Amid genuinely touching passages about his sister, the earl can\u2019t help but put himself and his grievances centre stage<\/p>\n
Charles Spencer\u2019s Swan Song, a memoir of his relationship with his sister, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, is a fascinating document that tells us a little about Diana and a great deal about Charles Spencer \u2013 perhaps more than we needed to know. If that sounds snarky, after 400 pages of score settling, chest thumping, wild indiscretion and some truly touching passages about his late sister, the reader is left with a head-spinning story of the world that created Diana and a certain sourness at the manner in which it is told.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with the headlines in last week\u2019s Daily Mail, the newspaper to whom Spencer sold serialisation of a book which includes a line describing tabloid journalists as \u201cthose who inhabit the murky swamps of malevolence, and who need to suck their victims dry of their souls\u201d. Perhaps he meant a different set of hacks. Anyway the top line in the Mail was that, shortly after Diana\u2019s death, King Charles insulted her in a phone call to Spencer: \u201c\u2018Rest assured,\u2019 he hissed, \u2018we\u2019ll forget her soon enough.\u2019\u201d Your take on this quote will likely dictate how you receive the book, and here\u2019s mine: I\u2019m willing to believe the king behaved badly, but \u201chissed\u201d is a red flag, one of those embellishments, like \u201csnarled\u201d or \u201cflounced\u201d, that writers tend to use to make those they\u2019re writing about appear worse. Spencer, always the injured party, has so many axes grinding away in this book that at times it\u2019s impossible to hear what he\u2019s saying.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/8b67eac6206af44d23db5bfb6635d55e3981d95a\/917_0_4583_3667\/master\/4583.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=6328023b684635b7205ae6715b53733b\" "\\"Swan")
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