DATE: Saturday, September 13, 1997          TAG: 9709130629

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Guy Friddell 

                                            LENGTH:   51 lines

DIANA'S FINAL RITES EVOKE FEELINGS BOTH SAD AND MAD

Two young women were discussing the funeral of Princess Diana.

``What fascinated me about it was that I was fascinated with it,'' one said, ``perhaps because the world is so small and transmission of news so swift.

``Everybody everywhere can be talking about the same thing. You have to stay tuned to keep up with what's going on.''

She looked at her friend. ``I watched to see if you would read the newspaper's eight-page section on Diana. You read every word.''

She was saddened to tears by Diana's last words, delivered while cameras were flaring in her face and a doctor tried to help her amid the wreckage: ``Leave me alone.''

Diana ``may have been speaking to the photographers or the doctor or to everyone,'' she said.

Her friend thought the event consumed people's attention because it was packed with symbolism of a world being out of order.

In a conversation between two other friends, one remarked it was ``really upsetting and incredibly absorbing as a Shakespearean tragedy in epic scope.''

And then, thinking of Prince Charles, she said, ``Hers was the best revenge anybody ever got. He was humiliated in front of the world and he got trashed.''

Her friend, passing in front of the TV, caught sight of the cortege, sat down on the floor and watched the funeral to its close, in tears.

``It's easy to identify with what she's gone through - divorce, bulimia, loss of self-esteem - but, at the end, an outpouring of love from the world, though she didn't get to feel it. And that makes the whole thing incredibly bittersweet.''

A young father was irked at Diana's brother introducing ``a thinly veiled'' attack on the monarchy into Diana's two boys' lives at that time.

``Let 'em mourn,'' he said.

And, further, he didn't appreciate a lecture from one whose own morality has been deficient.

An older woman said the brother's sentiments were out of place in Westminster Abbey. All she had yearned to hear were the New Testament's reassuring words: ``In my Father's house are many mansions. Were it not so, I would have told you.''

True, there was a reading about faith, hope and charity, which is powerful as an admonition on how we should lead our lives.

But for those grieving, nothing is as consoling as the words, spoken directly to them, of a place prepared for their loved ones.

Instead, she got a maudlin rehash of a pop classic from Elton John and a brother's effusion.

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