The original Rita Skeeter digs her nails into British royal family - it seemed as a good idea at the time, but unfortunately for Kitty Kelley, just as the book was published, princes Diana was killed in a car crash so the public sympathy for her definitely damped the success of this book, because people felt like royal family was abused enough. To my knowledge, this unauthorised biography was never published in UK but you could get it elsewhere and just bring back, as some of my British acquaintances did. It took me almost 20 years to actually approach this book, as I was expecting list of lurid details, gossip and such - surprisingly, it wasn't as half as bad as I imagined.
Because I lived there, in London, during mid-1990s, I clearly remember the avalanche of negative press persistently haunting every royal step. Nothing this people did was ever right and they were constantly condemned by clearly prejudiced newspapers who simply gloated with smug satisfaction every time someone had unflattering photo, was caught up picking up the nose, words were taken out of the contests and basically it was clearly a witch hunt. British tabloids were actually making up the scandals, just for the sake of high sales - they would film Diana-lookalike riding someone around the room (from a great distance, making it look realistic, I guess) with the titles screaming for her beheading, just to denounce it next day, like nothing happened. The Queen could fight political turmoils, pacify foreign diplomats, give money to charities and hold on to her dignity but tabloids would still focus on her handbags. Even as a foreigner, I could tell this was extremely biased, trash culture that apparently titillated housewives with nothing better to do but to envy other people's wealth.
Perhaps I was already familiar with all the exposé or because I actually enjoyed Kelley's writing, either way this was not nearly as negative as British tabloid press: she simply meticulously collects all the data, anecdotes, memoirs and such, than wraps it all neatly into a book, but honestly hers is not an mean-spirited volume. Sure, there is a certain amount of hearsay but that is expected. If you approach it as a litany of royal gossip, well its your own perception - I thought it was deliciously entertaining but simultaneously I was aware that this can never be confirmed, not only because Brits still defer to medieval notion of nobility but also because people like to keep their sources of information secret and occasionally it can backfired at them. Unfortunately for late princess Diana, without royal protection she was easy target and every hairdresser, masseur, grocery seller and fitness instructor she had ever met, wrote a best-selling book about her. The worst offender was the sleazy owner of her gym who took pictures of her (trough the hole in the wall) doing exercises and sold them for big bucks to be published on front pages, really this British press must be without competition when it comes to mean-spirited, morbid curiosity.
Some impressions:
Lots of negativity in this book comes from very simplistic, basic envy. They have castles and I'm sitting here. This is good for British press but it shows what kind of readers they court and what mentality apparently prevails in UK. Reading this book made me realise that I have never in my entire life gave one moment to someone's else car, house or anything material - it simply never mattered to me and I just assumed that people take care of their own priorities, if this is what makes them happy. What irks me much, much more is this irrational submission to the idea of nobility, where Brits still bow to medieval lords because they were born into old families - the whole idea of class distinction (based not on any other merit but on hereditary inheritance of title) in our days and age sounds so absurd that I truly feel repelled with it. Many times trough this book, you could find instances where perfectly fine, decent people were dismissed because they were commoners as opposite to ones born with a blue blood. I must have some revolutionary blood in me, because personally this goes against everything I believe in.
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