The ‘Spare’ strikes back: A tedious autobiography of Prince Harry evokes sympathy only in flashes
Express News Service
So here are the facts as we know it. The book flew off the shelves in the Prince’s home country, selling over four lakh copies on its launch day itself. That it’s one big whinge-fest from a seriously troubled, not-so-young man who blithely breaks the Code of the Windsors in washing very dirty linen out in the open.
If it’s a form of catharsis, let’s hope that the Prince has achieved some sort of closure, on the tragedy of his mother’s death when he was a stripling of 12, if not on his fractious relationship with the ultimate stiff-upper-lip family he belongs to.
And here are the things we come to know from the book that the less-than-savoury reputation Harry acquired over the years was largely due to his inability to resolve the trauma that sat on his shoulders like big black boulders, from the time Diana died. His mommy complex is so huge, it tends to dominate, indeed overwhelming, all other strings to his particular lute.
At times the accounts appear as rather infantile, the way he clings to her memories, believes she sends him messages through animals in the wild at Botswana. At other times, it gets tediously in the way of the story being told.
He tends to blame everybody and everything else for the mess that he feels his life has largely become––Pa (King Charles), the waffling but caring man who just won’t step up to the plate where finances are concerned; Camilla, the stepmother he tries to keep a polite distance from while allowing his dislike to show through, especially when he terms it ‘the era of Camilla’.
Then there’s big brother “Willy”, cast as the main villain, the old Heir vs Spare thingie. Willy is cold, uncaring, jealous, roughs up our poor prince at least once, after they have outgrown their childhood fisticuff bouts, and so on, ad nauseam, ad nauseatingly. There’s also Kate Middleton Windsor, another member of the Cold Brigade, someone Harry seemed to get on famously with till his wife, Meghan Markle, entered the scene.
It’s the press and the paps though that Harry loathes the most. It is no one’s contention that they are a considerate lot, but Harry’s continued spewing at their practices tends to get tedious.
There are quite a few India mentions through the book: Meghan’s trip to India in 2017; a tailor named Ajay to see to the wedding alterations; the couple’s deep belief in Ayurveda; German singer Deva Premal’s Sanskrit mantras played to Meghan as she goes into labour.
Prince William
You’ve got to appreciate his self-introspection, however, when he talks of a failure of thinking, character, education where his behaviour is concerned. The war bits too, make for interesting reading, as does a Windsor’s views on monarchy (carefully ambiguous as expected). Mention of a frost-bitten penis, peeing in his pants, going to a séance where the medium tells him Diana is there with him at the moment, and suchlike were meant to be warmly confiding, but end up with the reader going, TMI! As for the accounts of his abusing drugs, it would appear that he does drugs a lot. Or did.
So yes, we do feel sorry for the personal troubles of the Prince. We feel sorry when Meghan and he suffer a miscarriage. But is the tittle-tattle about the royal family controversial enough for us here in India? This Englishman, with a decided persecution complex, keeps account of all slights, real and perceived, and takes himself way too seriously. And more importantly, needs a better therapist.
Spare has been ghost-written by JR Moehringer, an American journalist, and for the most part, he lets the voice of the Prince come through. It’s when he adds flourishes––Harry telling us his was an existentialist life, or sprinkles undiluted Americanisms being uttered by an Englishman, like ‘felt wide of the mark’, ‘made a step towards them’, ‘seemed checked out’, uses ‘arch nemesis’ for arch enemy, ‘balk’ for baulk, says ‘took my breath’ without the ‘away’––that the reader’s eyebrows go up.
ALSO READ | ‘Spare’ but not stingy: Takeaways from Prince Harry’s memoir
The Duke of Sussex is reported to have pocketed something to the tune of $20 million from the publishing house as advance. One can only hope the money goes some way, as indeed the act of telling the world his troubles, in ameliorating his inner upheaval. Because a sequel to Spare (what a splendid title, by the way) is going to be too tedious to bear. Plus, it might well encourage other spares—like the beleaguered younger brother of one of India’s richest industrialists, for instance, to pen down
his travails, too.
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