What Harry’s Book Title Really Says
Breaking Up is Hard to Do, SPARE Proves Harry’s Still Not Over It
Breaking Up is Hard to Do, SPARE Proves Harry’s Still Not Over It
If only Harry could get out of his own way. Living in California with an income of millions, he has the means and profile to take the world by storm. But his just released book title says one thing: Harry is stuck in the past.
Penguin Random House confirmed that Harry’s memoir will be released 10th January 2023, and showed a sneak peak of the book and title.
SPARE.
Though hailed as “iconic” by some, others thought it a headscratcher. After all, Harry famously announced the book several months ago by saying:
“I’m writing this not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become.”
And yet… his Royal title “PRINCE Harry, Duke of Sussex” dominate the cover and press release. And the book title SPARE refers precisely to the Prince he was born, “the heir and the spare” being an old running joke about the first and second borns in any Royal Family.
It doesn’t take a genius to anticipate the tone and direction this memoir is taking. Expect anger and accusations.
In short, Harry’s still not over it.
It’s become a classic Sussex trait, Harry and Meghan are their own worst enemies. Just as it seems they’ve rounded the corner and settled into their role or path, they famously blow up their progress. Meghan’s recent Variety interview seemed to be more measured, and Harry’s been releasing consistent news and images of his charity work.
Now this.
Two steps forward. Two thousand steps back.
SPARE takes us right back to his Royal Life. Not to mention, a Royal Life of almost a decade ago. Harry hasn’t been “The Spare” since 2013, when HRH Prince George of Wales was born, Prince William’s first child. Then came Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, and Harry’s claim as spare has been further and further removed. Harry is now actually just one of many “spares” — as is everyone in the line of succession.
In his recent book Courtiers, Valentine Low quoted former palace aides, who said Harry was afraid of turning into his Uncle Andrew, a “spare” who couldn’t find his own meaning in life.
Low says aides assured him that wouldn’t happen, that a carefully followed plan would avoid that and make Harry a globally respected philanthropist in his own right. Unfortunately, Harry clearly didn’t listen, or he lacked the discipline to see it through.
Because he’s become the very thing he used to dread.
Being a “spare” isn’t some curse that determines who you are or what you become. As usual in life, that’s determined most by the person, not the position.
After all, Andrew was one of three “spares” and by all accounts, driven by his own arrogance and a massive personal ego. Whereas the other two “spares” — Princess Anne and Prince Edward — have quietly gotten on with work and their own lives.
The late Queen Elizabeth’s sister, Princess Margaret, had a similar personality and taste for the extravagant. As Vanity Fair wrote in an article about spares, “Margaret felt like she should’ve had the spotlight and would have thrived in it, and so she sought her own adulation and attention in a way that became self-destructive.”
Sound familiar? Harry has in fact now CHOSEN to be more like Andrew, rather than the path taken by his Aunt Anne or Uncle Edward.
It’s also a bizarre selling strategy, the “let me complain about my family” approach is wearing thin, even in the United States. But as Tom Sykes of The Daily Beast tweeted recently, the Sussexes’ blessing and curse is “that all anyone cares about is their industrial grade royal gossip.”
The New York Times, asked a similar question: “Is Harry’s goal to enhance his celebrity with a certain sector of the public, or is it to repair the rift with his family? Those are competing goals to some extent, and it’s hard to do both.”
People are buying what Harry’s selling because they want the gossip. And Harry has put himself in a position where he now has to deliver.
It wasn’t just palace aides or “courtiers” who knew Harry could have chosen a different path. His own mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, knew that her younger son actually had a great opening in life. That he had the platform and position to make things happen, without the many restrictions that come with being heir.
“Royal firstborns may get all the glory,” said Diana in one interview, “but second-borns enjoy more freedom. Only when Harry is a lot older will he realise how lucky he is not to have been the eldest.”
Unfortunately, it seems Harry never realised just how lucky he was.
Instead, it seems he decided to dwell on what he DOESN’T have, instead of all he DOES have. One of life’s hardest obstacles to overcome.
Perhaps the actual book won’t be trapped in the past, as the just released cover seems to indicate.
Is “Spare” really how Harry wants to define himself?