The Gold Star Reviews of 'Spare'

The reason why I read 'Spare' (January 2023) was not because I was so interested in Prince Harry's life or any of the going-ons in the British monarchy. Borrowed it from a friend who bought it; I sped-read it and promptly returned it the next day. I read it because of the book's ghostwriter J.R. Moehringer. His name doesn't appear publicly on any copy of 'Spare' and the memoir is sole attributed to Prince Harry. (More about the ghostwriter for 'Spare' here, here and here.)

I don't care about the key takeaways from the book. The reviews do a great job of summarising them. I'm not that keen in his life and tribulations. He's not my friend or anyone I ought to be concerned with. I read it very very quickly because it wasn't worth my time to delve into it like a criticism. Now what got my full attention were the reviews of the book. Those were gold, and in fact, much better than the book itself. Ha! The Guardian's Clea Skopeliti collated opinions from eight readers of the paper who have read the book and reminded readers about all our differing opinions, 

‘The monarchy’s a laughing stock’: readers react to Prince Harry’s Spare Views range from sympathy for the Sussexes in light of treatment by royals and tabloids, to regarding them as being ‘as entitled as the others’.

Facts? Memoir? I read it like it's fiction. If a book can't even fact-check on whereabouts and what Meghan wore on their first date, or when the Nintendo was released versus a Playstation, then how much can one trust a book. How much can one trust anyone's account, what more a celebrity's viewpoint? Prince Harry isn't just any celebrity. He grew up extremely privileged, and I doubt his world view is something commoner-me can understand. 

I don't know how his tell-all book is received by media outlets on both sides of the pond. I don't suppose it matters whether it's American or British media. If they're going to pan his book, they will. British media might be more peeved though, especially after what Prince Harry has done 'to' and 'against' them. 

The New York Times's Alexandra Jacobs titled their January 10, 2023 review, 'Prince Harry Learns to Cry, and Takes No Prisoners, in ‘Spare’ At once emotional and embittered, the royal memoir is mired in a paradox: drawing endless attention in an effort to renounce fame.' 

And yet when his father advises of the unrelenting and often racist press coverage of Harry’s union to Meghan — “Don’t read it, darling boy” — it’s difficult not to agree. The prince claims to have a spotty memory — “a defense mechanism, most likely” — but doesn’t appear to have forgotten a single line ever printed about him and his wife, and the last section of his tell-all degenerates into a tiresome back-and-forth about who’s leaking what and why. Maybe a little more Faulkner and less Fleet Street would be helpful here?

Still bitter over the late author Hilary Mantel, unnamed here, comparing the royal family to pandas — “uniquely barbarous” and dehumanizing, he writes, while admitting “we did live in a zoo” — Harry then turns right around and calls three courtiers the Bee, the Fly and the Wasp. He seems both driven mad by “the buzz,” as the royals’ inexhaustible chronicler Tina Brown would call it, and constitutionally unable to stop drumming it up.

For all that the Sussexes try to escape from, they're definitely not living a low-key life. It's not about the lifestyle, it's about what and how they choose to speak to the media, and the topics they espouse on. An entire Netflix series about their lives, the split from the Royal Family, and then a book isn't exactly low-key. It tells me that there's a pressing need to tell the world their story. And I'm like, is it that important? Is it therapy? At the end of the day, it's a family feud. Just walk away and be done with it. They have spoken their piece. People will take sides. Why rake everyone through the coals? It wouldn't do anyone any good, isn't it?

My favorite review came from The New Yorker's Rebecca Mead. She wrote a wonderful piece titled 'The Haunting of Prince Harry' published on January 13, 2023. She gave some credit to the ghostwriter and sees what he tried to do with the memoir. She likens Prince Harry to a Shakespearean ghost, and found many similarities to certain scenes in Shakespearean plays, courtesy of the ghostwriter. 

Moehringer has also bestowed upon Harry the legacy that his father was unable to force on him: a felicitous familiarity with the British literary canon. The language of Shakespeare rings in his sentences. Those wanton journalists who publish falsehoods or half-truths? They treat the royals as insects: “What fun, to pluck their wings,” Harry writes, in an echo of “King Lear,” a play about the fragility of kingly authority. During his military training as a forward air controller, a role in which he guided the flights and firepower of pilots from an earthbound station, Harry describes the release of bombs as “spirits melting into air”—a phrase drawn from “The Tempest,” a play about a duke in exile across the water. Elevating flourishes like these give readers—perhaps British ones in particular—a shiver of recognition, as if the chords of “Jerusalem” were being struck on a church organ. But they also remind those readers of the necessary literary artifice at work in the enterprise of “Spare,” as Moehringer shapes Harry’s memories and obsessions, traumas and bugbears, into a coherent narrative: the peerless ghostwriter giving voice to the Shakespeareless prince.

Moehringer has fashioned the Duke of Sussex’s life story into a tight three-act drama, consisting of his occasionally wayward youth; his decade of military service, which included two tours of duty in Afghanistan; and his relationship with Meghan. Throughout, there are numerous bombshells, which—thanks to the o’er hasty publication of the book’s Spanish edition—did not so much melt into air as materialize into clickbait.

I couldn't stop giggling at the Rebecca Mead's words. J.R. Moehringer lent the book such literary flair. I'm sure Prince Harry is witty, and Prince William and King Charles gave him much ammunition, but it took a ghostwriter to see beyond Prince Harry's hurt and gave it shape and coherence. 

It’s not clear that even now, having authored a book, Harry entirely understands what a book is; when challenged by Tom Bradby about his decision to reveal private conversations after having railed so forcefully about the invasive tactics of the press, Harry replied, “The level of planting and leaking from other members of the family means that in my mind they have written countless books—certainly, millions of words have been dedicated to trying to trash my wife and myself to the point of where I had to leave my country.” Pity the poor ghostwriter who has to hear his craft compared to the spewing verbiage of the media churn—by its commissioning subject, no less. (Man, what a piece of work.) Remarkably, Prince Harry has suggested that he sees the book as an invitation to reconciliation, addressed to his father and brother—a way of speaking to them publicly when all his efforts to address them privately have failed to persuade. “Spare” is, you might say, Prince Harry’s “Mousetrap”—a literary device intended to catch the conscience of the King, and the King after him.