The Diana Chronicles

i have always been a fan of diana as we were only 6 months apart in our age. this book is very informative, i believe unbiased and gives the facts from both sides. i had never read the actual details of her crash so that was informative. i found i could not put the book down. i couldn't wait to get back to it. i learned so much about the dynamics of the monarchy, and you get the humaness of diana and the struggles she had living in the stuffy rigid monarchy, and her quest to still be herself, and her forever struggle to find love, but yet you get the monarchy's take on diana too. this is a great book!!!

Diana's story has been told and retold so many times. We watched her and read about her during her life. After her death, we still wanted more. There are no surprises left regarding Diana, but Tina Brown's crisp and clean prose (much like the shirt she wears in Annie Leibovitz's portrait on the back cover) makes the unfolding of Diana's life a compulsive page-turner.

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

"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 wit