Bruce Ismay was the chairman of the White Star Line shipping company, which was responsible for the creation of the Titanic. He was on the famously "unsinkable" ship when it sunk on its maiden voyage in 1912. Rather than observing the "women and children first" policy – the so-called Birkenhead Drill – he escaped on a lifeboat while 1,500 drowned in the icy waters of the North Atlantic. When the inquiry began into why the ship sank and who was to blame, Ismay found himself scapegoated by the press and the public.
It was Ismay's decision to sacrifice the number of lifeboats on the deck for aesthetic reasons: they made the ship look cluttered. As a result: "The Titanic had lifeboat capacity for 1,100 of the 2,340 passengers and crew on board, but only 705 people were saved, of whom 325 were men." He didn't help himself by having an aloof manner and appearing not to understand the gravity of the situation when questioned.
This book expertly tells his story. For every account of what happened on the ship there is another, conflicting account and it is likely that no one will ever know for sure exactly how those two hours and 40 minutes of terror played out.
Frances Wilson is a literary critic and often draws parallels between Ismay's life and great works of fiction. I liked this aspect of the book, but it might be a distraction for those seeking a "pure" biographical account. In particular, she focuses on similarities with Conrad's Lord Jim ("a difficult read"), whose plot is neatly summarised as "Jim jumps from a sinking ship and then faces a life without honour". She even suggests that Conrad's narrator Marlow should have been the one telling Ismay's story rather than allowing it to be assembled by a set of contradictory witness reports: “It is only when we place Ismay's crude, monotonous, absolutely unfinished narrative next to that of Lord Jim that his form begins to thicken, his blood to flow and his consciousness to take on an essential extra layer."
The book cannot answer all the questions it sets itself. What did happen that night? What would you do in that situation? Humans are incredibly complex; not riddles to be solved. But it's an intelligent, thought-provoking work of historical biography and literary criticism, and in exploring these questions Wilson offers refreshing insights into how any of us might behave when the ordinary and extraordinary come together.
It was Ismay's decision to sacrifice the number of lifeboats on the deck for aesthetic reasons: they made the ship look cluttered. As a result: "The Titanic had lifeboat capacity for 1,100 of the 2,340 passengers and crew on board, but only 705 people were saved, of whom 325 were men." He didn't help himself by having an aloof manner and appearing not to understand the gravity of the situation when questioned.
This book expertly tells his story. For every account of what happened on the ship there is another, conflicting account and it is likely that no one will ever know for sure exactly how those two hours and 40 minutes of terror played out.
Frances Wilson is a literary critic and often draws parallels between Ismay's life and great works of fiction. I liked this aspect of the book, but it might be a distraction for those seeking a "pure" biographical account. In particular, she focuses on similarities with Conrad's Lord Jim ("a difficult read"), whose plot is neatly summarised as "Jim jumps from a sinking ship and then faces a life without honour". She even suggests that Conrad's narrator Marlow should have been the one telling Ismay's story rather than allowing it to be assembled by a set of contradictory witness reports: “It is only when we place Ismay's crude, monotonous, absolutely unfinished narrative next to that of Lord Jim that his form begins to thicken, his blood to flow and his consciousness to take on an essential extra layer."
The book cannot answer all the questions it sets itself. What did happen that night? What would you do in that situation? Humans are incredibly complex; not riddles to be solved. But it's an intelligent, thought-provoking work of historical biography and literary criticism, and in exploring these questions Wilson offers refreshing insights into how any of us might behave when the ordinary and extraordinary come together.
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