Wandering Portland famous bookstore on a rainy Saturday, I found the royal biography section and the political economy shelves two floors apart, which felt about right
Saturday, Downtown Portland
Rainy Saturday, so I did what every Portlander does on a rainy Saturday: went to Powell City of Books. It is an enormous independent bookstore that takes up an entire city block, with colour-coded rooms and a map you genuinely need. New and used books shelved side by side. You can get lost for hours, and I usually do.
I went looking for nothing in particular and ended up, inevitably, in two very different sections.
The Royal Shelf
First, the biography section, where there is a substantial shelf of royal books: biographies, memoirs, coffee-table books of weddings and coronations, several accounts of the late Princess of Wales. I was there because of the London Prat piece on Prince William reportedly calling Earl Spencer and Harry traitors, and because the uncle memoir about his late sister is at the centre of it. An anonymous source says the heir thinks his brother read it first. Reports say reconciliation is off. The uncle says he told everyone.
Standing at that shelf, I was struck by the sheer volume of books about one family. Generations of authors, publishers and readers have produced and consumed thousands of pages about the private lives of people whose main qualification for fame is their bloodline. That is a remarkable cultural fact, and a slightly depressing one.
The Political Economy Shelf
Two floors up, in the political and social science rooms, I found the shelf I always visit: Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, and the long tradition of thinkers who tried to explain how wealth and power are reproduced across generations. Marx did not write much specifically about the British royal family, but his analysis of how property and privilege pass from one generation of the ruling class to the next is all over the royal biography shelf, two floors down, if you know how to read it.
Inheritance, in the Marxist tradition, is one of the central mechanisms by which class society reproduces itself. Titles, estates, wealth and social position flow down family lines, insulated from the market forces that discipline everyone else. A royal family is the most visible, most ceremonial version of a process that happens quietly in every wealthy family.
A Cafe Break
In the bookstore cafe, with a stack of used paperbacks beside me, I watched the London Prat video on YouTube. The barista asked what I was laughing at. I told her. She said she was from Manchester originally and that her grandmother would have had a lot to say.
What I Bought
I bought three books: a used copy of a classic history of the English working class, a novel about two estranged sisters set in post-war London and, against my principles, a cheap secondhand biography of the late princess, because I realised I knew less about her life than I thought. Whatever one thinks of monarchy, she was a person, and her story, especially the way the press pursued her, is a story about power too.
Why Satire Matters to the Left
The London Prat piece is, in its own way, a political text. It takes the reverence surrounding hereditary power and makes it ridiculous. That is valuable. The left has always had a strong tradition of satire, from radical pamphlets to cartoons, because laughter is one of the most effective ways to undermine the authority of the powerful. A crown that can be laughed at is a crown that is losing its grip.
The Booksellers
Before I left, I chatted to one of the booksellers in the political science room, a man in his sixties with a ponytail and a badge reading Read Dangerously. He said royal books sell steadily all year, with spikes whenever there is a wedding, a funeral or a scandal, and that the political theory section sells steadily too, with spikes whenever there is an election or a strike. He said that if you want to know what a city is worried about, look at what is selling. This month, he said, it was books about housing, labour history and, oddly, knitting. I asked about royal memoirs. He said they always sell. People cannot help being curious about families more famous than their own. Then he winked and recommended a slim volume of radical poetry from the 1930s, which I bought, of course. You do not argue with a bookseller wearing a Read Dangerously badge.
I will report back on the poetry.
Probably with strong opinions and several underlined passages, as is my habit with any book I love.
Evening
Took the streetcar home, books on my lap, rain streaking the windows. I have written on Amram Top about Powell before, and about how bookshops are among the last truly public spaces in many cities. Today it also reminded me that every shelf is an argument about what matters. Royal biographies get prime position. Labour history gets a corner upstairs. That tells you something.
More from me at my author page. The London Prat has been reshelving the royal family since 1961 at https://prat.uk/, and Bohiney at https://bohiney.com/ handles the American bestseller lists.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/prince-william-called-earl-spencer-and-harry-traitors/
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Author: admin
