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milktxa 's review for:
informative
mysterious
relaxing
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The other ship, the Californian, saw these rockets but didn't come. Why not?
“Fifty-eight first-class men had found their way into the lifeboats but fifty-three third-class children had not. It was an almost perfect one-for-one correlation. For almost every rich man who lived a poor child had died. How had this happened on a ship that took nearly three hours to sink in calm water? What sort of tale of heroism was this? Was this the story of America?”
As a Titanic fanatic, I was super excited to pick up this book. It wasn't a bad book. It definitely wasn't, but it was just... boring. What drew me into the book was the prospect that I would find out why the Californian didn't come to save the Titanic, but that just didn't happen. It dances around the topic and doesn't come to a solid conclusion. It leaves you to think about what really happened, when you're presented with evidence of negligence on one hand and hard denials on the other.
“For a short time, while the upward streak was still visible and the star cluster drifted slowly downward, it looked like a fragile white flower - perfectly white, clear and startling against the blackness of the void.”
The imagery is wonderful, but all the characters and jargon jumble into one and it becomes hard to keep up with the narrative. Eventually, you learn some of the characters, but the others stay jumbled. You feel sympathy for Herbet Stone, you hate Captain Lord, but to the end, you still don't know whether or not your judgement is correct about the situation or the characters. There is a truth that is hiding and waiting to be found, but not in this narrative.
“Above him soared the reading room’s great barrel-arched ceiling and twin domes, and although they were filled with light, when he looked up at them he saw again the vast black vaults of the sky on the night of the rockets. And he began to hear the pitiful cries of human beings in the black water, flying upwards to a cold and icy heaven, so lough and so many that it seemed the ocean itself was dying.”
“Fifty-eight first-class men had found their way into the lifeboats but fifty-three third-class children had not. It was an almost perfect one-for-one correlation. For almost every rich man who lived a poor child had died. How had this happened on a ship that took nearly three hours to sink in calm water? What sort of tale of heroism was this? Was this the story of America?”
As a Titanic fanatic, I was super excited to pick up this book. It wasn't a bad book. It definitely wasn't, but it was just... boring. What drew me into the book was the prospect that I would find out why the Californian didn't come to save the Titanic,
“For a short time, while the upward streak was still visible and the star cluster drifted slowly downward, it looked like a fragile white flower - perfectly white, clear and startling against the blackness of the void.”
The imagery is wonderful, but all the characters and jargon jumble into one and it becomes hard to keep up with the narrative. Eventually, you learn some of the characters, but the others stay jumbled. You feel sympathy for Herbet Stone, you hate Captain Lord, but to the end, you still don't know whether or not your judgement is correct about the situation or the characters. There is a truth that is hiding and waiting to be found, but not in this narrative.
“Above him soared the reading room’s great barrel-arched ceiling and twin domes, and although they were filled with light, when he looked up at them he saw again the vast black vaults of the sky on the night of the rockets. And he began to hear the pitiful cries of human beings in the black water, flying upwards to a cold and icy heaven, so lough and so many that it seemed the ocean itself was dying.”
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death