She Treads Softly: The Princess Diarist

Sunday, November 19, 2017

The Princess Diarist

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
Penguin Publishing Group: 11/22/17
eBook review copy; 272 pages
ISBN-13: 9780399173592

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher is a highly recommended personal insight into her life as Princess Leia and her affair with Harrison Ford during the filming.

In 1977 she was just a teenager, 19, when she accepted the role of Princess Leia. She never wanted to be an actor, but had a role in Shampoo in 1975 and auditioned for the role of Princess Leia. For several reasons Carrie Fisher had kept quiet for years about her affair with Harrison Ford during the filming of the original Star Wars. With the discovery of journals she had written during that time, she finally decided that it was time to tell the story.

First she discusses the effect being Princess Leia has had on her life. Obviously in such an iconic role being forever known as Princess Leia has had a profound effect on her life, whether she wanted it to or not. When Fisher met Ford, she was inexperienced, while Ford was an older married man. It was an affair that lasted just while they were filming Star Wars. It likely had little effect on Ford, but Fisher was young and impressionable. Only about half of the book includes the dairy entries and poems she wrote, which all clearly show how she struggled with keeping emotions out of it when as a young woman she was full of emotions, insecurities, and was extremely vulnerable.

This is not a tell-all book full of details about the affair nor is it a detailed account of filming Star Wars. It is Carrie Fisher sharing part of herself, from a time long ago, and how the events influenced her life. Fisher is a good writer, and she captures her feeling about the events honestly. She also writes candidly about autograph and photo-op events. Since this is the last of the autobiographical books Fisher will write, it deserves at least four stars.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the Penguin Publishing Group via Netgalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.