Book Review: Spare by Prince Harry, Duke Of Sussex
It's just "much ado about nothing." This is the first phrase that comes to mind after reading this tell-all tale called Spare by Prince Harry, especially when the whole book is stuffed with pretentious attempts to appeal to Shakespearean dramatic allusions, so cherished by the current King Charles III and so unfamiliar and boring to his "darling boy."
Actually the strongest part of Spare is its well-chosen ghostwriter J. R. Moehringer, a Pulitzer-winning reporter who turned into memoirist and is already known for masterly writing down the memories of the tennis star Andre Agassi. No doubt that only thanks to him Prince Harry's (who doesn't like reading books and never studied at the university) chats were transformed into the sentences pulsating in the language of Shakespeare, however, recognizable only to the majors in English literature and probably left unnoticed by the general crowd of the curious readers. Nevertheless, all credits go to Moehringer who, as very accurately described by Rebecca Mead in The New Yorker, "shapes Harry's memories and obsessions, traumas and bugbears, into a coherent narrative: the peerless ghostwriter giving voice to the Shakespeareless prince."
The story is divided into three parts, the first sharing Harry's traumatic memories about his mother's death and living through his adolescent years by still believing in mummy being alive but just hiding from the cruel paparazzi world. The second - too-stretched and too-detailed - part covers Harry's years of military service, and the third one is dedicated to meeting Meghan and all the recent hotch-potch happening in Harry's life.
Without surfing inconsistencies with the facts and keeping with preconceptions inspired by previous coverage of the same story, there are two things that this book reveals: predatory nature of British tabloids, which will never ever be suppressed, and silly old Harry, undoubtfully a good man and hopelessly in love, hugely impacted by the death of his mother, however, an extremely uneducated, sometimes even blunt, imprudent and selfish fellow. He wears a Nazi uniform to the party and blames William and Kate for recommending it but doesn't point towards himself - how come that a young man who went to Eton and is in his twenties has never heard of Holocaust and has to be sent by his father to the Rabi in Berlin to listen to the authentic tragic stories afterwards to silence the media scandal? He even confesses he hasn't heard of the love story between King Edward VIII and an American actress Wallis Simpson, though only Edward's voluntary resignation from the crown has opened the direct way to the throne for the entire Harry's family line.
"What could be odder... than a British prince not knowing British history?... We're talking about your blood relatives - does that mean nothing to you?" Prince Harry's answer to his history teacher Mr. Hughes-Games probably summarizes all the consequences of the current situation: "Less than nothing, sir."
Despite Moehringer's literary efforts to depict an image of a doomed spare brother written down from his birth and thrown to the media wolves by everybody in the royal family (although King Charles III still calls him "darling boy"), somehow Prince Harry's interpretation from the satirical animation sitcom The Prince now seems more than accurate. Especially when you skim the pages about his penis frozen in the North Pole and his attempts to revive his poor "todger". The things that he might have kept strictly to himself.
Anyway Spare is still worth reading because it always better to get a full context instead of sensational extract tweets, which circle inside the virtual media turning rather often into fake news. And who knows how this book of Princess Diana son's revelations will be considered in the future? For now Prince Harry sees it as means of reconciliation addressed to his father and brother. In return, King Charles III is evicting Prince Harry and Meghan from Frogmore Cottage.
