Spare

Potential spoiler alerts: This book was a fascinating glimpse into Harry’s mind. His young mother died. Not only did she die, as all mothers do, she was killed in a car accident, as happens to some mothers. Not only was she killed in a car accident, she was being chased by paparazzi, senselessly, which is unique. This was beyond young Harry’s comprehension. He was never ever able to process her death. Why, why, why? Her death plagued him, and her death still haunts him. His family was and still appears to be stoic. They aren’t a touchy feely bunch. They don’t talk about their emotions. It seems from the book they are too busy with their jobs to show their love of family through quality time. And what gifts and acts of services from family would have been meaningful to the young prince? So Harry floundered on his own without the support he needed and wanted at a critical time in his life. Had he been younger or older, perhaps he would have handled his mom’s death differently. Despite the Queen’s and his father’s reported reliance on her Christian faith, Harry said his religion was nature. This hasn’t worked out so well for Harry. Instead, he turned to alcohol and drugs. Hard to say if he has an addiction from the book. It was an eye opener to me how much alcohol and drugs he uses in his circle! (Is this what all the elite do? No wonder the world is messed up!) I guess it’s very affordable and available? He didn’t mention in the book what he does for fun. Parties seemed to be a prime hobby for him. The alcohol and drugs are of course mood altering he admits, but were they also contributing to his depression and agoraphobia? He raises lots of good questions. As far as the British paparazzi are concerned, as a not famous American, it’s hard for me to comprehend. The difference between being a famous actor and a famous prince is that an actor chose the career knowing what comes with it. Harry did not. I want to do a bit of research about British newspapers too. It’s not clear to me whether Harry was obsessed with American equivalents of the New York Times or the National Enquirer. Are all newspapers in Britain like the National Enquirer? And obsessed he was and is, based on his own words. I am on the internet a lot. I have to use a search engine to find articles about Harry. I am not bombarded with Harry articles. I go to the American grocery store. I see magazines. I also see (trash type) newspapers. I haven’t done research, I don’t have data, but don’t people by the trash type newspapers for fun? “Elvis Presley seen walking at Graceland on his birthday” Does anyone believe this stuff? So I’m trying to figure out what kind of newspapers these British papers are. Some kind of cross between a legitimate newspaper and a trash newspaper? Before reading this book, you may want to do some research first on newspapers in England. For whatever reason, Harry put a lot of value-too much value- on the crap he read about himself. It mattered a lot about what people he didn’t know thought about him. The book also makes the people of England look very stupid (which I hope they aren’t) because Harry feels that the majority of people believe and are influenced by the junk that’s published about him. I guess to some extent, a bunch of people must buy the nonsense, and therefore support the publishers. And his dad and the Queen were right about one thing: today, what is the monarchy without the “media”. If the monarchy did all of their services without the benefit of the publicity, would enough people from the commonwealth know about their good works and want to continue to support the monarchy? (If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it make a sound?) To persist, the monarchy needs publicity (bad publicity probably works as well as good publicity) like any other organization or business. From Harry’s perspective, I drew the conclusion that his relatives seem to think it’s beneath them to do legitimate interviews with legitimate news media on a regular basis. Perhaps they want to maintain an aloofness and mystique? And they spend a lot of time crafting “leaks” to the media. Why are “leaks” needed? Why are “leaks” to the press ever needed? Perhaps they want deniability? The normal sibling rivalry was reinforced and magnified hundredfold by Harry’s mom, dad, the queen, the monarchy… The two brothers would need a lot of joint counseling by someone to overcome the damage done but who has experience counseling heir/spare relationships? The book makes it seem like the family was all business unless you were part of a couple. The Queen and her husband, William and Kate, Charles and Camilla, within a small circle of two, the couples seem to relate to each other as family as well as business partners. Outside each circle, the book read like it was all business. And they all have egos to be fed. Unlike other successful family businesses, this monarchy business appears to focus more on the individual, than on the company as a whole. Unlike a sports team, it’s not about team monarchy, it’s about each super player on the team, including Harry. Just the way the company is structured is odd. The leadership of team monarchy wasn’t portrayed in the book as bringing the team together, growing each member of the team, capitalizing on strengths and overcoming weaknesses… the normal stuff a good team leader does. For instance, if it’s one company, why are their multiple PR groups sending mixed messages to the press? If I was queen haha there would be one PR group. If I found out about leaks, you would be “fired”. And if it is the way Harry described, if I was queen, I wouldn’t tolerate competitive PR teams! What a power trip those sides must be on! One person is the heir, others are spares, but until the heir becomes the next leader, why the preferential treatment within the company? Oh wait! Because the heir doesn’t have to earn the right to be king or queen, it’s given to him from the day he is born. Yes, absolutely fascinating group dynamics going on here in this unique company! A couple words about Meghan. She had a huge internet following on her own site, right? She was an influencer. And yet Harry said she didn’t google him and didn’t know anything about him or his family, and it was so refreshing. Harry also said after they hooked up, she was bombarded by the media negativity about Harry and herself, suicidal even. She didn’t pay attention before they hooked up but afterwards she paid so much attention she was suicidal?, Anyway it was a very interesting read!

This is not really an easy book to review. It’s controversial for obvious reasons; there’s been much public controversy around Harry and Meghan, and those who aren’t for them, are sometimes quite vitriolic. Even those who aren’t vitriolic tend to treat all criticisms and condemnations of the pair as being true because after all, it’s Harry and Meghan, and obviously it’s them, not Will & Kate, the officially charming heir and wife, now officially Prince and Princess of Wales. And anything that’s bad for Harry, well, he should be used to it because royalty, Will’s the heir, Harry’s the spare, so obviously if he’s unhappy he’s just resenting his place in the family. Or Meghan is pushing him to, despite the fact that he was obviously unhappy with both the public role and extreme limitations on what he could do. Not a desire to go out clubbing more; a desire to do things he was actually good at–like being a soldier., Reading about Harry’s school years, I wondered whether he’d ever been tested for neurodivergence or other things that might be called “learning disorders.” Stupid people don’t become very good military pilots. People who have developmental issues that make learning from books and lectures difficult potentially can. But of course the answer is that he wouldn’t have been tested. In the rigid and outdated worldview of the Royal Family and those who surround them, a diagnosed neurodivergence or learning disability would have been viewed as far worse than merely being “not the smart one.” Particularly since he was not the heir, but just the spare., Some stories that have been cited as clear evidence of Will and Harry being treated differently have been dismissed as “William’s going to be king someday; Harry isn’t.” In many cases that’s valid. The chances of the second son ever being king were always low, and they dropped lower, not just when William actually got married, but when he was nearing adulthood, alive and healthy. They were being prepared for different lives. Some differences were not just appropriate, but necessary., But some of them were just differences that said to two young children that one of them didn’t matter., Yet the real problem may have been the way they were treated “the same,” when that was for looks rather than what was good for the two of them. Eton wasn’t academically a good fit for Harry, and William was at the age where you don’t want to be embarrassed by your younger sibling. Yet it was judged essential for both boys to go to Eton–where William told Harry they officially didn’t know each other, Harry struggled academically, and Harry acted out in, actually fairly normal, rule-breaking and pranks, that the son of the Prince of Wales couldn’t get caught in., Harry doesn’t so much talk about his mother’s death, but his blocking out the grief he’s afraid to experience by convincing himself it’s all an elaborate trick, his Mummy disappearing to escape the way the media treated her. He held on to this idea, and didn’t confront and process his grief, until a visit to Paris as an adult, when he went to the tunnel where she had her fatal accident., It’s after Eton that we start to see the nearly adult Harry, as he takes a gap year, originally on a cattle ranch (station?) in Australia. It’s a good experience for him, doing hard, physical work every day, regular chores, eating with the family, and not being in the public eye., Until the paparazzi find him, and create not just distraction, but potential danger for the ranch and the cattle with their happy disregard for anything except getting the pictures they wanted. Harry has to leave, and instead goes to Africa–where he makes connections that became very important to him in the years to come., In the following years, he enlists in the army, starts training as a pilot, has his first serious girlfriends–relationships that end, when the women find they, and their families, can’t endure the paparazzi whose constant pursuit that Harry already hates. And no, it’s not okay because he’s a royal. It’s utterly nonsensical to say on the one hand that he has no reason to complain about anything because he’s so privileged, and on the other hand he’s so low in the line of succession that he’s a nobody who shouldn’t expect anything at all, including being able to serve in a combat zone as a regular soldier, without becoming an additional threat to his fellow soldiers because of the mindless pursuit of the media., He becomes a very good pilot, and is deployed to Afghanistan, where he does very well as an FAC–a Forward Air Commander–until, of course, the media catch up with him., He gets pulled out, of course, and it takes him quite a long time to jump through all the hoops needed to get back there (while not being able to do anything else worthwhile in the meantime). He manages it eventually, and is again doing very well there, when a media party comes through, and he’s ordered to cooperate with them. They promise to keep his location secret, and they of course don’t, and he’s pulled out again, and it’s the end of his military career., It’s late in the book that he meets Meghan Markle, and this of course is wildly controversial the moment it becomes public knowledge., No, Meghan wasn’t treated just like Kate, or Camilla, or even Diana. There’s too much to say, so I’ll limit myself to just pointing out that none of the others were featured in a photoshopped picture, walking with William or Charles, holding hands with a toddler chimpanzee. That was vile, that was inexcusable, and anyone who claims not to believe that Meghan was at one point suicidal in the face of the viciousness and malevolence of the coverage she was subjected to, was, to be charitable, not paying attention., But also, anyone who thinks Harry was ever happy as part of the Royal Family “firm,” wasn’t paying attention, either. Nor was the reason for his unhappiness that he was “lazy.” It’s one thing to say he was born into the job, but you’re allowed to quit jobs, even the family business., Harry has a great deal to say about his own mistakes, his sometimes questionable behavior (which, depending on your views, may include his use of marijuana and sometimes hallucinogenic mushrooms), and his mental health struggles., There’s also a fair amount about what look like very odd family dynamics. For me, this includes the fact that William and Charles call Harry–whose given name is Henry–“Harold.” Why? Harry never says or says anything to suggest he thinks it’s odd. Which suggests there might be a reason he got that nickname, and I went to Google…, All I found was a suggestion that it’s because William the Conqueror was the first King William of England, and he became King of England by defeating and killing Harold Godwinson (Harold II of England)., If that’s true, it’s beyond odd. It’s downright unhealthy. But it’s only a story on the internet, without great sourcing. I wouldn’t even consider it, if I had found anything else at all. Yet the sourcing remains so vague that still I can only roll my eyes at it., If anyone reading this has a better explanation, I want to hear it. Really. Please give me something more plausible if you can., We do follow Harry and Meghan through their courtship and marriage, with all the weirdness of what’s okay for them to do and what isn’t, and the media’s vicious descent on Meghan. The book ends with them living in the US, and the birth of their second child, Lilibet. Harry certainly doesn’t make it sound as if they will ever move back to the UK, which will outrage all the same people who hate them., This is an insightful and moving book. Harry has given a lot of thought to things, and is open and vulnerable, and well worth reading., I bought this book.