The Princess Diarist

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
Published: 2016
Narrated by: Carrie Fisher
Length: 05:10 (257 pages)

I was sad to finish this one, knowing this will be the last of Carrie Fisher’s memoirs. I would have kept reading these memoirs for as long as she published them. She was just hilarious, and that really comes out in her writing.

This focuses on her Star Wars career and the events surrounding it, something she usually skirted around in her other memoirs. The more you read of Carrie Fisher, the more you understand that Star Wars was one of the least interesting things about her, but it’s still fun to hear some inside stories. A huge portion of this, as you may have heard, was on her affair with Harrison Ford during the first movie. It was maybe a bit too focused on that, actually, but it was still interesting. It doesn’t reflect particularly well on Ford, despite her adoration of him, but it was many years ago.

It’s a great comedy piece, actually, having a quick affair on a foreign film set without knowing the movie would be a cultural phenomenon, linking you together for the rest of your lives and spawning sequels in which you will need to share sexual tension and an on-screen kiss. I wonder if any of her fiction has a similar plot structure.

She was prompted to write this book when she stumbled upon her diaries from that time in her life, and there’s a short section in this where she provides excerpts from the poetry she used to write. It’s really interesting to see a sincere, non-sarcastic, side of Carrie Fisher. She even had another voice actor her daughter read them (thanks for pointing this out Knight of Angels, weird that I missed that), as I imagine it would be horrifying for her to actually read them aloud herself (although, maybe she just thought it would be fun to involve her daughter). I didn’t find them that cringe-worthy, though, despite what she says. It was over-the-top dramatic and angsty in the way young people tend to be, but parts were beautifully written.

The second half of the book deals more with life after Star Wars – the fame, the fans, the coming and going of money. She was someone who saw what fame did to her parents, never really wanted to reach that level, and accidentally found herself there by doing a little science fiction movie in the 70s. She did seem a bit conflicted with it all, and would often joke about the movie, the haircut, and the lack of bras in space, but it’s obvious reading this that Star Wars did mean a lot to her.

She was a hilarious writer. I haven’t read any of her fiction yet, but I’ll be tracking some down. Audible has a few of her fiction books, narrated by her, but they’re abridged for some reason, which I find slightly infuriating. I’ll be looking for the paper editions.