Review of Spare by Prince Harry

It is a story well known: A young man falls in love with a woman who represents everything he wants to have. He wants to marry her, but his family disapproves. Despite what his family thinks, he keeps dating and eventually marries the woman. The family shuts him out. It is much of what happens here, is recounted by Harry in this autobiography. But it is also so, so much about himself, his life, and his trauma.

The first thing I can say is: good for you, Harry! Good that you are getting your truth out there! Good that you are going to therapy. However, this does not mean I 100% believe everything that is portrayed here. It’s foolish to believe one person to be the carrier of everything good and another of all evil!

I am happy for Harry that he is getting the help he needs to learn how to cope with his trauma, deeply entertained by the entire royal drama (seeing as it doesn’t involve me and I am, against my better judgement, a Royal Watcher) and believe that he is, in fact, speaking the truth. For the most part. It helps that this is his face and that he doesn’t shy away from names (for the most part).

It is relatively easy to read, this book. It is short and direct, and Harry’s humour is intensely acidic and self-derisive. He isn’t shy about making a fool of himself, touching on aspects that don’t, necessarily, depict him in the most beneficial light.

Except, of course, in his recount of the funeral, which choked me up. Because it seemed so real, so like everything we imagine him going through, the trauma than ensued, the iconic moment of two boys walking behind their mother’s coffin…

He dwells on his trauma for a time, and often because we would too if faced with such an event. It feels like he became closed inside himself and aggressive because he needed to expunge his feelings through aggression and violence.

No matter how much he says he wrote this book to help his family understand, that his end goal wasn’t to shame them… I don’t necessarily believe it. His depictions of some of his family members are eye-opening and made me think about why he would write them if not to shame them.

His father, however, gains heavily from this autobiographical work, as he shows him in a favourable light. While Harry seems resentful towards his father because of everything he made his mother go through, he does state that his father tried to tell him he was proud of him. Through letters, notes, and indulging nicknames (‘darling boy’). It deeply moved me to know that he had tickled Harry’s face when he was younger, to get him to fall asleep because he knew he was afraid of the dark. I don’t necessarily think of King Charles as the warmest of human beings, but something about this warmed my heart.

He recalls his mother, of course he does. She seems like a constant in his life, a buoy when his pain feels like too much. She is his inspiration, his guardian angel and his biggest inspiration. It is a beautiful thing to be an insider to. It is because of what happened to her that he is so protective of Meghan and so afraid that history repeats itself. His observations of this are, sometimes, the funniest parts of the book, providing ironic and amusing quotes.

I opened ‘Hamlet’. Hmm: Lonely prince, obsessed with dead parent, watches remaining parent fall in love with dead parent’s usurper…?

I slammed it shut. No, thank you.

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He portrays his sibling, William, as deeply traumatised also, but refusing to get the help he needs, and the only way he finds to rid himself of the negative energy is through aggression and violence. I can’t fault any of them. The system they live in is deeply preternatural, bound of f*ck them up, and so I can’t really point fingers.

In life, people justifiably (and unjustifiably) dislike each other, it is absolutely normal. However, it is the way you treat them that really says something about you. And if everything about this book is the truth, then it says loads.

Reading this, I cannot condemn him of anything other than loving his wife, which is, in itself, not a crime. But stalking and publishing private locations and communication is!

He ponders upon the disservice done upon him by not being able to go out into the world and have a proper job, by his family having constantly kept him by their side, by being constantly infantilized by the public and the media (which I can see, would be a bit aggravating). Now that he has gotten what he wanted most of all I can see why he would fight to keep it.

I also respect the way Harry went into Meghan’s experiences, by not exploring them too much, just mentioning them. He didn’t absorb his wife’s pains, he just cleared up the confusion that existed in the public perception.

In reading this, I am reminded of the centuries of stories about princes abandoning titles for their plebeian loved ones, how we as a culture hail these as strong love stories, but as soon as this happens in real life, we spare no time in trying to shame this family. Be it because of Meghan’s previous job (and how cliché it feels to have princes falling in love with actresses), her race, or her refusal to shy away from the questions and the truth. I can only say that Harry has given up everything he knew to join his wife in her life, and if he is happy that way, then so be it!

Happiness should never be denied to those who seek it.