Character caused a scandal at old school
WRITER Olga Wojtas’s novel – Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Golden Samovar – is a homage to Miss Jean Brodie. Like Spark, she is a former pupil of James Gillespie’s High School. Wojtas said: “When the book was published in 1961, closely followed by the play and the film with Maggie Smith, Gillespie’s was horrified and thought the school was being brought into disrepute. “We were often taken to see plays at the Lyceum but not to see the stage adaptation of that book. “My heroine, Shona McMonagle, who works in Morningside Library, went to Marcia Blaine and remains outraged by Muriel Spark’s book which she thinks is a foul calumny on her alma mater. She spends her time trying to stop people reading it, which only whets their interest.” Wotjas discovered the book as a teenager and has returned to it several times. She said: “I’m just blown away by how clever and complex it is. “Muriel plays a lot with time – she uses flashforwards so that you know the ending but you’ve no idea how you’re going to get there. That inspired me to make my heroine a time-traveller. “Her writing is so elegant. There’s often an otherworldly quality to it. She’s intellectual, philosophical, and entertaining.” Wotjas hopes that Spark’s centenary will put her in her rightful place in Scottish literature. She said: “It’s bringing her work to a wider audience and widening the focus beyond Miss Brodie. She’s a literary superstar.”