Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret
Author:
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Book Type: Hardcover
Author:
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Book Type: Hardcover
After about 33 "glimpses" I started to flag, and to wonder if Brown-- and Princess Margaret -- had delighted us long enough. But it WAS easy enough, even a little addictive, to keep reading. A Life in Small Bites: this might be the only realistic way to tackle a life of such stark contrasts, such privilege and such unhappiness, vying for precedence at every turn.
My main criticism -- and the reason for the 3-star rating -- is that there did seem to be a lot of padding to achieve the magical 99 figure. Some sections were short, sweet and surprising, the biographical equivalent of a whiplash across the flagging attention. Others dragged and some were thematically repetitious. Hold the presses, Princess Margaret is rude again. Brown also attempts to liven things up with half a dozen counterfactuals, "what-ifs": what if Princess Margaret had married her first great love, Group Captain Peter Townsend? Picasso? (who supposed had a "thing" abut her ... who'd a thunk it ...) They aren't as funny as Brown seems to think they are, with the exception of the one in which, in an episode worthy of the Twilight Zone, he imagines Margaret married to Jeremy Thorpe, the member of Parliament who was notoriously tried for his part in an unsuccessful plot to have his male lover murdered. (The murder plot was recently dramatized by the BBC as "A Very English Scandal," with Hugh Grant in the role of Jeremy Thorpe.)
Interesting things I learned about PM (as her hangers-on seemed to call her): the infamous property on Mustique was the only property she owned, in her whole life. Group Captain Townsend was 18 years older than her. And he eventually married a young woman 14 years younger than her. (*yikes*!!) The aforementioned Jeremy Thorpe narrowly missed being Best Man at her wedding. (The groom, the future Lord Snowdon, had quite a struggle finding a friend without a dark and murky past to do the honors.) On her death, her kids flogged everything: childhood memorabilia, gifts from grandmother Queen Mary, gifts from the charities she represented, presents from her staff. The Queen had to order them to donate the proceeds of the sale of the charity gifts back to charity ...
Bring on.the Revolution ......
My main criticism -- and the reason for the 3-star rating -- is that there did seem to be a lot of padding to achieve the magical 99 figure. Some sections were short, sweet and surprising, the biographical equivalent of a whiplash across the flagging attention. Others dragged and some were thematically repetitious. Hold the presses, Princess Margaret is rude again. Brown also attempts to liven things up with half a dozen counterfactuals, "what-ifs": what if Princess Margaret had married her first great love, Group Captain Peter Townsend? Picasso? (who supposed had a "thing" abut her ... who'd a thunk it ...) They aren't as funny as Brown seems to think they are, with the exception of the one in which, in an episode worthy of the Twilight Zone, he imagines Margaret married to Jeremy Thorpe, the member of Parliament who was notoriously tried for his part in an unsuccessful plot to have his male lover murdered. (The murder plot was recently dramatized by the BBC as "A Very English Scandal," with Hugh Grant in the role of Jeremy Thorpe.)
Interesting things I learned about PM (as her hangers-on seemed to call her): the infamous property on Mustique was the only property she owned, in her whole life. Group Captain Townsend was 18 years older than her. And he eventually married a young woman 14 years younger than her. (*yikes*!!) The aforementioned Jeremy Thorpe narrowly missed being Best Man at her wedding. (The groom, the future Lord Snowdon, had quite a struggle finding a friend without a dark and murky past to do the honors.) On her death, her kids flogged everything: childhood memorabilia, gifts from grandmother Queen Mary, gifts from the charities she represented, presents from her staff. The Queen had to order them to donate the proceeds of the sale of the charity gifts back to charity ...
Bring on.the Revolution ......
