An old and tired story

tells us nothing new, and the old really isn't that relevant any more

Reviewing a book like The Diana Chronicles, written by journalist and Diana look-alike Tina Brown, leads to certain problems, such as wanting to pass judgement not just on the merits of the book but on the merits of those who feature in it.

The lead protagonist, Diana, is someone whom one can't stay ambivalent towards right from the beginning of the book. The reader learns early on that Diana, unloved and in a way abandoned by her mother Frances, who leaves her husband and children, spent much of her time doing nothing much. But that was the life of girls from her kind of privileged background, and Brown writes that their primary aim in life was to marry well.

Diana was no different and soon it seems her head was filled with pretty dreams of marrying a prince, and the only available prince was Charles. Diana spends little time worrying that this prince had at one time been inclined towards her older sister Sarah and sets to work on getting what she has set her heart on. And of course, Diana does manage to get her prince; but Brown points out that Charles wasn't as enthusiastic about the marriage from the start.

Right through the book, Diana comes across as being manipulative and self-absorbed. She is never able to understand why no one in her immediate life (as opposed to the distant public which adored her) really likes her. And that list of failed relationships has more than just Charles on it.

Diana, in her tempestuous life, is unable to form lasting or loving relationships with anyone, be it her father (Diana slaps him once, no wonder then), her mother, stepmother (Diana pushes her down the stairs in sheer spite), of course her husband, her in-laws (and that includes Fergie) or her siblings. Her lovers too never want to stay, and Diana tries to win them over in the stupidest possible ways (one instance is where she keeps blank-calling a married lover).

Charles, on the other hand, doesn't seem deficient on that count "" though he is not without his own share of failings. Brown makes Camilla come across as someone who wins Charles' love not through the simple fact that the two were kindred souls but as a scheming old bag who is good at controlling the hapless prince.

In short, there isn't one decent person in the entire cast of characters. As for the book, though Brown has decent journalistic credentials, the book isn't great literature. Brown has written a nice, gossipy book (though she unearths no new facts) that is about as interesting as getting the low-down on one's neighbours.

We all do that and enjoy it as well. But Brown's attempt at getting us involved in the Windsors' lives is hampered by the fact that the lot of them (and that includes the People's Princess, Diana) are quite boring, up close. After a point, to know which side did what to humiliate the other side is a bit dull.

Diana's life was defined by pictures; when it came to words, however, neither she nor Charles were really that brilliant. And in some sense, Brown's mastery of words, like that of her subject, does fall a little short. This is the book's biggest failing: its inability to hold the reader enthralled with an old and tired story whose moment has passed.