Diana: Her True Story

A FEW weeks from now, when her sons go away to boarding school for the first time, the Princess of Wales will be more alone than ever: not literally, of course--she will be surrounded by courtiers--but in a painfully empty nest, brooding on the absence of love. The future of her marriage will again be an unavoidable subject.

Serialization, and spoiling reports in rival papers, had already publicized the juiciest bits of this quite slim volume early on, but worldwide sales took not only the shops, but even the publishers, by surprise. An estimated million copies had soon been bought or ordered. The story just won't go away. A pop song, called "Diana," asks "What you doing with a guy like him? I know he ain't right for you." After intensive bidding, NBC acquired the rights to Mr. Morton's work, and a TV mini-series is now being prepared.

In royal circles, for the first time, the unspeakable is being spoken: the possibility that there might actually be a divorce, and that Charles might relinquish his right to the throne in favor of his elder son.

No subject has been so divisive in Britain since the country was split over the rights and wrongs of the Suez War. When the argument about intrusion, about the public exposure of private matrimonial grief, moved on, after a few weeks, to an enjoyable story about the sexual straying of a cabinet minister, the conclusion to which all save the most anti-media, pro-politician commentators came was that the freedom of the press must be more important than the privacy of politicians. Surely, then, the public must have a still more legitimate interest in the matrimonial relationship of its future King and Queen? How could any self-respecting newspaper fail to report the allegations in Mr. Morton's book?

Some British newspapers did, however, refuse to carry them, and wrote high-minded editorials claiming to be above that kind of thing. Several-- though not many--shops (including Harrod's but not Hatchard's) made a point of eschewing the book. Some people wouldn't even discuss the subject; others talked of nothing else. The reviewers were almost unanimously dismissive. Mr. Morton was called a "little hack," a tabloid vulgarian, who indulged in "prurient and malicious analysis."

None of which probably worries Mr. Morton, who in the past three months has become a rich man. The fair verdict must be that his book, although sometimes mawkish and often facile, is an extremely good read, much better than might be expected. It is certainly not well written in any technical sense, but the tone is neither shrill nor offensive; and it is irresistibly convincing. He has pieced together a lot of scraps, enhancing them with flagrant assumptions about what was going on behind the mask" and what Diana "knew in her heart"; but there can be no doubt now that he was helped by some of Diana's close friends and that she herself does not disapprove of what they did. The lack of any denial, from any quarter, is powerful confirmation.

This is undisguisedly a book originating from, and appealing to, the Princess's faction; which was commercially the right way to go, since the Princess is hugely popular everywhere. It includes a lavish section of charming and touching photographs of Diana as a rather sad child and young woman, many of them supplied by her family. They add to the pathos of the text. When she married she was very young, even for her years. The most chilling moment in the book is when, after the royal engagement has been announced, Diana packs her bag, hugs her friends, and leaves her jolly bachelor-girl flat forever, accompanied by a detective who observes that she has just had her last night of freedom. Those words, Diana is reported as saying, "felt like a sword through my heart."

The lack of warmth she found in her new life comes across poignantly and credibly. Charles, whom at that stage she genuinely loved, appears to have been, even then, an inconsiderate suitor; and little attempt was made by anyone to soften the rigidities of a royal regime to which no sensitive outsider could easily adapt. She was malleable, but it would have taken great gentleness to mold her into the shape required. What has happened instead is that she has matured into a shape of her own molding. She has designed a role for herself, and has proved, by instinct more than calculation, so successful at it that she is now in a position of considerable power. One commentator said, hyperbolically, that she held the future of the House of Windsor in her hands.

Not everybody is on her side. The Princess emerges from the book, according to one female reviewer, as an "hysterical ninny, forever in floods of tears, self-pitying, self-obsessed, acting for effect, childish, full of tantrums, totally unprepared for the responsibilities of public service." Another critic (also female) considered that the Princess was the true "villain of the book." This was the line being surreptitiously encouraged, in an abortive counter-attack, by the Prince's faction. But it didn't work; her magic is too strong. Her ostensible attempts at suicide, her eating disorders, perhaps even her jealousy of the Prince's old girlfriend, Camilla Parker-Bowles, have been largely self-induced troubles, but they constitute, for an unhappy girl, quite a familiar syndrome.