So exhaustingly much has been said and written about Prince Harry in recent days, about the confidences and reproaches he makes in his autobiography, that perhaps something of the most important has been lost. “Spare”, or “Reserven”, which was released today, does not seem primarily a story about a deep family conflict. More than anything else, it is a tale of grief, and of loneliness. The main character of the book, next to the prince himself, is his mother, Princess Diana. After she dies in a traffic accident in Paris in 1998, when her youngest son is twelve years old, her absence makes her a constant presence. Photo: John Gaps Iii / AP Harry dreams of her. He fantasizes that she is not dead, but has contrived some sort of accident to escape the press, and will soon send for him and his brother. So much of what he does, the fighting and experimenting with drugs, is to distract himself and numb the pain. Very early in the book, the prince mentions how his mother had once said in an interview that she loved her children “like an obsession”. “Well, mother,” writes the prince, “thank you all the same.” YOUNG PRINCES: Princess Diana with her sons William and Harry in 1992. Photo: JEAN-PIERRE MULLER / AFP Something that news coverage and conversations in canteens around the world have in common is that they are often most concerned with the specific, the sensational, the events who breaks into the foreground and makes a number of himself. Therefore, it is not surprising that the most has been written and spoken about the new information that has come to light in “Spare”, that Harry and William got into a fight during an argument about Harry’s relationship with Meghan Markle, that the brothers begged their father to not to marry Camilla Parker Bowles. What is less sensational, the regular life that lies there, in the background of a human life, does not receive as much attention. King Charles and his then-fiancee Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005. In the book, Harry writes that he begged his father not to marry Parker Bowles. Photo: Jim Watson / AP But the grief over Diana seems to be just such a major, a tinnitus, something that characterizes the prince wherever he stands and walks. In that respect, this is not a book primarily about being royal, but about being left behind. In other ways, of course, it is precisely a book about royalty. Harry is a vulnerable man who was once a vulnerable boy. This is not so easy in a family where there is probably love, but where at the same time there are built-in mechanisms that create distance, between the royals and the people, and between the family members. Prince Harry was 12 years old when Diana died in a car accident in Paris. The brothers and then Prince Charles met the public outside Kensington Palace. Photo: REBECCA NADEN / AFP Hugging is one of the rarities. The family is a chef-monk of professional and private considerations, governed by a fixed hierarchy. Nobody can do anything if it takes the attention away from those who stand higher up the ladder. That sort of thing sets the stage for competition and jealousy. Harry describes how, as a boy, he was left alone in his bed after his father had told him about his mother’s death, and how, as an adult, he almost isolates himself at home, afraid of the panic attacks that increasingly strike him when he is out among people, and hurting over not being invited more often to William and Kate for dinner, and full of longing to have a family of her own. He may not be the man in the world most mindful of his own innate privileges, but what ails him is not something his royal title can help him with either. Prince William, Kate and their photogenic family are very popular in England. Photo: Aaron Chown / AP “Spare” has been perceived by many as an attack on his father, the newly crowned King Charles III, and Queen Camilla. It is true that the prince is bitter about having been used as part of his father’s PR strategy as he tried to prepare the public for his marriage to the then Camilla Parker Bowles, whom many Britons loathed because they saw her as the reason why Princess Diana was so unhappy. But King Charles appears primarily as a well-intentioned but aloof figure, one who loves his sons but fails to show it. There is great tenderness in the scene where Prince Harry, who was afraid of the dark as a child, describes how his father used to sit on the edge of his bed and stroke his forehead until he fell asleep, always leaving the door ajar when he snuck out. The real disappointment seems to be with the brother, William, who did not want to know about his little brother when they were both pupils at the private school Eton and who on more than one occasion comes across as something of a bully. But it is not certain that the criticism will hit. TWO BROTHERS: The real disappointment seems to be with the brother, William. Photo: DOMINIC LIPINSKI / AFP When Princess Diana talked about how difficult she had been in the British royal family at the time in the nineties, the world was more than willing to listen and understand. No one thought very highly of the emotional intelligence of her in-laws in the first place. For their part, Prince William, Kate and their photogenic family are very popular, and the tabloid newspapers, which Harry detests, have for years portrayed the eldest brother in a more flattering light than the youngest. For the older generation, Prince William’s silence may appear more dignified than Prince Harry’s flurry of words. What a flood of words it is. No detail is too private to be published in “Spare”. It’s as if Prince Harry has swung from one extreme to the other, from the Windsor rule of ‘don’t complain, don’t explain’ to pouring it all out. British press called the princes and their wives “The Fab Four”, before Prince Harry and Meghan Markle left the royal house. Photo: Frank Augstein / AP “Spare” comes from a man who has no training in portioning out his thoughts. And that makes one quickly think: What is he going to do now? Such a story can only be told once, can only be sold once. The veil is seriously drawn aside. The headlines today are old news tomorrow. Perhaps Prince Harry will continue to pay attention to everything that is written about him, as he obviously has until now, and still feel the need to correct anything that is wrong. But in such a fight it will be him against hordes of tabloid journalists and online gossip mongers, and that fight is unlikely to be won. Or maybe there is some kind of peace to be found, after laying your heart on the desk. Whether you like or dislike what he’s doing, you have to be a cold fish not to indulge him.
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A story of grief – Expression
