The Night Lives On: The Untold Stories & Secrets Behind the Sinking of the Unsinkable Ship-Titanic
by Walter J. Lord
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Book Summary Information
Author: Walter J. LordEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-02-01
ISBN: 0380732033
Number of pages: 244
Publisher: Avon
Book Reviews of The Night Lives On: The Untold Stories & Secrets Behind the Sinking of the Unsinkable Ship-Titanic
Book Review: Beyond A Night To Remember
Summary: 5 Stars
In 1955, Walter Lord's A Night To Remember was published and instantly became the definitive book on the sinking of the ocean liner Titanic in April 1912. Just over thirty years later and following the discovery of the Titanic two and a half miles below the surface of the North Atlantic, Lord's follow-up to it was published. The Night Lives On goes beyond that "night to remember" to look at the events that came before, during and after it.
To do this Lord brings a lot of focus to the book. While A Night To Remember focused very much on the sinking itself by wandering from person to person and place to place, The Night Lives On uses each of its seventeen chapters to focus on any single particular aspect of the Titanic story. The opening chapters of the book look at what led up to the sinking ranging from the ship's legacy, its launching in 1911, a look at Captain Smith's record prior to taking command of the Titanic and the actions of the crew leading up to the collision with the iceberg. This is of course prelude to the main event: the sinking.
Chapters seven through twelve focus on the sinking itself. Topics range from the collision with the iceberg, the reasons for the lack of lifeboats and the question of why so many third class passengers died in relation to others on the Titanic (including the entire Goodwin family for whom the chapter is named for) and why some passengers saw the ship sink intact while others saw it break in two (a long held belief shattered when the wreck was found in 1985). The highlights of this section, and perhaps the entire book itself, are the chapters that cover two of the biggest ongoing controversies of the sinking: did an officer shoot at passengers before committing suicide himself and what song did the band play before the Titanic began its final plunge? Those two chapters, indeed all of the chapters in this section, are not only fantastic and informative reading but they show Lord at his best: well researched yet highly accessible.
Chapters thirteen and fourteen compare and contrast two ships that were nearby when the Titanic sank: the Carpathia and the Californian. Both ships played supporting roles in the drama of A Night To Remember, the Californian featuring at the end of almost every chapter of that earlier book, but in these two chapters each ship takes center stage. Lord looks at how the Carpathia and her captain Arthur Rostron covered around fifty miles of dark, ice filled ocean to rescue the Titanic's passengers in approximately four hours, Rostron and the crew becoming heroes in doing so. The Californian and her captain Stanley Lord sat somewhere near the Titanic (within visual range according to Lord's research) and became the infamous ship that stood still. Lord examines what occurred aboard the Californian during those pivotal hours and tries to answer why that happened. While the chapter obviously doesn't take into account the findings of the British Government's Marine Accident Investigation Branch about the Californian a few years later, the chapter raises some intriguing and lingering questions nevertheless.
The final three chapters cover the aftermath of the sinking. Chapter fifteen gives a brief overview of both the American Senate and British Board Of Trade inquiries into the sinking plus how those inquiries effected the attempts to claim damages from the White Star Line. Chapter sixteen follows up on the fates of some of those who had their footsteps on the Titanic retraced by Lord in both books. The final chapter goes through the various attempts (and schemes) to find, if not raise, the Titanic before her eventual discovery in 1985. The paperback edition of the book contains follow-up information about the 1986 expedition that first explored the wreck site and corrects a goof made in the original hardcover edition as well. With these chapters Lord brings the Titanic story full circle, or as much as was possible at the time.
While it might not contain the drama of A Night To Remember, The Night Lives On is an indispensable companion to it. With its ability to focus on a particular topic at a time rather then floating from person to person or place to place, this book helps to illuminate many aspects that the original book was only able to touch upon. As a result it is every bit as well researched and accessible as its predecessor and perhaps even more useful for those exploring the sinking of the Titanic.
More The Night Lives On: The Untold Stories & Secrets Behind the Sinking of the Unsinkable Ship-Titanic reviews:
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Summary of The Night Lives On: The Untold Stories & Secrets Behind the Sinking of the Unsinkable Ship-Titanic
Walter Lord, foremost authority on the Titanic, combines thirty years of research with updated insights to answer some of the century's most baffling questions concerning the Titanic. 16 pages of photos.You might say that Walter Lord provoked the whole Titanic mania by interviewing dozens of survivors and fashioning their reminiscences into the classic non-fiction novel A Night to Remember, which was made into a 1958 film that heavily influenced James Cameron's 1998 epic. Some of the dialogue is more vivid than the 1998 film--when a kid sees the deadly iceberg, he says excitedly, "Oh, Muddie, look at the beautiful North Pole with no Santa Claus on it."
But much has been discovered since Lord's original book made waves--such as the shipwreck itself, and a wealth of scientific inquiry. So he wrote this semisequel, which tackles each of the remaining mysteries about the unnecessary calamity in a methodical, but quite readable, fashion. How come the wireless operators blew it so fatally? Maybe they would have had better operators if they paid them more than $5 a week--as Lord notes, it would have taken a wireless operator 18 years to earn one transatlantic ticket. How come the Californian just sat there in nearby waters and neglected to save anyone on the frantically signaling and flare-firing Titanic? Lord quotes a man on the nonsinking ship admitting to "a certain amount of slackness," which he uses for a sardonic chapter title.
Some of the characters are more sympathetic, such as Renee Harris, who used the money she won suing the Titanic owners for her husband's death to bankroll neophyte playwright Moss Hart's first show. Lord says that Hart's memoir, Act One, depicts Harris reacting to an opening-night flop with optimism. After you've survived the Titanic, what's to worry?
Walter Lord has gotten better reviews, and he needn't fret about his reputation. The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara Tuchman, author of A Distant Mirror, had this reaction to Night Lives On: "Stunning ... his detection and discoveries make a first-class historical reconstruction and a model in the research and writing of that difficult art." --Tim Appelo
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