Customer Reviews

The Diana Chronicles (Random House Large Print)

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(41)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I thought so. With special access to sources as a result of her stint as editor of the Tatler in the UK, Tina Brown has written the story of Diana as both a media creation and media manipulator.

Shockingly uneducated and raised in a broken home, Brown says Diana focused on Charles early as the embodiment of all her life had lacked. Diana was judged to be aristocratic, pretty, malleable and above all a virgin. Charles was, according to Brown, more or less pushed into it by his parents, who along with "Uncle Dickie," the assassinated Earl of Mountbatten, were growing tired of Charles' unsuitable dalliances.

But Diana refused to play along. I'm sure we've all secretely wondered, "so how bad could it have been?" Brown convinces us that it was very bad indeed. Charles was dull, unemotional, and more interested in books than his pretty young wife. The Queen ruled the roost. Surprisingly to me at least, even in private all the courtesies of royalty had to be observed--everyone was summoned to breakfast at 9 am sharp at Balmoral, the summer retreat; no one could retire for the evening before the Queen. Costume changes were endless, as were tramps through the rain and hunting. And of course Camilla was ever present.

In response, Diana became a star. Perhaps she surprised herself at first but it didn't take her long to catch on. She'd tip the media off to her whereabouts, learned how to dress, and used her amazing warmth and charm, not to mention English beauty, to upstage the Royal Family on a regular basis. They were furious. And so was Diana. She could not acccept the royal practice of state marriage and a lover on the side. She was too young, too romantic. But Brown also shows us that she was very canny, and her media gambles--the Morton book, the famous TV interview--paid off. In her divorce negotiations she came off much, much better than her hapless sister-in-law Fergie. Stunned at how badly Sarah Ferguson was treated, Diana vowed it wouldn't happen to her--and it didn't.

Sadly we know the end of the story. How ironic that the most famous and desireable woman in the world spent her last summer in the arms of Dodi Fayed, who, Brown claims, was also pushed into it by his status-seeking father. One wonders what would have become of her; by the end of her life the chances of her finding a happy relationship seemed quite remote.

I raced through this book, fascinated by Brown's wealth of detail. Diana wasn't a saint as some claimed, nor an airhead. She was deeply troubled and quite amazing at the same time, and to Brown's credit I finished this book feeling I'd gotten a glimpse of the true person. Highly readable; highly recommended.

"August 31, 1997," the book begins. "Paris. The car that sped into the Pont D'Alma Tunnel at twenty-three minutes past midnight was carrying the most famous woman in the world."

Really? I know I rolled over and went back to bed when my then-wife --- who was 45 minutes late to our wedding --- woke up in the middle of the night to watch the Royal Wedding. Sure, Diana was a stunner. But very few men will tell you they want to spend more than a few hours with a bulimic woman of uncertain sanity. No, Diana was a chick fantasy.

The death? Another story. A horse-drawn wagon carrying a coffin and an envelope with one word, "Mommy," had the entire world blubbering. "I still weep when I see clips," a friend told me yesterday. "And the flowers in front of Buck House always get me."

But there have been so many books. And an excellent movie, "The Queen." What's left?

For most writers starting out on a Diana book in 2005, not much. But Tina Brown has a sharp eye for the telling fact. And her enormous Rolodex led her to sources who never talked before or who trusted her to Get It Right. The result is a reading experience that will take over your life until --- exhausted by unexpected empathy --- you turn the last page.

How is this? The end of the story is the most common memory on the planet. What don't we know about this woman?

Well, the "engagement ring" that Dodi Fayed bought Diana on the last day of her life --- he was in and out of the jewelry store in "seven minutes, twenty-seven seconds."

That last dinner at the Ritz --- Diana was "quietly weeping in full view of the clientele."

Camilla, on horseback, told Charles, on horseback, the first time they met, "That's a fine animal you have there, Sir."

How many times did Diana see Charles before their wedding? Thirteen.

When the marriage ended, what did Charles do with the unused wedding presents? Had them piled up in the garden --- and burned.

And there's so much more. Do the strange rituals of the Royal Family appeal to you? Are you curious about gossip columnists and photographers? And, most of all, do you get off on the sense of being in the room with real-life celebrities as their lives fall apart? Then "The Diana Chronicles" is an extra-large box of chocolates.

But this book is not just the greatest Vanity Fair cover story never written. Brown has a thesis. She doesn't bang you over the head with it --- it develops naturally. Like this: A shy, uneducated, dreamy girl from a dysfunctional family pushes herself into her country's ultimate family. Instead of finding Prince Charming, she finds herself married to a man who sneaks off to his lover every chance he gets. She's desperate for a hug from his mom, which is, of course, the last thing the Queen is able to give her. The marriage turns into the royal version of "A Star Is Born" --- she's going up, he's coming down. Envy, misunderstanding and misery ensue. Which leads to the wrong man, and another, and another, until she bottoms out with Dodi Fayed. "Diana told herself she was looking for love," Brown writes. "But what she was really seeking was a guy with a Gulfstream."

And the writing! Although the book is very much a narrative, the narrator does not seem like a writer at all --- "The Diana Chronicles" reads like a transcription of a brilliant raconteur. Here is Brown on the Ritz Hotel at summer's end:

...even the more exclusive areas of the hotel --- such as its restaurant, L'Espadon --- have a louche air of rootless extravagance. South American call girls with hirsute operators from emerging markets and rich old ladies with predatory nephews can be seen poring over the wine list under the trompe l'oeil of its opulent ceiling. Dinner for two sets you back $700.

Or this, Brown's takeaway of her lunch with Diana in July, 1997:

The heads of world-class celebrities literally seem to enlarge. Hillary Clinton's, for example, has grown enormously since she was the mere wife of the governor of Arkansas. It nods when she talks to you, like a balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. The years of limelight so inflamed the circumference of Jackie O's cranium, it seemed her real face must be concealed by an oversized Halloween mask. If you looked into her eyes, you could see her in there, screaming.

In these pages, we see Diana in there, screaming, and it makes all the difference. I always thought beneath that thin veneer was another thin veneer; Brown gives us a person. Indeed, she gives us all the people, fully fleshed. And, thus, surprising. Charles is much less of a jerk than you may have thought. And Prince Philip, a consistent dunce in "The Queen", does something quite magnificent at Diana's funeral.

Are there dead spots? Diana's childhood goes on and on. And the last few paragraphs made me uneasy --- I'm not at all sure Diana's sons are her "legacy". But those are small quibbles. Much more memorable is the intelligent conversation you have with a book like this --- for what is a more interactive experience than a smartly written book?

I sat on my window seat, book in hand, and read through the morning, was handed a sandwich, read on through the afternoon, ignored the child, day becoming night, the air cooler now, turning the pages faster, feeling the blood churn, wanting to shout no, no, don't...don't, and then the abreaction, the reliving of the funeral and the tears we shed for ourselves as much as for Diana --- yeah, the day I read "The Diana Chronicles" was a good one.

And the thing was, when I started reading, I didn't give a damn.

Don't read the Diana Chronicles if you're expecting new bombshell gossip about the life of Princess Diana. But do read it if you're looking for an interesting book that offers a unique take on a famous life.

In the early 1980s, when Lady Diana Spencer was on the verge of marrying her prince, Tina Brown was the 25-year-old editor of Tatler Magazine. A few years later, Princess Diana was the most famous woman in the world and Tina Brown was the most famous woman in publishing. The women knew each other and even met for lunch six weeks before Diana's death.

At times, the Diana Chronicles seems like an encyclopedic version of every book ever published on the late princess - the footnotes alone run 34 pages! But, because the author has connections that most of her fellow biographers can only dream of, it does offer some new insight into Princess Diana's life and the lives of the family she married into.

The Diana Chronicles is less a history and more an analysis. Brown takes some of the more famous moments in the Diana/Charles/Camilla mythology and offers her opinion on what actually took place. She looks not only at Diana's childhood, but also at the English aristocracy in the late 70s and early 80s. And she explains why the Windsors thought Diana would fit a certain mold.

Brown is respectful of the late princess's memory, yet not in awe of it. She is less interested in breaking news than in offering explanations for the different facets of a very complicated, and very human, woman. Ultimately, what makes the Diana Chronicles so worth reading has little to do with the subject and everything to do with the author. Tina Brown can write. And she can write brilliantly.

Four and a half stars.

Yes, she was a mess. She had an almost insatiable hunger for love combined with ridiculous taste in men. She had a short attention span. She was, as Brown points out again and again, "a tactician," who often exhibited reckless disregard for the long-term consequences of her actions. All true.

And yet, even after all this is disclosed, the woman we see is am ambitious, empathic woman, a mother who loves her sons, and a charismatic force of nature with a nearly undefeatable spirit. I don't know if it's Brown's writing or the power of Diana's personality that make her someone you root for, even as she races toward that sad end in Paris.

My biggest quibble with the book is NOT ENOUGH PHOTOS. Over and over, Brown makes reference to this iconic photograph, or to that famous dress she wore, or how Diana's style changed to reflect her evolving personality ... and it would be nice if those photos were included in the book. I found this frustrating.

I started THE DIANA CHRONICLES by Tina Brown by reading it in the store in parts. I figured it was ANOTHER Diana book, and I could pass some pleasant hours in the bookstore sitting in a chair going over some familiar ground. But I was surprised: Brown is an insightful, clear and unflinching writer who has the ability, due to her experience in print journalism, to view the famous through a cynical but knowledgeable media lens. This book was so good, that when I got 300 pages in to the 500-plus-page book, I bought it. It was getting hard to find, and I NEEDED to finish it.

The plotline of Diana's life does not need to be repeated here. What this book is good for is the way it examines her life and her responses to the events of her life as influenced by the media and the media coverage of the her every move. It's as if it weren't Diana and the media professionals who were in a relationship, but Diana and the media coverage who influenced each other. This study is a fascinating examination of how media attention can become a character in the narrative of a famous person's life. According to Brown, Diana made decisions not just in response to the other people in her life, but in reaction to press and how her actions might be reported and perceived. She lost the goal, at some points, of how press attention can influence individuals and became focused on the press itself.

This book presents a strong narrative, a plotline of a life that is compelling and cogent. Though we know the story well, Brown's reportage is complete and portrays not only a whole Diana, but a complete Charles and other royals who had to orbit her star while she was alive.

This was a fascinating book to read as an examination of a woman of fame who could not help but respond to the expectations of women in the times in which she lived. Reading THE DIANA CHRONICLES, one cannot help but think of the price some women pay to be the feminine, compassionate women the world wants them to be. When that world is personified by papparazzi and reporters in fragile woman's day-to-day life, her response can be astonishing.

I'm not a Diana-phile but when I heard that Tina Brown was writing a book on Diana I knew I'd have to read it. Tina Brown's take on popular culture is unique. She's not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom, you may not always agree with her but at her best Tina Brown is thought-provoking.

I approached this book as Tina's Take on the Diana Myth rather than an in depth biography full of new and startling revelations and it met my expectations, in a few cases it exceeded them. Brown offers more information about the breakup of the Spencer's marriage, it's impact on Diana, Diana's childhood and years as a Sloane Ranger. It's not exactly a sympathetic portrait, that's not Brown's style, but it is far from harsh.

Brown's POV is that Diana was used by the royal machine but that Diana was hardly the hapless victim. You won't be filled with admiration for any of the major characters in the book, especially not Camilla Parker-Bowles. Ultimately Brown does express some good old fashioned righteous indignation at Diana's plight but I couldn't help feeling that Brown was more outraged at the royal family than truly sympathetic toward Diana.

The best, most comprehensive biography of Diana is still Sally Bedell Smith's in terms of thoroughness and clarity. (I haven't read of the ex-lover/former servant/body guard books /Morton books nor any of the standard hagiographies, so I can't comment on them.) Brown's book is effective as interpreting the "icon of blondeness" but doesn't add a tremendous amount to our understanding of the woman behind the icon. Take it for what it is and this is great beach reading.

Tina Brown's even-handed account of the life of the late Princess of Wales has, somewhat to my surprise, remained with me for some time now. What lingers is how remarkably rarely any of people at the center of the story showed even the simplest kindness to each other. (Diana could be exceptionally, and, I think, genuinely, compassionate to the strangers she encountered in her work, but pitiless to people she knew well--with the major exception of her sons.) There is plenty of blame to go round, but among the many people, including Charles and Diana themselves, who contributed to the breakdown of the Wales's marriage, Camilla Parker Bowles stands out. Ms. Brown seems to think that, in spite of all their differences, Charles and Diana might possibly have managed in a "good enough" sort of way had Camilla been able to refrain from pursuing the prince.

Tina Brown, a very intelligent writer, talked to everybody, and it seems, everybody talked to her, and in the frankest possible way--a surprising number were willing to be named. You will not be disappointed by lack of information--Ms. Brown traces the sources of the royal couple's relationship problems back over three generations. Every detail is there, clearly, thoughtfully arranged, with what is probably a high degree of accuracy. Not infrequently there is an "if only" point: if only the Queen had been less stiff, if only Charles had been more courageous and less Edwardian, if only Diana had been less in need, if only Camilla hadn't interfered just here or there, if only the press hadn't been so intrusive... One keeps hoping that somehow things won't end in the tunnel in Paris.

But they do.

Will you enjoy this book? It's well written, thoughtfully assembled, terrifyingly thoroughly researched, with lots of dish. The central character has beauty, compassion of a deep but narrow kind, and incredible charisma. But the mean-spiritedness of nearly everyone involved, the intra-family betrayals, and the plain human misery associated with Diana's story is not at all a "fun" read.

Always was absorbed by the ongoing tragedy of Diana, and alway interested in the Royals, and in British history going way back. Diana, and now her sons, are just the latest in the story line which starts when a bastard Knight from Normandy conquered England and changed his name from Guillaume Le Batard (the Bastard) to William the Conqueror. Anyway...his direct descendents include both Charles and Diana. She was fond of telling Charles AND his father she had more royal blood and an older title (that of the Spencers)than Charles had. Not so shy!! From this book and others I've read it seems clear that if the royal SOB Charles could have been honest w/ himself, his parents, the Royal apparatus, he would never have married Diana, who was married solely as a virgin brood mare. She would have had a chance at happiness, so would have he. The marriage was doomed from the start as he had no intention of ever giving up his mistress, the married mother of 3 or 4, Camilla Parker-Bowles (whose husband was the occasional lover of Princess Anne, all in the family...) For a young 18- 19 yr old girl, very romantic, living in a fantasy world, apparently, she had no clue until the honeymoon. Then, and from then on, it was a battle to the death, literally. Tina Brown insists Diana never stopped trying to win Charles' love. I don't know what she bases this on, there is no proof, and once Diana had "done her duty" and produced two children, she had affair after affair, as Charles did, as well as his long lasting Affair, almost a marriage, with Camilla. It was an accepted thing in their cynical social circle, but how well the romantic child Diana coped with all that is one of the questions. She appears to have wanted to be in love and be loved, not just to have lovers. Brown does do a good job explaining how the seeds of Diana's death were planted when she fired the palace guards after her death, feeling they spied on her. That left her unprotected except by such "guards" as people like Dodi Fayed hired. He appears to be a playboy, not much more than the male equivilent of "cute and dumb" but very rich, so he could protect her and take her away from the constant the harrassment of London. The accident definitely seems to have been caused by an equal combination of Henri Paul's drunkeness, and the aggressive paparrazzi, ( and any of us who have ever paid for a tabloid or any shiny photo-mag with pics of her or any celebrity are feeding into that machine and I myself feel guilt over it.) The book does describe very well and in a sickening way the lengths they would go to to get photographs or certain facial expressions from their "prey". They mobbed after she took her sons to the movie "Jurassic Park", trying to be a normal family, and the photographers used such methods as calling her "c..t" and other words of the sort to get her attention and her head up. When she yelled back at them their headline was that she was a "Loon". This was the atmosphere she and Dodi were fleeing from in Aug '97. The tabloid publishers were said to be ecstatic that the chauffers' (Henri Paul's ) blood level for alcohol and pills was several times over the legal limit. They could run headlines that he was to blame, and some momentum building up in Britain to curtail the paparazzi's aggressive activities was stopped in its' tracks. After her death, the most interesting chapter in the book to me was the chapter of how the Royal family handled the death. I've seen the movie "The Queen" and enjoyed it, and it is mostly true to the facts. However, the director (in his working class prejudices), made sure not to show the young princes at all, and to show the Queen and Prince Phillip as cold, emotionless, out of touch people. The chapter in the back of the book (the only one really worth reading, you can do it standing in the bookstore!) talks about how the family as a whole rallied around the young boys who had lost their mother, although the family as a whole had learned to dislike her due to her Andrew Morton book and TV interviews. Prince Charles pulled out old photo albums and went though them with the boys; Princess Anne his sister brought her 20 yr old son and 16 yr old daughter to Balmoral to keep the boys' company, and everyone was involved in horseback riding, hiking, hunting, all the outdoorsy things the family enjoys, and also to "wear out" the young teens so they didn't have time to dwell on threir loss. Not necessarily what Dr Phil might have recommended, but one way to show love and concern. Princess Anne apparently took young 12 yr old Harry under her wing and spent much time with him at that time, hiking and walking and riding with him, as he was clearly bereft. The Queen, rightly or wrongly, ordered all TV's and radios removed from Balmoral except her own, so the boys would not be deluged with the maudlin broadcasts around the clock. Prince Phillip, their grandfather, was particularly affectionate in a "gruff, tender" way; it seems William was the son he'd always wished he'd had. At one point during funeral arrangements, and as in the movie it is true Tony Blair played a huge part in convincing the Queen of the importance of the State Funeral, the negotiations were going on via intercom between London and Balmoral. The London people thought they were speaking to an official. Suddenly Prince Phillip "boomed" over the intercom : "These boys... have lost their mother! You're talking about them as if they are commodities" and his "voice was full of emotion, a true voice of the grandfather speaking." Another time he broke in on the conference and said: "Our worry at the moment is William, he's run away up the hill and we can't find him. Thats the only thing we are concerned with at the moment." These were things, along with some others, that totally changed my view of Prince Phillip from other books and stories I have read. Of course, people are multi-faceted, and clearly he is a human being, not just the gruff old man who walks two steps behind the Queen. It was Prince Phillip who also talked the boys into walking behind the casket along road to the Cathedral in honor of their mother. Willliam didn't want to and was in tears. Phillips reportedly said: "If I walk, will you walk with me?" All along the route, he kept up a soft stream of talk to the boys, discussing all the landmarks they were passing as they walked. A moving moment for all of us, and a tough moment for any father or grandfather. (It is interesting to me that Phillip did this, not Charles their father, or Earl Spence their uncle.) All of this was left out of "The Queen" however, I suppose too much humanity in the Royals is non-PC. At any rate, the book held my attention but wasn't great, no bigh eye openers except about Prince Phillip (oddly enough!) Also, the total lack of photographs seemed very cheap considering the book's cost. Just on the endpiece of the books and then the same ones on both sices! Very chintzy!

The Diana Chronicles is narrated by the author Tina Brown whose impressive career in entertainment journalism has enabled her to write a detailed, believable and often salacious account of the Princess. Those who are curious about Diana's childhood in addition to the rest of her life and death, will not be disappointed by Brown's attention to detail. The Diana Chronicles fails in book or audiobook format, however, because it unfolds not as a story, but rather a gathering and listing of facts and events. Additionally, Brown's narration leaves the listener jarred. With a sharp, piercing English accent, Brown sounds half Robin Leech and half Mary Hart from Entertainment Tonight. Her narration barks at a fast pace, much like a news broadcast devoted to the listing of facts. While this format might work for a three minute gossip news segment, it wears down the listener after more than fifteen minutes. Only diehard Lady Di fans will enjoy listening to all five and a half hours of this book.

Knowing that Tina Brown wrote this book, I purchased it expecting a witty but not necessarily incisive rehash of the life of the late Princess of Wales. I was pleased to find not only plenty of wit and lots of glamour, but also a deep, well researched biography. Brown relied not only on published sources but also on interviews with many of Diana's friends, servants, and relations. This, along with her own experience as a journalist and editor covering Diana, makes The Diana Chronicles an excellent read.

Diana Frances Spencer seemed destined for either obscurity or greatness from the moment of her birth. She disappointed her parents, who desperately wanted a son and heir, and spent her early childhood being more or less ignored in favor of her two older and brighter sisters and her younger brother. Her parents divorced when she was five or six, increasing Diana's isolation and insecurities. During these years she began to develop the maternal instincts for which she became famous and the vindictiveness and cunning for which she was also well known. Brown does an excellent job of describing Diana's antecedents. The Spencer family had been servants and supporters of the Crown for centuries, but as Brown makes clear, it was a Crown and Royal Family which they and other Whig aristocrats controlled and helped create beginning in the eighteenth century. Diana's family home was Althorp House, a magnificent mansion filled with portraits and memories of years of power and influence. Diana was very aware of her heritage and saw herself as a reinforcer and reviver of her family's fortunes.

Diana seems to have hoped and planned for a great marriage from an early age. Brown emphasizes Diana's determination to "keep herself tidy" during her teenage years, when most of her contemporaries were partaking of the benefits/problems of the pre-AIDS Sexual Revolution. Diana's self-control paid off when Prince Charles decided that he needed to get married and needed to marry a girl without a history. Diana was in the right place at the right time, seemed innocent and malleable enough, and most importantly had the blessings of Charles' real love, Camilla Parker-Bowles.

After Diana's marriage reality quickly infringed on the fairy tale. Brown does an equable job of detailing the numerous sins and errors of both Diana and Charles. Like most people she finally comes down on Diana's side, pointing out that had Charles been willing or able to give up Camilla forever Diana would happily have had 10 children by him and been content to become a willing and cooperative member of the House of Windsor. However, Brown also takes care to critically examine and in many cases debunk many of the stories Diana told about the miserable treatment meted out to her, so that Charles and the rest of the Royal Family come out far better than Diana intended.

The best parts of the book deal with Diana's final years and the tragedy of August 31, 1997. It was heartbreaking to read about and re-experience those sad days, but gratifying to see Brown's justification of and sympathy with the actions of the Royal Family during that time. I also appreciated Brown's sympathetic treatment of Diana's numerous physical and emotional problems, including bulimia. These chapters heightened my sympathy and concern for Diana's sons, who must still have psychic scars.

Another reason to read The Diana Chronicles is that it is a chronicle of our own recent history. Diana so dominated the popular press in Europe and America for so many years that everybody, even those who otherwise paid little attention to royalty, saw her as a familiar figure and acquaintance. I saw Diana from a distance several times in the 1980s, and I was interested to find in Brown's account corroboration of things I remembered noticing at the time. I watched her at Trooping the Colour in 1987, when she seemed to be ignoring her husband and actually turned her back on him on the Palace balcony. A few days later, I saw her arrive at the Guildhall in the City of London for a function. As she got out of her car the flashbulbs starting going off and I saw her put her head down and grimace before seeming to take a breath and force herself to go on. The Diana Chronicles helped me understand better what she was probably dealing with at the time, and will help others who never had the chance to see her recognize the pain, sometimes self-inflicted and sometimes not, Diana and her husband and family went through.