The Heir, The Spare and the “Baby Brain” -The Prince Harry and Meghan show rumbles on…

I'm reading the book now. I am surprised at how much Harry seems to love Philip. He seems to have adored the old man.
 
Prancer said:
Hmm, well. My mother's father died when she was 13; she always said that her emotional development stopped at that point. I don't think that was true, as I think my mother was as fully adult as an adult can be, but she never felt that way. She always said it was like there was no foundation for her to develop adulthood on.
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I've heard this a lot.
 
Having lost my father at age six, right in the middle of the normal stage of uncritical adoration, I’d agree that idolising the dead parent (and resenting the live one) goes on for a long, long time. I always thought how different I would be if my dad had lived a normal lifespan. Even now I think how much help he would have been with some things my mom didn’t know or understand.

Especially if a parent dies violently or unexpectedly. I spent years imagining that he really was on a secret mission for the government and would come back. :(
 
4rkidz said:
Exactly because people in this thread are going by what has been sensationalized in the British press.
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Excerpts from the book have appeared in outlets that are not British tabloids, and have been discussed at length in US publications.

I skimmed the introduction because the preview is available on Amazon, and I think I'll stick with the romance novels.
 
Diana had 2 sons. Harry wasn't the only one who lost his mother at a young age. But in recent years, Harry has simply usurped the image of Diana and the status of her son. I myself sometimes forget that he was not the only child of his mother
 
Karen-W said:
Harry is a 38-year old man who has been through a lot of therapy. I wasn't expecting him to state "Although my mother was a princess, named after a goddess, both those terms always felt weak, inadequate..." as he does in the prologue, and to follow that up a few paragraphs later with "Oh, how she loved my brother and me. Obsessively, she once confessed in an interview. Well, Mummy... vice versa."
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While Harry adored his mother and I have no doubt William adored her, too, reports are that Diana used William as her confidant so he probably knew a lot more about her personal life than a boy of 15 should have. As a result, he perhaps had a more realistic view of her than Harry.

Prancer said:
My mother's father died when she was 13; she always said that her emotional development stopped at that point.
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It doesn't have to be just the death of a parent. My sister became addicted to drugs/alcohol when my nephew was 17/18 and a lot of awfulness went down the next few years because of the addiction. My nephew is now in his thirties and aimless - living with his girlfriend's parents, underemployed, no motivation - and my niece told me once she thinks his emotional growth stopped when my sister's addiction came to light, along with all of the drama connected to it. It made sense.
 
IME almost everyone has an age where their emotional development stops. For some of us, we get pretty old before that happens. But I know a lot of people who seem to have never left High School, for example. I do think trauma is a factor in when this happens for some.

Also, it's not a contest. Wiliam and Harry each lost a parent and have responded to that differently. That doesn't make the response of one or the other invalid just because it's different.
 
IMO, it is unfair for a parent to rely on a child as a confidante and/or surrogate spouse. It would be a huge surprise to me if Prince William didn't have a very different combination of feelings about his mother than Prince Harry. And apart from all of the heir vs. spare stuff, if Prince Harry feels that Prince William is disloyal to their mother because of those feelings, that in itself would be a barrier to healing any rifts.
 
PRlady said:
Having lost my father at age six, right in the middle of the normal stage of uncritical adoration, I’d agree that idolising the dead parent (and resenting the live one) goes on for a long, long time. I always thought how different I would be if my dad had lived a normal lifespan. Even now I think how much help he would have been with some things my mom didn’t know or understand.

Especially if a parent dies violently or unexpectedly. I spent years imagining that he really was on a secret mission for the government and would come back. :(
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Harry said in his interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN he silently hadn't believed his mother had died, that she had merely gone somewhere and he thought for years she would come back.
 
Lacey said:
Harry said in his interview with Cooper Anderson on CNN that he silently hadn't believed that his mother had died, that she had merely gone somewhere and thought for years that she would come back.
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Yes, and it's clear in the book that even after Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton got Harry access to the accident report and some of the less grizzly photos from the scene (sometime around the same time he entered Sandhurst) that Harry still believed his mother had only gone into hiding and wasn't really dead.
 
I hope it doesn’t happen but I really think one day Harry will get disenchanted with Meg bc she’s Not Diana. Everyone ends up being Not Diana for Harry.
 
jadingirl said:
Well on the Canadian news last night they said Harry was getting 40 million US for a 4 book deal so that's a pretty good paycheck. I wonder what his other 3 books are going to be about?
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  • more about his life after stepping away from the Royal Family (i.e. Spare: The Sequel)
  • self-help based on his own experiences
  • cookbook? home hints book? a look at life inside the Firm, from one who was there?
 
I watched most of Harry's interview with Colbert last night. Once I got over how strange it was to be seeing a member of the BRF on a talk show, I was really impressed with Harry. He seemed quite sweet and vulnerable, and he answered the questions - not all of which were softball questions - thoughtfully and with conviction.
 
overedge said:
  • more about his life after stepping away from the Royal Family (i.e. Spare: The Sequel)
  • self-help based on his own experiences
  • cookbook? home hints book? a look at life inside the Firm, from one who was there?
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Forget about him writing more books--his career as a "personality" won't be complete until he does a home renovation tv series, preferably for a deserving charitable cause. (Sorry, couldn't resist :shuffle: .)
 
easilydistracte said:
Forget about him writing more books--his career as a "personality" won't be complete until he does a home renovation tv series, preferably for a deserving charitable cause. (Sorry, couldn't resist :shuffle: .)
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He could do a reality series about the Invictus Games. How team/individuals prepare, their military experiences, how the games are organized etc. He could narrate, visit the competitors, and viewers could get to know more about the competitors. If this has been done, then I'm not aware of it.
 
kwanfan1818 said:
IMO, it is unfair for a parent to rely on a child as a confidante and/or surrogate spouse. It would be a huge surprise to me if Prince William didn't have a very different combination of feelings about his mother than Prince Harry. And apart from all of the heir vs. spare stuff, if Prince Harry feels that Prince William is disloyal to their mother because of those feelings, that in itself would be a barrier to healing any rifts.
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I don’t know I am not sure don’t know that but I think William is at peace with his mom and who she is. There comes a point where we accept our parents for who they are and not who we went them to be:

I think it helps is in college he found Kate and she had a close knit family I remember reading he grew very attached to her parents and they provided him kind of the normal family he always wanted
 
canbelto said:
I hope it doesn’t happen but I really think one day Harry will get disenchanted with Meg bc she’s Not Diana. Everyone ends up being Not Diana for Harry.
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I suspect it will be the reverse... She becomes disenchanted with him. I worry for him should that day come because she had an established track record of discarding people and cutting them out of her life once she's gotten what she wants from them.
 
Edited to add this 30-second Colbert clip that Harry took part in. :lol: I was thinking it'd be nice if the Royals indulged in this type of behaviour more often, but I'm not sure it's their fussiness and duty that prohibits it. I think you need to be able to laugh at yourself, and Charles/William don't seem to have that in them at this time.

The Queen certainly did have it in her. ;) Maybe George will take after his Great Grandma or Uncle.

Karen-W said:
I suspect it will be the reverse... She becomes disenchanted with him. I worry for him should that day come because she had an established track record of discarding people and cutting them out of her life once she's gotten what she wants from them.
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Sorry, can you provide examples? (And don't bother saying her father...)

I know in a gossip FB group I'm on, Meghan was applauded for publicly disassociating herself from Jessica Mulroney, her former BFF, after Ms. Mulroney got into it with Sasha Exeter, a Black Canadian fashion influencer. I hope you don't mean that...?
 
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I;m up to the S. africa trip where Harry meets the Spice Girls. Honestly, Charles comes across rather well in this book. He wasn't the perfect parent but he did try. I thought the letters he left on Harrys pillow were sweet.
 
Lynn226 said:
He could do a reality series about the Invictus Games. How team/individuals prepare, their military experiences, how the games are organized etc. He could narrate, visit the competitors, and viewers could get to know more about the competitors. If this has been done, then I'm not aware of it.
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It seemed to me that the veterans did not really like his confessions in the book
 
DH has no interest in the RF, Harry or any of it but we always watch Colbert from the night before after dinner. It was a really good interview, he still doesn’t care but thought Harry was authentic and liked how he explained the tabloid spin of his military service. Harry may not be welcomed back in the UK but I think he will do just fine in the US, he’s a one man Boston Tea Party.
 
Interesting piece in today's LA Times by Mary MacNamara, the LAT culture & media critic. She observes that one of the aspects that truly pisses off the tabloids is that Harry is making money on the material they consider their province for money-making. They have no trouble reporting that sources tell them about this spat or that bit of gossip, and now they're livid because his reveals have earned him millions. I never thought of it that way. https://www.latimes.com/entertainme...rry-and-meghan-beat-the-press-at-its-own-game (Might be behind a paywall. Sorry.)

This evening, the NY Times reported,
Prince Harry’s memoir, “Spare,” has become a record-breaking success, with first-day sales that exceed some of publishing’s biggest hits, including blockbusters by Barack and Michelle Obama.

“Spare” sold more than 1.43 million copies in all formats in the United States, Canada and Britain, including pre-orders, according to its publisher. The figure marked the largest first-day sales for any nonfiction book ever published by Penguin Random House, the world’s largest publisher....."We sold books in every location — and we sold a lot of them,” said Shannon DeVito, the director of books at Barnes & Noble. “Some people came in right before work, some people came in on their lunch break, some people came in after,” she continued. “But the velocity of sales throughout the day was gigantic.”
 
barbk said:
Interesting piece in today's LA Times by Mary MacNamara, the LAT culture & media critic. She observes that one of the aspects that truly pisses off the tabloids is that Harry is making money on the material they consider their province for money-making. They have no trouble reporting that sources tell them about this spat or that bit of gossip, and now they're livid because his reveals have earned him millions. I never thought of it that way. https://www.latimes.com/entertainme...rry-and-meghan-beat-the-press-at-its-own-game (Might be behind a paywall. Sorry.)
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That was a very good article. Thank you for sharing it. It wasn’t paywalled for me. I don’t read memoirs or non-fiction but I am tempted by Spare.
 
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