With Star Wars so
vengefully back in the pop culture consciousness, and Carrie Fisher, herself,
finally back in Star Wars, the
writer/actress could not ignore Leia any longer. So everyone who owns a tiny, plastic
reproduction of Carrie Fisher will surely rejoice in the idea of 250 pages of undiluted
Star Wars memories in her seventh
book, The Princess Diarist.
Those expecting nothing but jolly behind-the-scenes
anecdotes don’t know Carrie Fisher that well and should adjust their
expectations, because The Princess
Diarist is much more interesting and challenging than that. The story
begins in somewhat familiar territory, as Fisher recounts her audition with
George Lucas and Brian DePalma, who was simultaneously casting for Carrie. Despite Fisher’s disclaimer that
this is an oft-told story—and I have certainly heard her speak about her Star Wars audition many times—the
details here were totally new to me as she recounted her awkward dialogue with
DePalma in greater depth than I’d ever heard before.
However, as soon as Carrie Fisher meets Harrison Ford, The Princess Diarist takes an unexpected
dive down the rabbit hole. Half of the book is consumed with a painful affair
with Fisher’s co-star, and it is relayed with all the self-doubt, anger, and
drama of a twenty-year-old girl involved with a gorgeous, moody, married,
experienced man fifteen years her senior. This will not be the source of
romantic Leia and Han fantasies for fans. This is a deeply sad story as we
become aware of just how obsessed with Ford she was, and forty years later, she
seems to still feel those feelings acutely.
In the middle of this episode, Fisher justifies her book’s
title with a chapter consisting of diary entries she wrote while in the midst
of the affair. To mix our sci-fi metaphors, this section is like the Star Wars memoir’s 2001-stargate sequence. All logic and linearity go out the
pod-bay doors as Fisher bounces between self-castigation, poetic flights of
fancy (some of which read like pop song lyrics), and confused thoughts that
could only come from an inexperienced yet highly literate person who is dealing
with deeper psychological issues than mere unrequited love. It can be cringe inducing,
and even baffling (one entry imagines some sort of dream collaboration between Led Zeppelin and corny Ray Conniff), but there is an undeniable bravery in
Fisher’s decision to include these pages and a genuine emotional power behind
them. Few fans would probably expect to feel anything other than goofy joy when
reading a Star Wars memoir. Fisher
will make them feel a lot more than that.
Yet her love for her fans is very clear even as she pulls no
punches about her intense unease about signing photos of herself in a metal
bikini at conventions for cash or being an onanistic fantasy object for
fifty-year old men. She provides extended dialogues with fans to illustrate how
odd they can be but also how deeply the star and the fans’ mutual feelings remain.
It is uncomfortable, daring, imaginative, and unexpectedly moving, much like
the rest of The Princess Diarist.
