Book Review: The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

FACTS ABOUT THE BOOK

Title: The Princess Diarist - A sort of memoir

Author: Carrie Fisher

Publisher: Penguin UK

Price:  £8.99

Pages: 250

Genre: Memoir

Year: 2016

 

 

BACK OF THE BOOK

   

 

When Carrie Fisher discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved - plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Now her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her co-star, Harrison Ford.
With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher’s intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time – and what developed behind the scenes. Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candour and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into the type of stardom that few will ever experience.

 

 

This book was written by Carrie Fisher in 2015/2016 and also features a lot of her diary entries from when she was shooting the first STAR WARS movie in 1976.

 

 

MY THOUGHTS ON THE BOOK

After having watched STAR WARS - THE LAST JEDI in December, I have been extremely hyped about everything STAR WARS and still am. I wanted to read Carrie Fisher's last book, THE PRINCESS DIARIST for quite a while already, but I waited until the paperback edition got released and wished for it for Christmas. It was amongst the first books I read in 2018 and I couldn't have read it at a better time, since late December/beginning of January were when my STAR WARS obsession peaked. I generally had a lot of STAR WARS feelings and this book made me even more emotional because there was so much STAR WARS in my head all the time. I should have read other books for university but I desperately wanted to read this book. And so I did.

 

I haven't read any other of Carrie Fisher's books yet, so I wasn't used to her writing style. It took me quite a while to get used to it because she doesn't really have a "normal" storytelling-way of telling a story. She actually seemed to be quite like me in the way that she started talking about one thing and then her mind wandered on to another thought and another and then she ended up somewhere completely different to where she actually intended to end when she started her sentence. So, although that was a bit confusing to read at times, it also made my sympathy for her grow, because I could so relate to that way of thinking.

 

Each chapter of this book starts with an old picture of Carrie, mostly with Harrison Ford, but also with Mark Hamill .. or Jabba the Hutt. I really loved these pictures. They were all extraordinarily beautiful and nostalgic and extremely loaded with STAR WARS feelings. I loved that those were included in the book and often came back to look at them again, when I read on.

 

Of course I had heard that Carrie had spilled the beans on her 40-years-ago affair with Harrison Ford through this book - before I've actually read this book. But I must admit, that I had very much thought that this had just been a promotion strategy to promote this book better. When I actually read it then, I was more than surprised to discover, that the majority of the book actually really does focus on that affair. I had expected that it would be dealt with in a few pages, to be honest.

 

The intensity with which Carrie described the affair with Harrison, shone a whole new light on all the Carrie & Harrison pictures and also on all the Han and Leia scenes for me. I will definitely watch all those scenes very differently now that I've read this book.

 

I was incredibily surprised by the deep feelings that young Carrie had had for Harrison Ford back then. The way that she talked about that time and the intensity with which she described her feelings for him then, really made it seem as though she still had had very deep feelings for him when she wrote this book. I honestly would never have thought that. Her descriptions of the affair and her feelings back then were incredibily raw and honest and gave the reader such an unexpected behind-the-scens view of the making of the very first STAR WARS movie.

 

When you watch Han and Leia interact in the STAR WARS movies, it always felt to me as though Leia talked down to Han and was very confident in herself and felt herself as being way out of his reach. That's why it shocked me a lot, that it had been the complete other way around in real life. It was really sad to read about Carrie's incredibily low self-esteem and self-confidence and feeling of self-worth. It's now astonishing to me that she actually managed to portray Princess Leia as such a bold and fierce and self-confident and independent woman when she herself had always felt the complete opposite to that.

 

Throughout the whole book, it is made clear how much in awe of Harrison Carrie was back then and also still 40 years later. I found it especially interesting that Carrie admitted that she still felt awkward and embarrassed in Harrison's presence even in 2015,16.  I would never have thought that. This book gave me a lot of insight into Carrie Fisher's insecure and shy inner personality - which makes it even more incredible that she was such an amazing comedien and funny person in interviews. She apparently has built a shield of humour around herself to protect her inner insecurities.

 

I found it very strange to read about Carrie's love, admiration and obsession with Harrison, since Harrison is so famous himself. Her diary entries read like a "normal" girl's obsessive crush with a boy but the fact that it wasn't just any girl who wrote about any boy but actually the actress of Princess Leia getting her heart broken by the actor of Han Solo... was just very mindblowing.

 

It always came across as though that affair had meant a very great deal to Carrie and very little to Harrison. It felt as though Carrie had never really been able to come to terms with that affair and I was really surprised that she managed to keep it a secret for so long when her feelings had been that strong. Reading about such a shattered Carrie and how Harrison actually abused her feelings, definitely painted Harrison in dark colours.

 

There was a sentence in one of her diary entries that really struck me:

 

I'm sorry it's not Mark - it could've been. It should've been. It might've meant something. Maybe not much, but certainly more.

 

I just find this so crazy that this is freakin MARK HAMILL she is talking about here. Especially with Mark being in the news everywhere promoting STAR WARS at the moment, it's just so strange to read this.

 

With everything that Carrie wrote about, she gave me a very different perspective of film sets and actors in general, and I found that very eyeopening and interesting. Although it's been a while since I've thought of film sets being as glamourous as red carpets, I still discovered while reading this book, that I still had a rather romanticised idea of film sets. In that aspect, I also found the book quite informative.

 

 

At the end of the book, there's a chapter about Carrie's experiences with fame and I found that very interesting and eyeopening aswell. Carrie shares her personal opinion on autograph-giving and conventions and meeting fans in general, as well as on taking pictures with fans or pictures being taken of her in general. She offered quite a dark perspective on all of that, which had never really occured to me in that way. After reading about the awkwardness and embarassement that she endured at a lot of these situations, I am myself quite appalled by the idea of those celebrity-fan encounters. If it is that uncomfortable and awkward for some celebrities and they just do it for the money, I wouldn't really want to be present in such a situation.

Carrie also put a lot of "conversations" that she has had with fans in this chapter - well rather only what the fans told her - and all of that felt so weird to read from her point of view, although all of those fans had obviously been very excited and over the moon to meet her. Those "talks" just offered quite a different insight to fan-celebrity meetings and kept me thinking about them for a while after.

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

I really enjoyed this book. It gave me way more details and insight into Carrie's affair with Harrison Ford than I would have ever imagined I would get. I have a very different, but definitely more complex view of Carrie Fisher as a person now. THE PRINCESS DIARIST felt very eye-opening when it comes to filmsets and being a celebrity. The book also gave me lots of STAR WARS feelings althought the movies aren't actually the main focus of the book. I was incredibly surprised by the depth of Carrie's feelings for Harrison and will definitely watch all the Han and Leia scenes very differently now that I've read this book.

 

 

RATING

I award this book with 4,5 out of 5 stars.