Antoinette as a royal consort was a gliding, smiling disaster, much like Diana in another time and another country. But Kate Middleton, as she was, appeared to have been designed by a committee and built by craftsmen, with a perfect plastic smile and the spindles of her limbs hand-turned and gloss-varnished. When it was announced that Diana was to join the royal family, the Duke of Edinburgh is said to have given her his approval because she would ‘breed in some height’.
Sue Townsend said of Diana that she was ‘a fatal non-reader’. She didn’t know the end of her own story. She enjoyed only the romances of Barbara Cartland. I’m far too snobbish to have read one, but I assume they are stories in which a wedding takes place and they all live happily ever after. Diana didn’t see the possible twists in the narrative. What does Kate read? It’s a question.
[Kate] appears precision-made, machine-made, so different from Diana whose human awkwardness and emotional incontinence showed in her every gesture.
Invited to an event where Queen Elizabeth appeared she writes:
And then the queen passed close to me and I stared at her. I am ashamed now to say it but I passed my eyes over her as a cannibal views his dinner, my gaze sharp enough to pick the meat off her bones. I felt that such was the force of my devouring curiosity that the party had dematerialised and the walls melted and there were only two of us in the vast room, and such was the hard power of my stare that Her Majesty turned and looked back at me, as if she had been jabbed in the shoulder; and for a split second her face expressed not anger but hurt bewilderment. She looked young: for a moment she had turned back from a figurehead into the young woman she was, before monarchy froze her and made her a thing, a thing which only had meaning when it was exposed, a thing that existed only to be looked at.
Now flunkeys were moving among us with trays and on them were canapés, and these snacks were the queen’s revenge. They were pieces of gristly meat on skewers.
At this point the evening became all too much for me. It was violently interesting. I went behind a sofa and sat on the floor and enjoyed the rest of the party that way, seeking privacy as my sympathies shifted. And as the guests ebbed away and the rooms emptied, I joined them, and on the threshold I looked back, and what I saw, placed precisely at the base of every pillar, was a forest of little sticks: gnawed and abandoned.
Diana was more royal than the family she joined. That had nothing to do with family trees. Something in her personality, her receptivity, her passivity, fitted her to be the carrier of myth.
When I think of Diana, I remember Stevie Smith’s poem about the Lorelei:There, on a rock majestical,
A girl with smile equivocal,
Painted, young and damned and fair,
Sits and combs her yellow hair.Soon Diana’s hairstyles were as consequential as Marie Antoinette’s, and a great deal cheaper to copy.
An antique story comes to me
And fills me with anxiety,
I wonder why I fear so much
What surely has no modern touch?*
In the age of feminism and equality aren't we supposed to have moved beyond these old fairy tales? These are the fantasies of children!
In the next stage of [Diana's] story, she passed through trials, through ordeals at the world’s hands. For a time the public refrained from demanding her blood so she shed it herself, cutting her arms and legs. Her death still makes me shudder because although I know it was an accident, it wasn’t just an accident. It was fate showing her hand, fate with her twisted grin. Diana visited the most feminine of cities to meet her end as a woman: to move on, from the City of Light to the place beyond black. She went into the underpass to be reborn, but reborn this time without a physical body: the airy subject of a hundred thousand photographs, a flicker at the corner of the eye, a sigh on the breeze.
Her essay at this point sags some, as she discusses the history of royal families and royal bodies, becoming merely interesting rather than brilliant.
But how she picks up at the end!
Is monarchy a suitable institution for a grown-up nation? I don’t know. I have described how my own sympathies were activated and my simple ideas altered. The debate is not high on our agenda. We are happy to allow monarchy to be an entertainment, in the same way that we license strip joints and lap-dancing clubs...Diana was spared, at least, the prospect of growing old under the flashbulbs, a crime for which the media would have made her suffer. It may be that the whole phenomenon of monarchy is irrational, but that doesn’t mean that when we look at it we should behave like spectators at Bedlam. Cheerful curiosity can easily become cruelty. It can easily become fatal. We don’t cut off the heads of royal ladies these days, but we do sacrifice them, and we did memorably drive one to destruction a scant generation ago. History makes fools of us, makes puppets of us, often enough. But it doesn’t have to repeat itself. In the current case, much lies within our control. I’m not asking for censorship. I’m not asking for pious humbug and smarmy reverence. I’m asking us to back off and not be brutes. Get your pink frilly frocks out, zhuzh up your platinum locks. We are all Barbara Cartland now. The pen is in our hands. A happy ending is ours to write.
Yes. And why anyone can seriously dispute what she says I do not know.
*I'm sure Mantel knows this poem is a take on Heine's Lorelei.
More: From USA Today.
Admittedly I have not read much about this other than that it happened but I felt irritated that this supposedly talented writer felt she could get more publicity by attacking the girl William married while she praised Diana. To me Kate is an ordinary young woman who fell in love with a prince. He appears to love her unlike Charles who literally was the one who took a bride purely to satisfy his position in the royal line. I don't have anything against Diana but she's no woman to emulate. Yes, she was more beautiful and unique looking than Kate but that's not exactly a criteria for being worthy as a human being. At least Kate does not appear to have a husband in love with another woman. It is possible she set out to get herself a prince but then again maybe she just loves him and is trying to do the best she can in a position that is fraught with pitfalls.
To me it appears that this author profited from her condemnation of Kate as I read her sales are up. What that says about the book buying public is a good question. Evidently there is a lot of resentment toward the royals especially among the intellectual elites maybe?
Posted by: Rain Trueax | February 20, 2013 at 10:01 AM
America, without a royal family, directs a great deal of attention and adoration toward the President and his family, some (JFK, Obama) more than others (Ford). In other words, the President is America's substitute for a king.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/75251/dear-leader
"Healy argued that the office of the president had assumed an almost supernatural place in American life. Not only had presidents assumed powers far beyond those originally intended—though I’d take exception to Healy’s shrunken, nineteenth-century conception of the office’s proper role—but the broader culture had also assigned it powers that go beyond the realm of politics itself. 'The chief executive of the United States is no longer a mere constitutional officer charged with faithful execution of the laws,' wrote Healy. 'He is a soul nourisher, a hope giver, a living American talisman against hurricanes, terrorism, economic downturns, and spiritual malaise.'"
Posted by: Brandon | February 20, 2013 at 10:08 AM
Mantel is an extreme artist who has transcended gender categories and become famous through writing about royalty. She is addressing the cannibalistic nature of her-and our--fascination with the Royals.
Posted by: Hattie | February 20, 2013 at 10:15 AM
Well, I guess I don't "seriously dispute" Mantel, I just don't give a rip about who she is or what she thinks. She could be as right as rain and still would be wrong in my eyes. It's a subjective question of taste not science. I love the royal family. They are myth incarnate which every society needs, especially ours, as Brandon suggests.
Since Mantel has the good taste to balance her cannibal thoughts (ironic no doubt, but the way she skewers the Queen and the latest princess, I wonder....) with a mention of Stevie Smith. She is one of the great "unknown" poets, one of my favorites. I would like to quote her "Not Waving but Drowning," a great comment on our common human condition. Thank you for having a blog for which this seems an acceptable thing for me to do.
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
Posted by: Henry Hank Chapin | February 20, 2013 at 10:48 AM
Hank: But isn't this exactly the dilemma of Diana? She was in way over her head. The Royals threw her away after she had done the reproductive work she was recruited for: improving the breed through her height and her interesting looks. And her husband never loved her. That is why there was such an outpouring of grief and sympathy for her after she died.
Posted by: Hattie | February 20, 2013 at 10:58 AM
What I didn't like about what she said regarding Kate was "But Kate Middleton, as she was, appeared to have been designed by a committee and built by craftsmen, with a perfect plastic smile and the spindles of her limbs hand-turned and gloss-varnished." That statement implied the young woman was shallow and crafted by someone else. It was rude and not true. The problem is that Kate looks ordinary and not the goddess that so many wanted Diana to be. That statement was insulting to the person Kate is.
Yes, I don't think they should photograph her all the time nor that they should have Diana but those are England's movie stars and as said above their Obama family. Frankly I still feel the woman was rude to a young woman who did not deserve it.
She basically became one of the hoards attacking Kate whenever she doesn't match up to some expectation that nobody has a right to expect anyway. And she got publicity around the world for doing it which increased her sales. She's no better than the media-- elite writer or not.
Posted by: Rain Trueax | February 20, 2013 at 12:21 PM
This was an interesting piece that I came across after leaving here-- http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/19/in-defence-of-hilary-mantel-on-jointed-doll-kate-middleton-s-dead-eyes.html The thing is this is about celebrity. It's not about royalty any more than movie stars or star politicians. It's the nature of humans to want to have these people on a pedestal. That's fine for the author to criticize that she doesn't like the monarchy but when she made it personal about Kate, I think she herself stepped over a line. She's a young woman trying to find her place and I see the insecurity often in her smile. She fell in love with someone and that's the life she had to accept if she wanted to be with him. I don't think she's manufactured or a phony. And Diana had a lot of emotional problems which may or may not have even come out of the monarchy but from her own life and parents. Diana was a world celebrity and that led to people being interested in everything she did. She is one of the few people I can say I know exactly where I was when I heard she had been killed.
Posted by: Rain Trueax | February 20, 2013 at 12:30 PM
Mantel is an artist. As we used to say in writing classes, she "problematizes" the issue of royals and royal bodies. That is her great subject. Here she is repenting somewhat, as the ghastly truth hits her that these people are only human and have been warped out of shape into the grotesque royal creatures that we gossip about in lieu of having lives of our own.
The British Royals were the earliest pop cult figures and continue to perform this function today. The Brits find it worthwhile to finance the monarchy for the gloss it puts on the mundane realities of their everyday lives.
And she does not need publicity. Her books are wildly popular.
Posted by: Hattie | February 20, 2013 at 12:47 PM
You may think she didn't need it but what she said got it.
Assuming she didn't do it for publicity, I still feel it was mean spirited toward a young woman who is trying to fulfill the expectations of her husband and culture. Arrogance in the name of literaty genius is still arrogance or as was said other places-- hubris. She should have thought more carefully before she put down a woman she does not know and who it appears is doing her best. And to compare her to Diana was even more annoying as there are a lot of things about Diana that are not admirable. One will have to hope Kate isn't following in her path for things like bulimia and insecurity. Finding fault with her for being plastic can't help.
Find fault with the monarchy. That's fair game. Going after Kate was not. I do relate to this because of the young women in my own family trying to do their best and not needing someone to imply they are plastic for doing that. You might admire this author for what she said. I do not.
Posted by: Rain Trueax | February 20, 2013 at 01:23 PM
Rain: We make assumptions about these people, imagining that we have something in common with them. Mantel is trying to break through that veil, to see if there are human commonalities. It was OK as long as she stuck to writing about the historical Royal monsters, but to move in on the Queen and have insights about her: that is the naughty child who sees, not that the Emperor(ess) has no clothes but that beneath all the "clothing" of wealth and position a rather sad human being is hidden. The Empress has too many clothes. And Kate Middleton is not a fortunate person! Like Diana, she has been hired to improve the breed, but she is expected to maintain decorum. If the prince loves her, that's nice, but who knows if that will last, and then what will she do? Have people already forgotten all the scandals that have rocked this family over the generations?
Let us not forget that they are not like you and me. Mantel isn't either, obviously! Artists can be ruthless. And an artist who is a woman will come in for far more criticism than her male counterparts.
She has broken out of the female ghetto, declaring the right to her own unmediated insights. Naughty girl!
Posted by: Hattie | February 20, 2013 at 01:44 PM
I see it that if her purpose was to find fault with the monarchy, she blew it when she added the piece about Kate. She lost her point with her desire to attack someone who she admits she didn't know at all. Kate is no Diana.
I've already learned this with my blog. If you put in something like that often it loses the whole point by people zeroing in on that one point. The issue here attacking a young woman for being plastic as if all Kate is is a baby machine to William. Frankly where they were college sweethearts and dated a long time before marriage, it seems more like they are ordinary.
Then she throws in Ann Boleyn who just happens to be what her second book is about in the evident defense of Oliver Cromwell. She didn't want publicity, my foot! She wanted it and got it but if her point was the monarchy is at fault, she lost the whole point by her attack. It made her seem small and if the monarchy is so insignificant, why is she writing these three books on the Tudors. My interest in them is a zero but a lot of people who claim they have no interest in the monarchy today will have bought those books. It's okay to be interested in the monarchy back then but not today? Actually I am not that interested in it either way but since i have a daughter and daughter in law who are also trying to function making a contribution, I don't admire someone who uses someone like them as her punching bag. Kate is being attacked on a lot of levels and hopefully she has more emotional strength than Diana and will have a husband behind her. Time will tell on that but obviously she needs to ignore people like Mantel, who is admired by so many.
And as for mantel breaking out of the female ghetto... I don't know anything about her and don't see her as naughty. In fact that word doesn't strike me as one that fits at all. She was rude. Male and female can be rude. Naughty is like a child. I looked at the pictures of Mantel and maybe she's just jealous of beautiful women... who knows what her motivation was for slamming Kate. I just think she lost her point but she also got a lot of publicity and most writers do want publicity-- except for those above it all... which I doubt she is despite the literary genius label!
Posted by: Rain Trueax | February 20, 2013 at 02:28 PM
and then i came across this which took two sides of this issue-- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2281371/Kate-Middleton-just-Diana-Lite-says-Julie-Burchill-A-N-Wilson-argues-Duchess-Cambridge-textbook-royal.html
Posted by: Rain Trueax | February 20, 2013 at 02:52 PM
Rain: Mantel is really writing about herself, of course. What if you simply can't identify with these people on any level, and yet you have to live with them? That is the dilemma that the British face. The royals are a huge drain on the public purse. The men, at any rate, have guttersnipe values,as my gossipy aunt who lived in London filled me in on once. They are trying to reinstate the notion of themselves as having middle class values in spite of being rich royalty. I personally am not a big royalty hater, although I probably would be if I lived in Great Britain and had to pay for their lavish lifestyle. As Gary Younge puts it, an American (a boy, at any rate) can say to himself, "Someday I can grow up and be President." But no child outside the royal family can say, "When I grow up I can be the King, or the Queen."
At any rate, it's fascinating to see what a shitstorm Mantel has kicked up.
Posted by: Hattie | February 20, 2013 at 04:31 PM
I think if she had just stuck to that, her points would have had more validity but gotten less publicity. She attacked a young woman that she didn't know and based purely on what Kate looks like. To me Kate looks like a very ordinary pretty girl. She hasn't done anything to get the condemnation that is coming onto her that she doesn't meet up with Diana. She's younger and feeling her way into it. Give her time. Diana had qualities that were admirable but those that were not.
In our country it's the sports people and celebs that we put the money out to support their lifestyles. Humans seem to want this kind of worship. At least here it's a choice-- we don't have to go to the movies or the sporting events. The English people have proven to want to support that lifestyle for their royals. If they change their minds, it will change. For now they feel superior for having this long lived monarchy-- more elite, I think.
The argument though that it's not good has long been out there with a lot who would love to see it ended. The people in the monarchy though would keep a lot of their wealth as they own it as do the others like dukes etc who inherited their lands and wealth. They just wouldn't get that yearly allowance.
Posted by: Rain Trueax | February 20, 2013 at 04:41 PM
Remember how nasty the Beatles were about the Royals? And yet they got a free pass, didn't they. Mantel will, too, because there is money involved. The Brits used to be different, but now it's just like here: everything is about money.
The Royal Family will probably go the way of the Papacy, sooner or later.
Posted by: Hattie | February 20, 2013 at 04:56 PM
She could have attacked the royals. She attacked a woman she does not know. Why is that okay? Kate wasn't raised a royal. Attack Anne or Harry or William. Why did she pick on Kate? I feel like it's tough enough to be pregnant with a pregnancy that began difficultly and satisfying what the English people want and then be told she's plastic and only a baby machine, etc etc. Mantel got a boost to her sales from doing it; so she's not suffering. It's more likely to be Kate who does-- if she takes any of this seriously. Hopefully she does not. For all we know her sin was falling in love with a man. Nobody can prove she wanted to be a queen or princess. What makes anybody want to attack her? All the talk Mantel did about the evils of the media, she replicated by what she did. You admire her writing. That doesn't make her a nice person.
Posted by: Rain Trueax | February 20, 2013 at 05:17 PM
Exactly. She is not a nice person, perhaps. But I can think of lots of writers who are not nice people. F.Scott Fitzgerald used to get drunk and beat his wife, but The Great Gatsby is still a masterpiece. It's not as if she murdered anyone, the way William Burroughs murdered his wife, for instance. We give men a pass on murder, whereas a female counterpart gets slammed for saying hurtful things about another woman.
We still expect women to be nice, especially to each other. But there is a whole class of submerged women that Hilary Mantel speaks to: the overlooked frogs who will never become princesses. Who will live out their lives and go into the darkness. That's her message, not a comforting one for sure.
Having said all this, I must admit that Mantel is not a favorite of mine. I don't share her interest in magic and the occult. I know what she is up to, but I would rather stay on the daylight side of things.
Posted by: Hattie | February 20, 2013 at 06:38 PM
"At any rate, it's fascinating to see what a shitstorm Mantel has kicked up."
Even here!P
Although Kate Middleton is a commoner, her family is pretty rich. I don;t know if she's the first commoner to marry into the royal family, but this is an interesting article on morganitic marriage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morganatic_marriage#United_Kingdom
Posted by: Brandon | February 20, 2013 at 07:36 PM
The other thing that I read about the book she is doing to try and redeem Cromwell, who was pretty much not a nice person. Why try to redeem him? The photos of her reminds me Ayn Rand. She has sold more books for the publicity she got.
Posted by: Rain Trueax | February 20, 2013 at 08:32 PM
and if kate doesn't have a tough hide, she better develop one as people love bringing down someone they envy.
Posted by: Rain Trueax | February 20, 2013 at 08:34 PM
Ironic, because she was not expressing these ideas in popular venues, but the popular press picked it up.
Anyway, I guess in fairy tale terms she is the old witch putting a curse on the fair young princess.
Posted by: Hattie | February 20, 2013 at 10:39 PM
And, of course, the monarchy was abolished under Cromwell.
Posted by: Brandon | February 21, 2013 at 01:30 AM
When you marry a royal, you are signing on for the whole thing, good and bad. To me, the difference between the two ladies is stark: Kate understands fully what her marriage means and accepts it; Diana either never had a clue, or obstinately refused to keep up her end of the bargain.
Mantel's phrase that Diana was "awkward and emotionally incontinent," captured it perfectly. Whereas Charles and his parents seem to be emotionally stunted. I was increasingly annoyed by Diana's weepy histrionics; did Diana's mother NOT sit her down in advance and explain clearly what being the Princess of Wales was going to entail? Unbelievably, it would seem not.
I've had the thought myself that Kate looks like a Barbie doll, but I think-- good for her. It is one more thing to help her be perfect for her job. To me, what Martel is saying is, we eat these young people alive. Back off, and cut them some slack.
Posted by: Maria | February 21, 2013 at 06:11 AM
hey you should be a writer, Hattie. But I don't think that's the right story in this case. More like how it is with chickens. Have you ever raised them? One hen pecks on another and draws blood. The rest also begin pecking on that bloody spot until that chicken is seriously hurt, finally so weak that sometimes it dies.
So, attacking someone like Kate, who it's easy for others to be jealous of for her supposedly golden life (nobody knows what it's really like), and when that first attacker is admired, supposedly extremely intelligent with a gift for using words like a rapier, gets it started, then the others jump on with the mob mentality. It's a classic plot where then the young heroine better get strong fast.
In this case, it won't happen probably because Kate isn't giving them much to work with. All her public appearances are at events she is supposed to attend as a patroness. She wears her clothes well but most have been off the shelf and worn more than once. So far, she doesn't lay out her life story or do the interviews that reveal her sex life. That will only happen if the marriage doesn't work ;). Hopefully William learned a few things also from his father's failures.
Posted by: Rain Trueax | February 21, 2013 at 06:46 AM
We had chickens, ducks and geese when I was growing up, and many of my life's lessons came from watching them. I'm not joking. So, I understand your point. I am also sympathetic, like you, Rain Trueax, to the hardships faced by young people today.
Thank you, Hattie, for your restless, probing, intelligent mind. You give us so much to think about.
Posted by: Maria | February 21, 2013 at 08:06 AM
Well bless you all for the compliments! In the words of Ronald Reagan, I have so much to be modest about!
Posted by: Hattie | February 21, 2013 at 09:30 AM