"Shadow of the Titanic" by Andrew Wilson (2011)

I have always wondered why they made that film about the Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio in it. I did finally see it; about 10 years after its release. It was pretty good, too. But I still wonder about the need to fictionalize something which was so dramatic to begin with.

Spielberg’s “Lincoln” is a perfect example of what can be done with the reality of great events, without the need of adding fictitious characters and events. If you do that, then you get stuff like “Gone with the Wind”, which is a great movie; but the burning of Atlanta was even more intense in terms of real life stories and drama. And, quite frankly, Scarlett annoys the hell out of me.

Andrew Wilson has done something with this book; released in 2011; which I had thought impossible. He has written a book about the Titanic from a new perspective. While most films and books dealing with the Titanic end when the good ship Carpathia docks in New York; this one is just finding its land legs.

 

Rather than just mining the memories of the survivors about the sinking itself, he has gone into the area of how the sinking of the great liner affected their lives after. The answer is a surprising mix of good and bad; as are most things.

My own love affair with the Titanic began when I was about 4 years old and saw the British film version of Walter Lord’s iconic book “A Night to Remember.” The scene where the sea is swirling up the ladder from the engine room is etched forever in my mind. The story of how they staged that movie; using a ship which was about to be cut into scrap; is a great little bit of information. Because the scrapping of that ship had already begun on one side, they used mirrors and backwards letters on the lifeboats to film the scenes of the passengers boarding them.

After a brief recap of events; along with some stories the reader may not have heard before; the book heads straight into the lives of the survivors after the dust of the affair had settled and the waters of emotions were calmer. Well, at least on the surface.

Renee Harris was one of the First Class passengers who lost her husband, but went on to become America’s first theater manager and producer; only to lose everything through over indulgence and stock market losses, relegating her to a life of poverty.

John Jacob Astor; one of the wealthiest men in the world at the time; was on a cruise home from his honeymoon with his 19 year bride, who was 5 months pregnant. He was 54 and went down with the ship. Her life afterwards was marred by a will which forbade her to remarry. Predictably, she lost the inheritance and her home when she fell in love with a man whom she had known as a child. When that marriage failed she tried again with an Italian boxer who used her for practice.

Robert Williams Daniel survived the sinking and married another passenger, Eloise Hughes, whose husband went down with the ship.

But the most intriguing story of all is the one of Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, who allegedly bribed the crew of his lifeboat into not going back to pick up people in the water. He even had his photo taken on the deck of the Carpathia handing 5 pound checks to the crew who had rowed the boat he was in.

The whole incident was probably blown way out of proportion. Sir Cosmo had overheard the crew talking to his wife, who was lamenting the loss of some personal items. One of the crew remarked that it was okay for her, she was rich. But the crew’s pay stopped the moment the ship sank and there would be no money to compensate the crew for their lost possessions. This prompted Sir Cosmo to offer 5 pounds to each of them to help them get started over.

When the newspapers heard the story at the inquiry it was trumped up and ruined Sir Cosmo life and reputation forever. His wife, the irrepressible Lady Duff Gordon, went on to use the events of that night to further her own career as a fashion designer.

J. Bruce Ismay, one of the owners of the White Star Line, was unhappily married at the time of the sinking. His own conduct also came under question for having survived. He was labeled a coward and spent the rest of his life living as a virtual ghost. His hair turned white overnight after being rescued; from the shock of the sinking. He could never crawl out from under the fact that he was the one who decided on having fewer lifeboats than necessary. Although he was following the law at the time, he had been advised not to decrease the number of boats, which he did anyway. In his behalf, it should be noted that he had been engaged in loading the boats on the starboard side, and only boarded after he saw no more women and children aboard.

One of the strangest stories involves a stewardess named Annie Robinson. She had been on a ship that struck an iceberg once before. She then survived the Titanic disaster only to throw herself into the sea one foggy night from a ship that was about to dock in Boston. The fog horns were a reminder of pulling into New York on the Carpathia and drove her mad.

Silent film star Dorothy Gibson was another passenger who survived the Titanic, only to have her life become a series of missteps and mistakes. She spent time as an American citizen in a German concentration camp, only to survive that ordeal and die in a Paris hotel in 1946.

There were 2 children aboard that night. They were being kidnapped by their father, who died in the sinking. The boys were returned to their mother, making the father’s death all the more useless.

The book follows the last survivors through the original “A Night to Remember” activity in the 1950’s; and the through the craze engendered by the location of the ship in the 1980’s, as well as the Leonardo DiCaprio film of the 1990’s. At that time there were only 3 women left alive who were aboard the ship the night it sank. They were all little children at the time, with almost no memory of the event. The last survivor was Millvina Dean, who died in 2009 at the age of 97.

No matter how much you think you know about the Titanic, this book will surprise you. The approach taken by the author; to trace the lives of the survivors after the disaster; lends a whole new perspective to the events of that night so long ago, when the sea swallowed up the unsinkable Titanic.

"The Wreck of the William Brown" by Tom Koch

In the early spring of 1841, just 71 years before the RMS Titanic would be sunk by an iceberg while crossing the Atlantic, another, similar tragedy occurred. The William Brown, a passenger vessel bound for Philadelphia, with her sails rigged for full speed, hit an ice field and sank. The Brown, like the later Titanic, was woefully unprepared for the disaster, which resulted in an unnecessary loss of life. But, in spite of these similarities, there was one big difference in these two events.

For the most part, aboard the Titanic, chivalry was evident at every turn, as crew members, and passengers alike, held fast to the code of the sea. Women and children were first, and husbands parted with great honor from their spouses, giving up their own chance at survival so that others might live. As I said, this story is quite different.

It is the story of people, gripped in fear, and the lengths with which they will go, in order to save themselves, at the expense of others. When the ship, loaded with newly bound immigrants for America, was about to sink, the longboat, and another small craft, were both launched. The one with the captain aboard was adequately manned and loaded to it's near capacity. The other boat, a longboat with no rudder to steer with, was overcrowded and staffed with the first mate and some deck hands. The passengers consisted of able bodied men, as well as women and children.

The captain left them in the charge of the first mate, with orders to "do what must be done" in order to save his boat. The captain then set course for Newfoundland, leaving the smaller stricken vessel to it's fate. And what a fate it was!

This chart shows the close proximity in which the Titanic would sink 71 years later, almost to the day, and only 8 and a half miles apart. And in the ensuing years, nothing had changed much in the way of passenger safety,and traveling the North Atlantic in early spring was still a treacherous journey, at best. Though much had changed regarding the way men and women interacted, thanks largely to the Victorian Era, this journey took place before that, and so had a much different conclusion.

During the very first night adrift, in full view of the other passengers, crew members, acting upon the "orders" of the first mate, selected men to throw overboard into the frigid waters in an effort to "lighten the load." When two women cried out that they "didn't know if we can go on without our dear brother", they were summarily tossed in after the hapless man. All the while, the other passengers tried to "look small", and "attract no notice", lest they be next.

When the morning came and a ship appeared on the horizon, the killing continued, with at least two more men being thrown overboard. This was at a time when, not only was rescue imminent, but the boat was stable and in no danger.

A French Court found the actions justifiable, while the American Court found the actions of the crew, and notably the first mate, to be unworthy of seamen. He was tried in Philadelphia for Murder Upon the High Seas.

This book was a chilling look at, not only a failed social order, but a justice system more concerned with the profits of international trade than passenger safety. Their lack of oversight and initiative would come back to haunt us all, in the form of the Titanic tragedy, 71 years and 8 miles later.

Grief and Sorrow in Japan

Nothing that I can write will ever come close to the sorrow I feel for the people of Japan. The only thing I could think of doing here today was to express my sorrow in a way in which the Japanese people will understand my empathy for their pain.

The two calligraphy characters above are the Japanese symbols for "Aitou", which is the English translation for Condolence, Regret, Tribute, Sorrow and Sympathy.

Japan is one of the miracles to have come out of the 20th Century. In just one century, Japan went from a feudal warlord culture to a brutal tyranny, and emerged from the massive destruction of the world's first atomic bombs to become a world leader in economics and technology.

With all of the world, I join in offering my hopes for a speedy recovery to a nation bowed in sorrow.

"The Tin Roof Blowdown" by James Lee Burke

One of the attractions of reading a book by James Lee Burke are the links to history which he provides. These, in turn make the story more real in the telling and inform the reader, giving his novels relevancy and keeping the reader thirsty for the next dot to connect. “The Tin Roof Blowdown”, released after Hurricane Katrina, while I was immersed in non-fiction, is a stunning tapestry, woven of history, timeless crime, human greed, government indifference to the people, and did I mention that it’s a great crime novel to boot?

With his usual cast of characters, including the loveable Clete Purcel, the introspective Dave Robicheaux, his daughter Alafair, and her pet raccoon, Mr. Burke takes on a tremendously complex disaster, creating at the same time, a compelling mystery. I should add that Mr. Burke resides in New Iberia Parish, next door to New Orleans. This undoubtedly gives the book a sense of realism impossible to capture in any other fashion.

Another aspect of Mr. Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series of novels is the continuity of the characters. What I mean is that as the reader gets older, so do his characters. This helps the reader identify with the characters and in some cases, where the reader’s life experiences may be similar with them, it can lend a stark reality to the book.

The storyline is simple enough. As Hurricane Katrina bears down on New Orleans, several lives, seemingly unconnected on the surface, are about to collide amidst one of the largest natural disasters to ever hit the United States.

There is the Baylor family, still struggling to come to terms with the rape of their 15 year old daughter, Thelma, at the hands of street thugs. Otis Baylor is an insurance salesman. He is also a self styled vigilante, but is his mouth bigger than his actual abilities? With the storm closing in, and looters prowling without, we may learn the answer.

Then there is the Kovick household. Sydney and his wife Eunice are owners of a very successful flower shop. Sydney is involved in organized crime, but how deep do his ties run? When his house is broken into during the Evacuation, large sums of money are found by the vandals smashing his walls and tearing out his ceilings. Without the Police to call, how far will Sydney go to recover the money?

Then there are the Melancon brothers and their sidekick Andre. The two brothers are wanted on Federal Warrants, but all three may be the street thugs who raped Otis Baylor’s daughter. When one is crippled by sniper fire, and another killed, outside Mr. Baylor’s home, the Police are sure he did the crime. Or did he?

And lost in the story is the heroin addicted Priest, Jude Le Blanc. He goes missing in the height of the storm as he struggles to cut a hole in the roof of a church where people are trapped in the attic, about to drown. Both the Priest and the boat disappear and the people do drown. But who took the boat and how is it connected to the Baylor’s and Kovick’s lives?

When you pick up one of Mr. Burke’s books, he has written about 30, and won the Edgar Award twice, you are transported to the jungle that is the real world. His insights into the human condition and the individual psyche make his books both a lesson in our shortcomings as people, while at the same time telling a very compelling story.

You might say that Mr. Burke and I are both stuck in a rut; he keeps on writing great novels. And I keep on reading them, although sometimes several years after the fact.