Bookclub for Spare

[BornBlonde]

I know there are loads of threads, but thought it may be useful to set up a bookclub thread ahead of the release date fir those interested. I've ordered the audiobook as struggling to find time to read at the moment but love I can listen to an Audiobook while cooking etc

Various US states have other laws which some here would find questionable - on at least two separate situations involving the rights of women. So am not sure that championing their use of drugs laws is a big win.

We all have our flaws don't we.

Not quite sure what you mean?

@Blossomtoes . There are lots of examples in the book of him getting things wrong eg. his memory of where he was when the Queen mother died. He says he was at school, newspapers say he was skiing. Is this an actual lie though? It’s a really odd thing to lie about.

I analyse spoken language as part of my job. It is incredibly common for people to do this. You probably do it yourself all the time, I know I do. People have clear memories of things that aren’t exactly as they happened. If you told me it was raining when your grandfather died and I found out it was sunny would you have been lying? Lying means knowing the truth and deliberately choosing to say something different.

You definitely couldn’t use Harry’s book to provide you with reliable historical data. He says himself his memory is bad. Is this the same as lying? Of course not.

For those, like me, interested in the literary aspects of the books, and the narrative and literary devices JR Moehringer uses to weave Harry's story, here is a terrific, critical and balanced review from The New Yorker, who are as interested as much in the writing of books as in what they say.

In a soaring coda, Moehringer has the Prince once again reflecting on the royal dead, describing the family he belongs to as nothing less than a death cult. “We christened and crowned, graduated and married, passed out and passed over our beloveds’ bones. Windsor Castle itself was a tomb, the walls filled with ancestors,” Harry writes. It’s a powerful motif: the Prince—shattered in childhood by his mother’s death, his every step determined by the inescapable legacy of the countless royal dead—as an unwilling Hamlet pushed, rather than leaping, into the grave.

Recalling the meeting with his father and brother in the Frogmore burial ground with which the book began, Harry invokes the most famous soliloquy from the play of Shakespeare’s that he says he once slammed shut: “Why were we here, lurking along the edge of that ‘undiscover’d country, from whose bourn no traveller returns?’ ” Then comes a final, lovely, true, and utterly poetry-puncturing observation: “Though maybe that’s a more apt description of America.” In moving to the paradisaical climes of California, Harry has been spared a life he had no use for, which had no real use for him. The unlettered Prince has gained in life what Hamlet achieved only in death: his own story shaped on his own terms, thanks to the intervention of a skillful Horatio. You might almost call it Harry’s crowning achievement.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/23/prince-harry-memoir-spare-review?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_011323&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&utm_term=tny_daily_digest&bxid=5dfabadd2ddf9c62c1056780&cndid=45140809&hasha=0e99a227d716fee34ab90d1f038368f7&hashb=d9a8ffa2d512f23389526ff92047611882a5180c&hashc=e36841d3c2d40b02b1a59664f54e6bb1e0b2fb69b32798e6675294d431fee90a&esrc=Auto_Subs&mbid=CRMNYR012019

Harry invoking Shakespeare, yup, totes believable.

MrsMaxDeWinter, I certainly don't have your erudition when it comes to lit crit. The problem I have with the way it's written is the frequent changes in style - the description above of Windsor as a tomb, quite literary and flowery, against the very choppy, short sections.

My understanding of a ghostwriter's job is that they take the content and produce a cohesive whole that 'sounds' like the subject. If so, Harry is one confuzzled character!

If so, Harry is one confuzzled character!

Ghostwriter made it authentic then 😂

I started reading it. I have a lot of sympathy for Harry and Meghan and I’m interested in the whole thing around how different parts of the same family leak against each other. I’m not too worried about discrepancies, I find it odd that other people were unaware that however many people witness something is the number of different accounts you’ll get. Some
people must have very limited exposure to the world.

But I stopped because it was just too mean. Some of the things he writes about the matron, about Princess Margaret, about his brother are just so savage. It actually bothered me how casually nasty he could be. I think - and hope - he will regret that as he gets older.

Well he’s almost 40 you’d think he would have some self reflection by now but clearly not. I’m meant to be getting my copy today. Friend is lending it to me.

Thanks @MrsMaxDeWinter, I really enjoyed reading that. I do like the way the book has all these literary flourishes and rather beautiful descriptions which are then brought down to earth by some very prosaic detail or some humour.

Btw I noticed in another thread you were spot on in translating the Spanish chapter titles back into those lines from Invictus!

**

Transcript of Harry's interview with Bryony Gordon if anyone wants to read it.
bryonygordon.substack.com/p/a-cup-of-tea-with-prince-harry

This one feels more like a conversation between friends and doesn't seem to bring out Harry's defensive side, which I feel allowed him to be a bit more nuanced in what he says and flesh out his thoughts on the press and his 'mission', more thoughtfully. It comes across as less grandiose which I'm pleased about, as I thought he came across as a bit unwell at times in the Tom Bradby interview!

He shouldn’t have mentioned William’s children. That’s not right.

I’d be beyond livid if my estranged family member ever mentioned my dcs in public. It’s not for him to comment.

How does he know how they will feel? That’s way way below the belt.

He’s being a bully now nothing more nothing less. Surprised some of you can’t see it.

@Coxspurplepippin

The problem I have with the way it's written is the frequent changes in style - the description above of Windsor as a tomb, quite literary and flowery, against the very choppy, short sections.

It's a deliberate choice. Short choppy sentences are for propulsion, and the longer sentences and passages are for moments of contemplation or description.

You can't exactly write.

Balmoral. Big castle in Scotland. Bowed to Queen Victoria.

Whereas you can say:

Ski instructor? Pa tensed. Out of the question. Ok. Um, safari guide? No, darling boy, that won't do.

Harry invoking Shakespeare, yup, totes believable.

Harry does not invoke Hamlet, the ghost writer does, as a literary device.

That said, Harry does actually talk about Shakespeare. There is a great passage about Charles's love for the Bard, including the speech he gave on Shakespeare. Harry also has a funny story about performing in a Shakespeare play before he could leave Eton and Charles laughing at the wrong bits. Harry also says specifically that he tried to read Hamlet, but found the subject matter (Prince obsessed with dead parent, Prince sees ghost of dead parent, Prince dealing with usurper of dead parent) too close to his own life so didn't finish it.

That's the Hamlet theme JR picks up on and threads through the memoir. Pretty obvious, I would have thought, as the parallels are so striking.

J R Moehringer is a Pulitzer Prize winning writer and the extracts I've heard are well written .
Most surprising for me ( based on the dull wooden 'royals' public speaking ) Harry reads very well - better than some professional readers I've endured on audible

Aspiringmatriarch, it's so funny how people read things so differently. That interview transcript had me rolling my eyes somewhat. Ms Gordon is a bit of a sychophant. Harry's had therapy and now he's the expert on everything and everybody . Trying to save them from themselves? Puhleease.

I'm amazed at the things people give him a pass on and agree @MissMarpleRocks, he's a vile bully.

His voice is alive, which makes him so easy to listen to. Perhaps he is a natural, or perhaps it is osmosis from living with Meghan. He is a surprisingly good mimic. That Batman voice! "Hello Harry!"

@Aspiringmatriarch it was not that difficult to work out the chapter headings once I saw the Primera Parte en Espagnol. 😀

There were elements of that, but in general I could see where he was coming from. After spending years being numb he feels therapy has helped him come back to life and cleared away all the accumulated crap. He wants to shout it from the rooftops, which is a bit of a pitfall for the newly therapised, but I also understand he feels he's been under this microscope and had so many books and articles written about him, he now wants to tell the world his story in his own words.

@MissMarpleRocks are you talking about the bridesmaid dress or something else?

@JustWhattheDoctorOrdered but isn’t Harry, in that example with the Queen Mother dying, also trying to illustrate how cold his family is, so an unknown person phoning him to tell him she has died when he is alone in his room in Eton. Whereas in fact he was with his family on a ski holiday and Charles passed on the news. Could that not bring into doubt how he describes what happened when Charles told him Diana, his mum, had died.

'It's a deliberate choice. Short choppy sentences are for propulsion, and the longer sentences and passages are for moments of contemplation or description.'

Yes, but to me it sounds 'messy' - the flowery descriptive parts don't sound authentic when mixed with the more 'colloquial' writing.

The interview he’s just given linked above - how’s one of William’s children will feel like him. It’s not for him to comment. If that was my estranged family member- the thought actually makes me feel sick.

He's trying to provoke a reaction - it’s not nice to see. He’s a bully imo. Others obviously give him a free pass.

anyway got to get on with my day. Probably won’t be back till Monday as getting my copy today!

Ah yes, OK. I can see your point there.

@MissMarpleRocks enjoy the day, am so curious to know what you make of it. Come back soon!

Well you had sharper eyes than the translators they used! Mind you bits of that were so funny, it had to have been Google translate or something ("he will never again be the foremost Willy" etc.)

Finished the book last night and thought it was a fascinating read.

I was shocked at the level of the drug-taking (whch is still happening and which I have no doubt is adding to his paranoia) but given what a totally fucked up life he's had I can't say i'm surprised tbh.