The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' by Muriel Spark has been hailed as a modern classic and often appears in 'top 100 books' lists. It promised much - not least 'marvellous humour' - but delivered very little for 9 out of 10 of our reading group.

Our sole champion of this 1961 novel set in 1930's Edinburgh thought the writing clever, full of interesting language and humorous turns of phrase, and enjoyed the story and evolving relationships. The rest of us mostly agreed on the clever writing but found so much else to dislike in the book that we just couldn't give it the thumbs up.

Miss Brodie is such a horribly narcissistic and hypocritical individual, making the book hard to enjoy. Words like 'manipulative', 'bullying' and 'grooming' were used, and a member who is an ex teacher said it waved child safeguarding red flags for her (the pupils at the start of the book are just 10 years old). This is not a novel that has made the shift to a modern audience, and we even questioned why it is considered a 'modern classic' at all.

The group wondered if the book's setting - amidst the staunch religosity and politeness of middle class Edinburgh - was Spark toying with the growing freedoms of society as the 1960s arrived. As, perhaps, was setting it in a decade when the upswing of fascism vied with a more liberal approach to naturalism (and, indeed, naturism).

Our discussion was wide ranging on education and the position of women in a post WW1 world, and then meandered - as usual - onto other books we have recently read.

In short, 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' is not, for us, 'the crème de la crème' of English literature. Despite this, for various reasons the opinion was that we were 'glad to have read it' and gave it 9 thumbs down and 1 thumbs up.

Do join us on 17 September if you would like to discuss the family saga 'The God of Small Things' by Arundhati Roy, winner of the Booker Prize in 1997.