“There was a wonderful sunset across the distant
sky, reflected in the sea, streaked with blood and puffed with avenging purple
and gold as if the end of the world had come without intruding on everyday
life.”—Scottish novelist Muriel Spark (1918-2006), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)
The centennial of her birth has come and gone, but I
couldn’t let 2018 depart without a post about Muriel Spark. She wrote much throughout her career, but—at least
partly due to the 1969 film starring Maggie Smith (pictured here)—The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is her
most famous.
The quote you see here gives a marvelous impression
of her style, but what it cannot do is give a sufficient idea of the treasures
of the novel—very much including its unreliable narrator. For anyone considering
education as a profession, it offers a morally stringent view of how teachers
can form—and, as in this work, deform—the young. And it demonstrates
convincingly that, no matter how the merits of a film (or, in this case, a
play, too), a novel has pleasures unrivaled by visual media.
No comments:
Post a Comment