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Dec. 30th, 2019 08:36 pmA few months ago, somebody -- was it you, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
plinythemammaler? -- recommended me Monica Ali's Untold Story on the theory that its premise is very weird and it reads a bit like a Gothic.
...and both of these things are true! (Well, more like a noir than a Gothic, I would argue, but the point stands.) This book is basically ... a canon-divergent AU RPF fanfic about Princess Di? (The princess in question is technically not named but the surrounding references are very pointed.) What if, the premise goes, Princess Di did not die in a car crash ... but instead recruited a lovelorn assistant who was conveniently dying of brain cancer to help her fake her own death on a boat .... and attempted to build a new life for herself as Mysteriously Beautiful Lydia in a small American town in the middle of nowhere? WHAT IF. Maybe she could be happy, working at a dog shelter among a circle of aggressively ordinary people who love her just for who she is despite her many, many secrets! OR maybe the paparazzi will once again tear it all apart!
Honestly, if there was a 1940s noir film with this premise, I would probably eat it up with a spoon (especially the ending, in which ( spoiler ))
As the book that it is -- well, honestly, it helped me to clarify for me where my lines of discomfort lie in reading works of fiction about real people. Princess Di died ... wow, 23 years ago, which is, in fact, a long time ago, but is nonetheless well within my memory. If the book had been about someone who died 43 years ago, it might well have fallen outside the scope of my sensitivity; if I was ten years younger, I might have no problem with it at all. But for me, all through, I couldn't shake the feeling of 'too soon?? TOO SOON.' People can be dead a little longer before we start writing fictional fix-it fic of their lives.
plinythemammaler? -- recommended me Monica Ali's Untold Story on the theory that its premise is very weird and it reads a bit like a Gothic. ...and both of these things are true! (Well, more like a noir than a Gothic, I would argue, but the point stands.) This book is basically ... a canon-divergent AU RPF fanfic about Princess Di? (The princess in question is technically not named but the surrounding references are very pointed.) What if, the premise goes, Princess Di did not die in a car crash ... but instead recruited a lovelorn assistant who was conveniently dying of brain cancer to help her fake her own death on a boat .... and attempted to build a new life for herself as Mysteriously Beautiful Lydia in a small American town in the middle of nowhere? WHAT IF. Maybe she could be happy, working at a dog shelter among a circle of aggressively ordinary people who love her just for who she is despite her many, many secrets! OR maybe the paparazzi will once again tear it all apart!
Honestly, if there was a 1940s noir film with this premise, I would probably eat it up with a spoon (especially the ending, in which ( spoiler ))
As the book that it is -- well, honestly, it helped me to clarify for me where my lines of discomfort lie in reading works of fiction about real people. Princess Di died ... wow, 23 years ago, which is, in fact, a long time ago, but is nonetheless well within my memory. If the book had been about someone who died 43 years ago, it might well have fallen outside the scope of my sensitivity; if I was ten years younger, I might have no problem with it at all. But for me, all through, I couldn't shake the feeling of 'too soon?? TOO SOON.' People can be dead a little longer before we start writing fictional fix-it fic of their lives.
