Charles At Fifty
Charles: Victim or Villain?

Also, big savings on the 1998 National Book Award winners!
Charming Billy
Slaves in the Family

CHARLES AT FIFTY and CHARLES: VICTIM OR VILLAIN | PAGE 1, 2
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Holden offers, by way of meticulous research, an overview of an entire life lived in the public eye -- of emotionally distant parents and sycophantic friends and advisors, of grim school years followed by reckless playboy ones. And from the moment Diana appears, he gives a painful portrait of a man and a woman who went from mutually dazzled to crushingly disillusioned almost overnight. Holden's sympathy for the princess is evident -- it's obvious he enjoyed a friendly relationship with her long after Charles had huffily severed their friendship over displeasure at his biographies. Nevertheless, Holden doesn't shy away from presenting the warts-and-all sides of both their natures, as well as the often brutally biased way in which their relationship played out in the press.

It's a tactic that may offend those who prefer to view "England's Rose" as a homegrown, blue-blood saint, but ironically, the result is that both parties emerge more sympathetic and fully rounded for the scrutiny. Diana, despite all postmortem attempts to glorify her, was no day at the beach. And who worse to deal with a young, emotionally demanding creature than a man whose entire life has been built on reserve and obligation, a man with his own impressive set of eccentricities, and most crippling of all, a man who never stopped loving his former mistress? Charles may be prickly and insensitive, but it's possible his biggest crime has been living out a disastrous marriage on a public stage. And while other men his age, from Mick Jagger to President Clinton, are busy chasing women who weren't even born when Charles first laid eyes on the then-Camilla Shand, the prince has proven himself a surprisingly devoted lover.

But although he's got a glamorous job and a colorful cast of characters around him, Charles is still little more than a king in waiting who has yet to truly distinguish himself. His life so far has been so ritualized, so relentlessly spin doctored and protocoled, it's hard to know who, if anyone, exists under his surface. When you've been groomed from birth to be a symbol of a nation, can you ever fully be a man? Charles, we learn, likes to garden and paint, he's done some admirable charity work and he's probably not as bad a guy as the public may have originally thought -- despite his temperamental nature and years of adultery. But if the best you can say of a man is that he's not really a monster, why read about him?

If, however, one is determined to do so, a royal watcher will fare far better with Holden than suffering through Penny Junor's "Victim or Villain?" In trying to beef up the prince's profile into a more heroic, kingly one, Junor writes in a style that's so slavishly obsequious, so embarrassingly one-sided, it inspires the kind of revulsion that ripples straight from the page and onto its subject. Tabloid speculation that Charles participated in the creation of this literary suck-up-athon doesn't help, nor does Junor's pedantic, let me explain this as simply as possible style. Perhaps Junor believes the average punter's comprehension is limited to endless ruminations in the "See Prince hunt! Hunt, Prince, hunt!" vein. Perhaps she should think again.

Her real problem, however, is a powerful lack of credibility. "Victim" weighs in at over 300 pages, yet cites no sources, all of whom Junor insists "must remain nameless" and whose version of events she never questions. Instead of hard facts, she fills her pages with the kind of bald gushing better suited to a "Lovin' Leo" special edition of Teen Beat. Her action-ready, kung fu-grip prince "courts danger and thrives on the adrenaline of living close to the edge," which is no doubt why "no one who meets him face to face is ever unimpressed." And of his frequently bitter marriage, Junor declares, "In all their years together and apart, and despite intense provocation, he never spoke ill of her in any way." It's a statement that's not only easily contradicted, it's downright hilarious to anyone who's ever been in a long-term relationship.

Worst of all, Junor engages in extraordinarily damning psychiatric evaluation of the Princess of Wales (who can be found in the index under such subcategories as "affairs of," "cries for help," immaturity," "jealousy and insecurity" and more), while tossing out only the most perfunctory hints that the prince himself may not always be such a prince. Her version of reality is so warped that the infamous "Squidgy" tapes are seen as an embarrassment, while Charles' notorious declaration of wishing to be Camilla's tampon is evidence that "the prince had found in Camilla what he had so hoped to find in Diana ... a loving, friendly, familiar relationship." Taken as a whole, Junor's final product is a work that leaves the reader with the distinctly unpleasant sensation of having been led by the hand on a journey far, far up the prince's ass.

In an age of relentless media attention on -- and an insatiable public appetite for -- celebrity, it's no longer possible for royalty to cloak itself in mystery, to rely on the press's discretion and the public's blind devotion. What Diana learned in her tempestuous life was that one could be a real and vulnerable human being, even a deeply flawed one, and inspire love and command respect. It's a lesson Holden's book makes clear Charles still needs to learn, and one that Junor's book proves that some of his biographers have to figure out as well.
SALON | Dec. 7, 1998

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The Winners are in! Read Salon's reviews of the 1998 National Book Award winners:
Charming Billy
by Alice McDermott
[ Buy this book at barnesand noble.com ]

Slaves in the Family
by Edward Ball
[ Buy this book at barnesand noble.com ]