48. For Whom The Bell Rings -- Backpacks and Boarding Schools

KIM: Hi, everybody, and welcome back to another Lost Ladies of Lit mini episode. I’m Kim Askew…

AMY: And I’m Amy Helmes. It’s the middle of August, and around my house, at least, that can mean only one thing: Back to school!

KIM: Yay! How exciting! My daughter goes to preschool, so she basically has school year-round, but I can always tell when school’s back in session in L.A. because the traffic turns monstrous. How do your kids feel about going back to school?

AMY: Well, considering they spent the better part of last year not being able to set foot in a classroom, I don’t think they’ll ever complain again about getting to go to school. Jack, my youngest, will be entering fourth grade, and Miss Julia is now in middle school, so she’s going to be starting an all-girls’ Catholic middle school, which is going to be a new experience for her.

KIM: I am so jealous of Julia because (at least, my teenage or preteen self is jealous) because I always wanted to get sent to a boarding school (particularly a Catholic girls’ school) and have, like, this literary, idyllic experience that I had read about growing up and fantasized having...my life was very far from that.

AMY: I know, you’ve always talked about wishing you went to a Catholic girls’ school. Yeah. And I actually did attend an all girls’ high school. 

KIM: Okay, so please tell me it was like the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh, Scotland. You know what I’m talking about, right?

AMY: Yeah … that would be the school that was featured in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark.

KIM: Yep.

AMY: If you guys have not read that book, you definitely should… I would say it’s kind of a girl version of Dead Poets Society, but a lot darker. And it’s actually Muriel Spark’s best-known novel. So just a little summary of that: the title character, Miss Jean Brodie … she’s this mythical, cult-like figure, for better and for worse, and the character was actually based on a teacher that Spark, herself, once had for two years in boarding school, who was this glamorous, poetic and inspiring woman, but she also happened to hang posters of Mussolini on her classroom wall. 

KIM: Oh, yeah. And Miss Jean Brodie in the book (which is set in 1930s in Edinburgh) is also charismatic and also ideologically radical, you could say…. She has these student acolytes that she surrounds herself with… her “Brodie set” as she calls them. Miss Brodie wants to teach the girls to think for themselves, to appreciate the classics and to have a lust for life.

AMY: Yeah, but lust is kind of the operative word here, and it becomes part of the problem, I think you can say. Miss Brodie’s aims for her girls aren’t always on a professional level — especially when she tries to urge one of the girls in the group to have an affair with a male teacher at the school (one that Miss Brodie was previously involved with, by the by). So yeah, Jean Brodie, she’s a little more controversial than Robin Williams’ Mr. Keating in Dead Poets Society, and we’ll leave it at that.

KIM: You know, a little aside: I wonder if a book like that would get published right now? Or if it would just be, you know, too scandalous, almost, you know?

AMY: Too inappropriate, yeah.

KIM: But anyway, back to this book, they made a movie of it in 1969 starring a young Maggie Smith in the title role, and of course, she’s amazing in this. She’s perfect for this role.

AMY: Oh yeah, I love this movie. And actually, I had an English teacher at my all girls’ high school who kind of physically reminded me a little of Maggie Smith in that role, because she had a sort of 1930s, curly wedge bob haircut, you know? Like a very retro haircut. She always dressed in pencil skirts and heels and she often wore these long chiffon scarves around her neck. It’s like she was using Miss Jean Brodie as her, like, style guide.

KIM: I would have been obsessed with her and started dressing like her. I mean, I can’t even imagine, if I had a teacher that glamorous.

AMY: Her hair would kind of hang in front of her face a little, and then she'd sweep it aside with her hand all the time. I mean, she was very glamorous. So, yeah, I guess in some ways my high school was like the Marcia Blaine School for Girls. But that teacher was not leading our minds into questionable territory. It was all on the up-and-up.

KIM: This is fun, so let’s discuss some other school-related novels that people can read since we’re on the subject, because I’m into this. Our first podcast episode was actually on Mariana by Monica Dickens. And part of that is actually set at a girls’ school, but the whole book is in a girls’ school book.

AMY: Right. And also, Monica Dickens flunked out of three different schools, so if you want to know that story, go back to episode No. 1, which is fun. So there are a lot, obviously, when you start to think about it you’re like, “Well, there are so many books set in schools!” And you know, people always think of the classics that are centered around boys’ boarding schools — so like, A Separate Peace, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, even, you could say. Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh. Old School by Tobias Wolff is another more recent one. But when it comes to “school-inspired” classic books that were written by women there are still quite a few, starting with one that is a series, in fact, that was written by an actual teacher. It’s the “Fairacre” series, by Miss Read.

KIM: Yes, I have not read any of these, but I definitely, I’m so intrigued. This is on my to-be-read list, for sure. Soon. And Miss Read is the pseudonym of British school mistress-turned-writer, Dora Jessie Saint. Her “Fairacre” series comprises 20 different books which she wrote from 1955-1996! The books center around the life of an unmarried village school teacher named Miss Read. They are extremely quaint and cozy, apparently, and have been compared to the works of Barbara Pym. Have you read them?

AMY: Yeah, actually, I started reading one recently, knowing that we were going to be doing this episode The one I'm reading is Mrs. Pringle of Fairacre. In some ways, it kind of has a little bit of the feel of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford, because it's set in this little village, you know? There's not too much major drama. If you remember in our episode on Stella Gibbons, how she was making fun of the English rural novel, I feel like this kind of falls into that category. (Although these were written post Cold Comfort Farm). It sort of seems like this sort of thing Stella Gibbons would have rolled her eyes. I mean, everyone in the village knows everyone else’s business, but then the drama is all very low stakes. You keep waiting for something to happen. And then Miss Read, she'll write something like, “And then something appalling happened…” And you're like, “What is it? What is it?” It's like, “a boy from the school was accused of stealing two eggs from a robin's nest.” It's like, “Okay, what?” There's no real drama. Or maybe I just haven't gotten to that part yet, I don’t know.

KIM: Okay, you're gonna have to keep us posted. I mean, are they something you want to read with tea and cookies, or maybe they're just, you know...

AMY: Yeah, tea and cookies, and you’re sitting in an easy chair with a lace… what do you call that? Antimacassar? 

KIM: I love that you’re saying that aloud. I’ve only seen that in books; I’ve never actually heard it pronounced! So another boarding school that I know you and I both read, Amy, and that’s Villette by Charlotte Bronte.

AMY: What? It’s called [pronounces] VEE-YAY? It’s VEE-LET, right?

KIM: It is? I don’t know.

AMY: No, it’s VEE-LET.

KIM: Right.

AMY: VEE-LET

KIM: You’re right. No, of course. Don’t put that in. But yeah, of course. Don’t put that in!

AMY: It’s funny. We’re putting it in.

KIM: Oh, okay. Anyway, all right. [laughing]

AMY: Yeah, so Villette, I’ve actually read this one twice, I think. I really enjoyed it. It’s about a young Englishwoman, Lucy Snowe (who is very Jane Eyre-like, I would say). She travels to the Belgian town of Villette. (Now you’re making me doubt myself…. No, I believe it’s VEE-LET) who travels to this Belgian town to work at Madame Beck’s boarding school for girls. She’s young and she’s trying to make her way as best she can, and then there’s this weird, sort of caustic male professor who’s also teaching at the school there with Lucy, and they have a sort of intense relationship.

KIM: Yeah, and Villette is also considered a gothic novel given the fact that there is some spooky ghost stuff involving a nun. 

AMY: Yeah, I think you could call it a psychological thriller in some respects.

KIM: And there’s another “boarding school” book, which I’m sure we’ll end up doing a future episode on, and that’s Frost in May by Antonia White. And I’ve been wanting to read that one. 

AMY: Yeah, if you went to Catholic school, this one’s going to definitely hit close to home for you. It’s a 1933 novel that was reissued in the 70s by Virago Press. At the start of the book, we have 9-year-old Nanda Grey, who is on her way to a convent boarding school called the Convent of the Five Wounds…

KIM: Oh, god, what a name! Yikes! I’m scared just hearing the name of the convent!

AMY: Yeah, I know. It’s already intimidating. And yeah, Kim, I do feel like you would like this once since you’ve always sort of secretly been fascinated by Catholicism. 

KIM: I wanted to be a nun when I was young.

AMY: Oh, you did?

KIM: I was Baptist. That didn’t stop me. It didn’t stop 9-year-old me!

AMY: So the book blends kind of that romance of Roman Catholicism that you have with the harsh punitiveness we tend to equate with Catholic schools, historically, as well as, you know, all that power and patriarchy involved. I will say I’m glad I didn’t attend Catholic school in the first half of the 20th century, because there’s a lot of severity and knuckle-wrapping — stuff like that.

KIM: Yeah, I don’t think I can handle that side of being there, too. I’m too sensitive. So I have one more book to round out our list, and this is one that I don’t think either of us have read yet, Amy, but correct me if I’m wrong. It’s Bel Kaufman’s Up The Down Staircase.

AMY: I haven’t read it either. But you know, the title sounds really familiar for some reason, like I know I’ve heard of it. 

KIM: Yeah, I think because it was made into a movie in the late 60s… so maybe that’s why it’s ringing a bell for you. It’s written in the vein of that Michelle Pfeiffer movie, Dangerous Minds, or maybe a Stand and Deliver, I think. It’s about an idealistic English high school teacher named Sylvia Barrett, and her first year on the job leaves her frustrated and discouraged. She comes to a crossroads, eventually, when she has to decide whether to quit teaching and go work for the private sector or continue to tough it out and try to make a difference in the kids’ lives. 

AMY: Well, stick with it, Miss Barrett! The kids need you! I should check out the movie. Or maybe I’ll read it. That sounds interesting.

KIM: Yeah, let’s read it and then maybe watch the movie.

AMY: Movie night!

KIM: Yeah. So the author, Bel Kaufman, like Dora Jessie Saint, was also a school teacher (she was a high school teacher in New York City, so I would imagine it’s very realistically portrayed.)  It’s actually an epistolary novel, which is also an interesting twist.

AMY: Hmm. All right, I will add that one to the list. And I think we should also maybe dedicate this episode to all the teachers out there. It’s a tough job (we all know that). Add on the past several years, which have been exponentially difficult because of the pandemic. 

KIM: Yeah, so way to go, teachers! We appreciate you! And hopefully things will be getting back to some semblance of normalcy for kids and teachers alike going forward. Fingers crossed.

AMY: Yeah, absolutely. And now I kind of feel like I ought to dig out my old plaid green school uniform for this episode.

KIM: Oh my gosh, we have to share a picture of you in your uniform on our Instagram! We’ve got to show this. I don’t even know if I’ve seen a picture of you in your uniform. So let’s share it with everybody.

AMY: Mayyyybe. I’ll see what I can find. Anyway, that’s all for today’s episode everybody! We hope you’ll join us next week when we’ll be talking some more about nuns, Kim! Yayyy! But in this case, it’s a murdering nun!

KIM: Cue the gothic music. Yes, we’ll be talking all about the first female English novelist (and sometime spy), Aphra Behn, as well as her titillating story, “The History of a Nun” with Pomona College professor Sarah Raff joining us for this discussion.

AMY: Ooh, maybe she can tell us how to actually pronounce her last name, because I was saying APHRA BEN… you say AFRA BAYN? I don’t know.

KIM: I don’t know. I don’t know.

AMY: Yeah, we’re going to ask Sarah that.

KIM: She’ll know, yeah.

AMY: It’s going to be a fun discussion, though — I can’t wait! And in the meantime, sign up for our monthly newsletter if you want to know more information on the authors we’re featuring, including a schedule of upcoming novels we’ll be discussing so you can read along with us. See you next week!