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How to Survive the Titanic or The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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About this ebook
The strange and fascinating story of the owner of the Titanic, J. Bruce Ismay, the man who jumped ship
'Beautifully written, and beautifully deconstructed' Sunday Times
'Wonderfully rich and multi-layered ... Full of fascinating details ... Every sentence crackles with intelligence' Mail on Sunday
Books have been written, films made, we have raised the Titanic and watched her go down again on numerous occasions, but out of the wreckage Frances Wilson spins a new epic: when the ship hit the iceberg on 14 April 1912 and a thousand men prepared to die, J Bruce Ismay, the ship's owner and inheritor of the White Star fortune, jumped into a lifeboat with the women and children and rowed away to safety.
Accused of cowardice, Ismay became, according to one headline, 'The Most Talked-of Man in the World'. The first victim of a press hate campaign, his reputation never recovered and while other survivors were piecing together their accounts, Ismay never spoke of his beloved ship again.
With the help of that great narrator of the sea, Joseph Conrad, whose Lord Jim so uncannily predicted Ismay's fate - and whose manuscript of the story of a man who impulsively betrays a code of honour and lives on under the strain of intolerable guilt went down with the Titanic - Frances Wilson explores the reasons behind Ismay's jump, his desperate need to make sense of the horror of it all, and to find a way of living with lost honour.
For those who survived the Titanic the world was never the same again. But as Wilson superbly demonstrates, we all have our own Titanics, and we all need to find ways of surviving them.
'Beautifully written, and beautifully deconstructed' Sunday Times
'Wonderfully rich and multi-layered ... Full of fascinating details ... Every sentence crackles with intelligence' Mail on Sunday
Books have been written, films made, we have raised the Titanic and watched her go down again on numerous occasions, but out of the wreckage Frances Wilson spins a new epic: when the ship hit the iceberg on 14 April 1912 and a thousand men prepared to die, J Bruce Ismay, the ship's owner and inheritor of the White Star fortune, jumped into a lifeboat with the women and children and rowed away to safety.
Accused of cowardice, Ismay became, according to one headline, 'The Most Talked-of Man in the World'. The first victim of a press hate campaign, his reputation never recovered and while other survivors were piecing together their accounts, Ismay never spoke of his beloved ship again.
With the help of that great narrator of the sea, Joseph Conrad, whose Lord Jim so uncannily predicted Ismay's fate - and whose manuscript of the story of a man who impulsively betrays a code of honour and lives on under the strain of intolerable guilt went down with the Titanic - Frances Wilson explores the reasons behind Ismay's jump, his desperate need to make sense of the horror of it all, and to find a way of living with lost honour.
For those who survived the Titanic the world was never the same again. But as Wilson superbly demonstrates, we all have our own Titanics, and we all need to find ways of surviving them.
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Author
Frances Wilson
Frances Wilson is a critic, journalist and the author of three works of non-fiction, Literary Seductions, The Courtesan's Revenge and The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, which won the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize in 2009. She lives in London with her daughter.
Read more from Frances Wilson
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Reviews for How to Survive the Titanic or The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
6 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5"More money than sense" is the phrase that comes to mind. It's actually seriously a miracle that the Titanic was able to float in the first place, never mind have any survivors at all. Ismay was mad, Captain Smith was also losing it, nobody was organised, and humanity is selfish under pressure. We all know the basics about the Titanic, and J Bruce Ismay, but this book has a great deal of researched detail into his life before and after the disaster. It's a well researched and written book (I usually find 'the early years' chapters of these types of books something to just get through, but it wasn't so bad in this book, as you can see early on where his social ineptitude came from). But he was, quite frankly, a nutter. But those with cash and opportunities passed down from daddy usually are. As well done as this book was, I was glad when I finished it to have this guy out of my life. I don't know how his wife put up with him.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book looks at the life of Bruce Ismay, head of the White Star Line, owners of the Titanic. Ismay has long been deemed the primary culprit in the sinking of the great liner, with the loss of 1,500 lives in April 1912, and in particular regarded as a coward for having taken an empty seat in a lifeboat, while so many were not able to do so. The incident defined his life and he was broken in spirit thereafter ("J. Bruce Ismay died on the night of 14–15 April 1912, and died again in his bedroom twenty-five years later. He was mired in the moment of his jump; his life was defined by a decision he made in an instant."). This biography looks at his early life, including his domination by his father, founder of the White Star company, who never cared for him, and his growing up an introvert and a loner, and a highly sensitive individual who hated being over stimulated and loved a peaceful, ordered life. I feel some sympathy for him on these grounds, as I have some of these characteristics myself. Though he persistently denied bearing any responsibility, there is little doubt that he bore a heavy share of blame for the catastrophe, and he clearly felt this in his innermost soul and was eaten up with guilt for the rest of his life. At the same time, he was by no means solely guilty; there is always a tendency in such disasters to find a single individual or organisation to blame, but things are rarely that simple. Captain Smith was still in charge of the ship which was going too fast in an ice field, and failed to order lifeboat drills which might have saved more lives; White Star made inadequate safety measures, in particular and most famously having nowhere near enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew, while nevertheless meeting the inadequate regulatory requirements; and the Board of Trade and ultimately Parliament bore responsibility for not having passed more appropriate such requirements.It is interesting to look at Ismay's background and at what made him tick, and to see him as the human being he was, who made a particular very human decision in a moment of extreme stress - and who are we to judge a human reaction in such extreme disastrous conditions? - but the book was too long and drawn out for my liking. In particular, a great deal was made of parallels between Ismay's experience and the life and works of Joseph Conrad, in particular his novel Lord Jim. This seemed to go on excessively and was too repetitive. Also repetitive was Ismay's correspondence with Marian Thayer, a sympathetic survivor who he considered was the only person who understood him. There were just too many digressions diverting this book from its central interesting, but somewhat overblown, thesis.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Bit dry for my taste.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I really tried to get through this book but I just couldn't. I am really fascinated by the Titanic and was really looking forward to reading this book. It started off good and was interesting but it went downhill pretty fast. I only made it about halfway through this book. To me it seemed like the author didn't really have enough info to make a whole book so she just threw in filler like information about Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. I don't see why the whole synopsis and review of Lord Jim was necessary. This book was overly dry and seemed to ramble on and on. I wouldn't recommend slogging through this book to anyone. I was really looking forward to learning more about the Titanic and about J. Bruce Ismay but I definitely didn't get much from this book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Good Stuff * Extremely thorough and well researched * Interesting background information on other members of the crew of the Titanic * Fascinating to read about all of the different accounts from the survivors of the disaster - even people on the same boat have completely stories on the events of that night * The comparison to Conrad's Lord Jim really does make it a compelling read at times * The background info on Ismay's childhood give you insight into the man himself and you can understand how he became the man he was * Enjoyed the passages that dealt with "being a true gentlemen" * Liked some of the accounts of bravery and heroism on the night of the tragedy * Impressive notes and nicely arranged Index (yes I know - but I'm a Librarian, these things are important to my geek self) The Not so Good Stuff * Jumps all over the place, extremely hard to pay attention to - really struggled with her writing style -- sort of like reading someone who has ADHD. * Ismay is such an unpleasant character (not to mention his horrible father) that I found I had to keep putting it down because I could really care less about himFavorite Quotes/Passages"We're dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen. I am willing to remain and play the man's game if there are not enough boats for more than the women and children." reportedly said by Benjamin Guggenheim"But in her death throes, the Titanic also became Excalibur, the sword of the mortally wounded King Arthur which was thrown back into the lake and caught by a mysterious hand. Her glittering scabbard sparkled and flashed one last time before the surface of the water closed over her, erasing all trace.""Ismay never climbed out from the hole into which he had fallen and nor did he achieve the catharsis that traditionally comes with tragedy, but when we see him through Conrad's hooded eyes he has something of the tragic hero. His destiny lay submerged, riding in wait, ready to leap. He was an ordinary man caught in extraordinary circumstances, who behaved in a way which only confirmed his ordinariness. Ismay is the figure we all fear we might be. He is one of us."Who should/shouldn't read * For more intelligent readers than me who are fascinated with the Titanic tragedy3 Dewey'sI received this from HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review