Dianaworld An Obsession

Description

A brilliant, kaleidoscopic new cultural history of Diana, her many lives and the world she created 'This book is about layers of mythology and the people connected to them. It is less a biography of Diana, more the story of a cultural obsession told via an exploration of "Dianaworld", the sprawling, ever-evolving precinct of her various lives--public and private, real and imagined.' In February 1981 a 19-year-old nursery teacher's assistant overnight became globally famous. In a frenzy of excitement, jumping every barrier of language and class, a new, overwhelming icon was conjured up. This is a guide to Dianaworld - the extraordinary hall-of-mirrors through which one young woman, the world's media, the royal family, and everybody else stalked one another. Fashion-plate, breeder of heirs, role model, fantasy object, saint and sinner, Diana gripped the minds of millions of people in ways which were unique, complex and distressing. After her death, chased by paparazzi through a Paris traffic tunnel, an estimated 2.5 billion people watched her funeral. Edward White examines Princess Diana as the complex figure she was: a scion of a great aristocratic house, wife of the future king, mother of his heirs, an inspiration and delight to countless people for many years. And yet, of course: a human being inevitably and woefully underequipped either to deal with the horrors of the House of Windsor or control, or even lightly supervise, the Dianaworld she and others had created. This is a wonderful book, both admiring and incredulous, exuberant and melancholy.

Reviews

A kaleidoscopic portrait of Princess Diana (1961-1997), as viewed by the people whose lives she touched... White takes an evenhanded perspective on his subject... his panoramic approach attests to her lasting influence across the world. This achieves the difficult task of finding a novel take on the much-discussed former royal * Publishers Weekly *
I didn't think it possible to produce an interesting book about Princess Diana at this juncture, but, by George, White has done it [...] there is an admirable intelligence at work here -- Nicola Shulman * The Literary Review *
A wide-ranging cultural history of the former Princess of Wales... Dianaworld teems with striking, odd anecdotes that will be irresistible to anyone with an eye for Diana-related ephemera -- Katie Rosseinsky * Independent *
Edward White's lively, deeply researched Dianaworld gives us something very different... The strength of White's approach is his desire to take seriously the stories that drew people to Diana and continue to shape her afterlives. There is no single explanation for her enduring appeal - and in fact, any attempt to provide one will seem foolish after White's book... This book is an ingenious solution to the problem of biography in an age of global celebrity -- Tiffany Watt Smith * The Guardian *
Devotees of the 'People's Princess' will revel in White's explorations of the territory behind the curtain * Kirkus Reviews *
Highly entertaining, witty and just judgemental enough... With an enjoyably light touch, White takes apart the affectation of Diana and other famous people -- Moira Richard * The i Paper *
Excellently written and extremely diverting -- The Standard
This eclectic non-fiction account of the sociological phenomenon of Princess Diana reveals some fascinating oddities * Esquire *
Equitable and ecumenical... White ensures that readers will appreciate the phenomenal impact this often misunderstood yet perennially alluring woman has made on the culture -- Carol Haggas * Booklist *
Dianaworld is very well done... and it is that unexpected thing in this field: something of a contribution to knowledge -- Philip Hensher * The Spectator *

Author description

Edward White is the author of widely praised The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock and The Tastemaker- Carl Van Vechten and the Birth of Modern America. He has written for publications including the Paris Review. He lives in Kent.