Among the different interpretations with which Spare can be read, Autobiography of Prince Harry Released on January 10th and already at the top of the world rankings with almost a million and a half copies sold, there is one thing that is now for all to see: this book has already changed the narrative Windsor dynastywhich then, beyond any media superstructure, is the family in which Harry was born and raised and from which he later escaped as an adult with his wife Megan Markle.
Hated and criticized by much of the British press, which is anyway the Duke of Sussex’s main enemy – he doesn’t give the first and last names of the hated journalists, but whoever was mentioned in the book recognized themselves – the book is An interesting editorial product largely thanks to the pen of JR Moehringer, the ghostwriter of stars, lovers of dramatic stories and singers of troubled father-son relationships. It is certainly an exceptional document, where “extraordinary” means unique. There are no books by royals like Harry and chances are they won’t exist after that. If we consider that 70 years reign of Elizabeth II never gave an interview, the uniqueness of this document is all the more obvious.
After decades of real news and exclusives generated by the words of nebulous “palace insiders”, “close sources” of this or that family member, we will use a first-hand reference to report or share genuine anecdotes for years to come . there Harry’s versionactually the ultimate insider, nephew of a queen, son of a king, brother of an heir to the throne, the Riserva.
We’ll probably never know if what he tells in his book is true or false (although several historians of the royal family have already made fleas over some obscure or false plot points), but the veracity of the stories Elizabeth, PhilipDiana, Fergie, Carlo and more William and Kate, Harry and Megan and all the minor characters that add to the Mountbatten-Windsor pedigree were never really a priority. Removing the veil from this family’s mythical and legendary aura has always been at the heart of the royal narrative.
This veil was removed by Prince Harry. And there’s no turning back.
“The king is naked!”
Between 1968 and 1969, the royal family ventured into a kind of reality show, intended to provide unpublished and innovative first-hand content about the private and institutional lives of its main members, to produce a documentary: The Idea of Prince Filippo , very fascinated by TV and avant-garde in terms of communication and marketing strategies at a time when these two things were not yet in the foreground. For 18 months, various TV crews followed Queen Elizabeth around the world, but also on Balmoral and SandringhamOutpost of the heart in which he put aside his official commitments to wear his iconic ones Hermès scarf, the boots and the barbour and slingshot with their hounds through woods and moors, free from all burdens. The result was a documentary, broadcast to great fanfare by the BBC and ITV in 1969, and then met with rebuffs from every angle by the whole family, even Prince Philip, who sponsored it. He never aired again and to this day the surviving Windsors are careful not to name him.
A scene from the famous 1969 documentary about the royal family
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This document, exceptional, unique and full of images in the face of hundreds of hours of recording, debased the entire raison d’être of the monarchy in the eyes of the royals: it made them ordinary and simple people, as in fact they were private and transformed them in the eyes the public opinion of deities endowed with a rationally inexplicable but mystically plausible power into pure and humble parents, children, uncles, cousins of a large extended family, richer and more powerful than all others, but still one Family.
If the Princess AnnaElizabeth’s second daughter, who was defined by many as “the best queen we’ll never have,” back when she called the documentary “lazy,” we can’t imagine what she would be like now, more than 50 years on , think of it Nephew Harry’s book, which not only humanizes all the characters of this royal crib, but above all praises their vices and sins. Everybody with their father, mother, brother or cousin had to deal with them at least once in their life
The “never-complain-never-explain” result internalized over years and years is that, besides revealing details we didn’t want to know about (who can look at a photo of that William and Kate’s wedding in 2011 without thinking about Harry with the frozen penis? Did it really take two pages to tell that anecdote?) and interesting insights into the psychology of grief, in several places conveys the feeling of committing a crime against modesty. As if reading about the Queen hating drafts and forcing her son Charles and nephew into a sweat bath in one of Sandringham’s rooms like anyone over the age of eighty was a sin.
We discover that in the book Kate Middleton she is perfect, always alert, always well dressed, always stiff as she appears in the photo and who does not give up even when she goes to dinner with her in-laws and is received in jeans and bare feet, when in reality she is her is assured us that perhaps this facade of perfection has been put aside behind closed doors. The indestructible connection between the Brothers William and Harrycrystallized in that painful moment of mourning, in that corridor behind the mother’s coffin Diana SpencerShe is shattered: as in any bond, it is not blood that dictates affection, the Duke of Sussex reveals to us, and not always the good one wishes for a loved one is strong enough to quell their meanness always and in any event forgive.
We discover that Carlo is the typical father who knows everything but says nothing, when he speaks he communicates halfway, when he sees an illness he averts his gaze and when he can help someone he always helps the element, which is alien to the original core, so Camilla; Everything that people have always believed to be true about Camilla is true in Harry’s story.
What emerges from Spare is that the Windsors are basically a family like many others: they fight and fight over money, they complain about a lack of affection, attention and care, they talk bad about each other’s backs, sometimes they love themselves, but only in times of absolute equilibrium. Did we want to know? The real question is this.
If hit television works like The Crown had already taken us beyond the threshold of palace doors, Harry’s book strips away that king we said we couldn’t even look in the eye. Let alone watching him in the most intimate corners of his body. We don’t care if it’s a good book or not, if the prince’s motives in publishing it are sacred or evil, if he did it for money or revenge to break free or gain weight. Net of interest in the monarchy by the people who would still be nosediving without the defibrillation generated content like this that Biography of Prince Harry It’s already the beacon we’ll be looking to when we need to talk about royals and their petty crimes so similar, so earthly to ours.