maketoast.com/photos/1JBenetR.html

http://www.maketoast.com/photos/people4jonbenet.html

And the Harlequin pattern:

Notice the floors:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12892977@N00/206596048

http://www.jonbenetindexguide.com/04081999-48hr-280.jpg

Notice the background:

http://www.maketoast.com/photos/NNjb7.html

http://www.maketoast.com/photos/NNjb20.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Thanks to ACR for keeping so much info for us, and for helping when we need to find it. Thanks to Why Nut for her great Flickr blog, and Maketoast as well.]

I'm still looking for a few pics, like the one of Patsy in her Harlequin costume. Many sites have taken down the pics they once had, so it's not easy. If anyone else has any to add, feel free.
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Thanks to the mods for editing the recent posts. Apart from my proprietary attitude, I think TPOMJB connection to the JonBenet murder case is too important to be obscured on this forum. Anyone interested in this case, and those who investigated it, should have access to the work of the FFJ posters like Cranberry, koldkase, Elle 1, moi and others who have this case by the throat and are willing to express their insight into what is largely taken to be a mystery.

The above post by kk deserves to be on TPOMJB thread.

 

Thank you for posting these links Paradox. The following two would not open for me:

http://www.maketoast.com/familyphot...thjonbenet.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cu...s=books#gallery

The similarities here don't half stand out.

I thank those above mentioned people too, Paradox, and also thank you for the amount of hours put in relating to theTPOMJB and drawing it to our attention.

I thought Why_Nut was a man (?). Doesn't matter. Another VIP for the justice of JonBenét Ramsey.

 

Elle 1, the post with all the links was made by koldkase, not me. She made connections between a painting by Patsy with the harlequin theme in JB's costumes and the R's kitchen floor. I'd like to say I did all that work but someone would find me out.

 

Nice of you to own up about it, Paradox. KK did a very good job. It's very obvious a lot of Patsy was being forced upon JonBenét Ramsey, when it came to designing her pageant clothes. Memories of Patsy's own beauty pageant clothes being transferred to JonBenét's outfits.

 

"In the summer of nineteen-thirty eight, after the last of the Brodie set had left Blaine, ..."
"He kissed her as he had done three years before when she was fifteen,..."

In 1938 Sandy was 18.

"After the war Miss Brodie admitted to Sandy, as they sat in the Braid Hill Hotel, ..."

WWII ended in Europe in May 1945.

Sandy probably wouldn't have been in a hotel if she was a nun.

"By the end of the year [1938] it happened that she had quite lost interest in the man himself, but was deeply absorbed in his mind, from which she extracted, amond other things, his religion as a pith from a husk. ... She left the man and took his religion and became a nun in the course of time."

I think the book says Sandy took his religion at 18 but does not specify when she became a nun.

"Miss Brodie was forced to retire at the end of the summer term of nineteen-thirty-nine, ... Sandy, when she heard of it, ... By now she had entered the Catholic Church, ..."

It doesn't say when Sandy heard of the retirement. Logically, Sandy would have heard of it not long after it happened. She was 19 in '39.

I think this is correct.
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Thank you very much for all this information, Paradox. I shall just have to imagine the characters a good bit older. Who knows, there might be a sequel yet ?) You could direct it with all your knowledge of the book.

I did enjoy all the discussions here, and thoroughly enjoyed the first one with you and Cranberry.

My apologies for replying so late. I'm afraid I got sidetracked.

 

There is quite a bit of difference between the characters in the book and the characters in the movie. The fate of Brodie in the book is spelled out, but Sandy's is a bit more open ended. The movie portrays both characters as tragic. This kind of unsettled and unsettling commentary on life is typical of Spark. It's likely that Spark made some kind of allusion to these characters in her later novels. I just don't know that much about her work to say if she did. TPOMJB is autobiographical. Sandy becomes a nun and there is some kind of anxiety expressed about the outside world as she is described as clutching the bars of a convent door and also having a special dispensation forced on her to recieve visitors about her treatise on psychology.

Spark, who was half Jewish, converted to Catholicism, settled in Italy and never returned to Scotland. She divorced and loathed her husband and left nothing in her will to her only son who objected to her conversion and made attempts to "out" his mother as Jewish. Spark lived with a female companion for the rest of her life.

A sequel to TPOMJB would only include a short back and forth between Brodie and Sandy before Brodie's death from an internal growth. (Note the similarity to Patsy; ovarian cancer, "It won't be long.") The sequel would have to focus on Sandy's psychological analysis of humanity and herself. Which is probably what Spark's entire work is all about.

Sandy is Spark.

 

Yes, Jean Brodie and Sandy were tragic characters right enough. I could see there was quite a big difference as soon as I read the earlier discussions on this thread. Cranberry had devoured that book and obviously enjoyed it as much as yourself. I don't know if KK will be anywhere near the end of this book yet (?). We might hear her thoughts (?).

Muriel Spark must have been one very unhappy woman throughout her whole life from what you're saying here.

It appears to have been a wise choice not to have made a sequel from what you're saying here, Paradox. It's a question of when someone comes to the end of a movie, or book they have enjoyed, they want it to continue, but some sequels do fall flat on their face. Such is life.

 

Paradox told me to...

post a photo on this thread, to tie it to this discussion as well. So I will.

It is my own set-up (see, I own up to it, unlike Patsy!) of the bowl with pineapple and cream, and a soup spoon in it. The bowl is almost 6" across, but not quite as deep as Patsy's white bowl. I also put an empty glass with an unused tea bag in it behind the bowl. I'm pretty sure the teabag in the evidence photo has been used, from what it looks like. Someone had tea and a bowl of pineapple and cream, after the Ramseys got home that night. But if they admitted to JonBenet being awake when they got home, some other aspect of their story would unravel, so they stuck to that lie straight through.