After Diana: Irreverent Elegies

I am a member of the large, but mostly silent, majority who simply could not understand why so many people went berserk following Diana's death. I was never interested in Diana's travails while she was alive, but the mass hysteria in the wake of her death prompted me to try to understand this phenomenon and its implications on modern-day society. It was difficult to find literature that would answer my search for comprehension, but this book has certainly delivered. It is well-written, academic, well-balanced, provocative, and laden with perceptive and practical insight.If you worship Diana and believe her to be a saint, you'll hate this book. It portrays her as a human being with both strong points and bad points. If on the other hand, you want to understand the meaning of Diana's death, why the mass hysteria erupted, how it reflects on our culture, and attendant food for thought, then you'll love this book. I certainly enjoyed reading it.

I've read almost everything about the Royal family in recent years. This book puts it all in perspective. We've been "snookered". Tne Emperor has no clothes. Neither does the Emperoress.I followed the order of service for the funeral that had been e-mailed from a friend in London. It was terribly sad, but not quite real. This book gives one a lot to think about.I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the royal family, but since no one is quite sure of what is the truth wonder if we should bother?Please read the book and make your own decison. It give you a lot of things to think about.

The only other book I knew which dared take on the Diana mythos was Hal Colebatch's "Blair's Britain". Read the two together and see how deranged our culture has become. All praise to these brave writers!

As a recent British immigrant (May 1998) to America, I found this book enthralling. I have vivid recollections of the day of her death and the bizarre week leading up to her funeral. This book provides a fascinating reminder of those events. As an anthology, it allows many well informed and intelligent writers to provide considered reflections on the deeper significance of Diana's life and death. They range from Christopher Hitchins' hilarious diary of his week in the middle of the media frenzy (being sought by hordes of TV and newspaper people as an all-purpose commentator on both Di and Mother Teresa)to Sarah Maitland's parallels between the cults of Diana and the Virgin Mary. My predominant recollections are the nauseating hypocrisy of the British papers who, in true "1984" fashion, reversed their assessment of Diana overnight (their general assessment of "dim-witted promiscuous tramp embarassing Her Majesty" instantly became "the most saintly woman in history") and the terrifyingly Stalinist behaviour of the BBC who broadcast news on no other topic for nearly 24 hours after her death. You could not help remembering that George Orwell's Ministry of Truth in "1984" was based on his wartime experiences at the BBC. Plainly nothing had changed inside Broadcasting House in the intervening 55 years. This book recalls both these media behaviours and much more besides, with the writers freed from the pressure to produce instant quotes and wisdom. Sadly, the book omits the funniest newspaper item on the day of her death. The "Sunday Express" staff created, at the last minute, a wrap-around outer sheet for their paper so it was about the only national paper announcing her death (in enormous headlines) on that Sunday morning. Unfortunately, the main paper inside the dramatic outer sheet contained two articles ferociously attacking her behaviour with Dodi.......Another writer, going off the main theme, recounts a list of the Royal Family's shortcomings; vulgarity, racism, mind-bending extravagance to make Imelda Marcos look like a pauper, high living in the middle of World War 2 and post-war austerity, Dickensian tight-fistedness towards their staff, philandering on a Clintonian scale, hypocrisy (the Queen objecting to Jackie Kennedy's divorced sister!!) and blatant manipulation of a supine press. It gives a totally sordid picture of the family Diana married into, but you cannot help feeling that they thoroughly deserved each other. Diana's high profile charity work formed a grotesque contrast to her lifestyle beyond the dreams of 99% of the world's population. Her own extravagance, promiscuity, greed ($25 million divorce settlement to a woman seriously wealthy in her own right)and media manipulations made her a true British royal in many ways.The most depressing aspect of the book is the portrait of the so-called "free" British press being willing to suppress any embarassing evidence of Royal misbehaviour and equal

What a relief to discover this gem of a book! I remember feeling absolutely aghast at the emotive outpouring for the Princess -- not that people should not grieve for a young woman killed -- but that such grief could be so brutal and bullying. "After Diana" addresses this issue with luminous intelligence and verve. Like a multi-faceted gem, each essay reveals a new and fascinating angle to the world wide phenomena of mourning Diana. As mentioned above, each piece is a excellent read but I particularily enjoyed the thoughtful contributions of Ross McKibbin (Mass-Observation in the Mall) Francis Wheen (New Labour, Old Windsor). I must admit I had the most pure, unadulterated fun reading Glen Newey's (Diarrhoea) razor sharp observations. Just to be nudged to remember Nigel Dennis's "Cards of Identity" was worth the price of the book.I was absolutely struck by the easy elegance of Richard Coles' essay (not that pop stars cannot by definition, be of a true intellectual bent)... I just had a moment to wonder if one chained Mariah Carey, Elton John, and Whitney Houston together to a typewriter for a thousand years -- would they manage to pen something of the like? No...far too much of a stretch.It is in Mr. Coles's essay that for me, came the book's most poignant moment: "An American friend of mine in town for the week said he'd never realised how unhappy the British were until he saw the lines of lachrymose, stretching from Buckingham Palace to Admiralty Arch."And Americans have with their usual 'take it to the max!' vigour, grieved for the Princess with real gusto too. There must be plenty of quiet desperation to go around in both countries.