BOOK REVIEW: The Real Elizabeth

The Real Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by Andrew Marr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Everyone's got their celebrity obsession, and I've confessed before that mine is the British royal family. On top of that, I'm definitely an Anglophile, too. So as you can imagine, between the Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics, I've been enjoying 2012!

I found this to be an absorbing book. It really isn't a biography of the Queen, per se, though: it's more of a history of the House of Windsor and how the monarchy has changed since the reign of Elizabeth's grandfather George V. (I would imagine that most people who are close enough to the Queen to be able to provide an "intimate portrait" are also discreet enough to not spill her secrets. There is a discussion in the book of the Queen's governess, Marion Crawford, who wrote an affectionate memoir of her time with the then-Princess Elizabeth and her sister Margaret; she was never forgiven for her betrayal of the family confidence.) Marr makes it a point to talk about the Queen's relationships with her various prime ministers, which helps to illuminate the role, limited though it may be, that she plays in British politics and government.

There wasn't anything in the book that came as a surprise to me; I don't think there are any big revelations for anyone who has even a passing knowledge of the Queen's reign. But there was one passage which struck me because I read it the day after the opening ceremonies for the London Olympics, where the Queen was shown with a meme-worthy pout. Marr quotes Richard Crossman's diary:

"When she is deeply moved and tries to control it, she looks like an angry thunder-cloud. So, very often when she has been deeply touched by the plaudits of the crowd she merely looks terribly bad-tempered." (p. 179)

So there you have it. Let's all assume that Her Majesty enjoyed the pageantry of the opening ceremony more than the pictures of her might have suggested!

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