The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 5*****
The Comforters 4****
The Only Problem 5*****
The Driver's Seat 5*****
Memento Mori 5*****
..... overall, better than 4½****

Note that this series of four omnibus volumes includes all of Spark's novels up to and including The Only Problem (1984), with the later novels available in individual volumes not part of the omnibus series. These omnibus volumes can be slightly pricey – and the third volume seems particularly rare – but Spark-biographer Martin Stannard treats them as the canonical text for the seventeen included novels since these were the last texts published during Spark's lifetime and supervised by her. ( )

The title character, Miss Jean Brodie, a silly romanantic, elevates the personal above the universal. That's why she's a good facist. She's pitiable, and yet ugly. She reminds me of Peter Keating in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. She lives vicariously through her students, convinced that she's controlling them, and is omnipotent about their futures. Student A is destined to be a great lover, and student B is destined to be X, Y, or Z. One character observes, "She thinks she is Providence . . . she thinks she is the God of Calvin, she sees the beginning and the end." She confuses the Italian Renaisance with Italian facism. In the end, she isn't nearly as perceptive about the world or her students as she thought she was.

One of the Brodie-set, the "creme de la creme," rejects her teacher, and finally ends up becoming a nun. She revolts against the idea that she is above all things and all others, including morality. She becomes keenly aware that her conformity to Miss Jean Brodie's "group judgment," which is at odds with her individual judgment is a source of human cruelty.

Miss Brodie is "betrayed" by one of her students in the end, yet she never comes to terms with the fact that her own beliefs justify the "betrayal." ( )