I visited the NYT and read the book review on Ghosts of the Titanic and I have to say that it is one of the most scathing reviews I have ever read. The reviewer, in this case Michael Parfit, is a very successful author himself so one could hardly say he was under qualified to judge written works. However I sometimes wonder if, once the critics hat is donned, judgement and perspective diminish and the critic becomes just that, a critic. When you really read this review it’s not about the book, it’s all about the author of “Ghosts”, a Dr. Charles Pellegrino.
When I read reviews as negative as the one in the NYT the fact that there isn’t one positive comment to be found, not one, bothers me greatly. Ghosts of the Titanic does have some rather stupid mistakes but it also has some interesting perspective’s on the position of the Californian, the distance of the iceberg when first sighted, the type of damage inflicted on the hull and an interesting hand drawn map of the Titanic’s debris field. I might add I found many other interesting ideas in this book but I will leave it for any one else who reads “Ghosts” to discover them for themselves.
How many books can be written on the Titanic disaster? By this question I mean books that will sell enough copies to get a publisher interested. When you get down to the “nuts and bolts” of it the Titanic disaster it’s a very simple story. A brand new steamer, on her maiden voyage, collides with an iceberg and sinks, taking some 1500 people with her. As there have been numerous books written on this subject a budding author had better have a fresh approach to this disaster to even attain mild interest from a publisher. To write a book that does have that fresh approach the author needs a good imagination and an ability to write in a graphically descriptive manner. In my opinion the attraction of the Titanic is the mystery. What really happened? Was Capt. Smith really in charge or was Ismay calling the shots? Why didn’t the lookouts see the iceberg sooner? How was it that the Titanic was veering to port while Fleet was still on the phone? It goes on and on.
I have a few years under the belt and if I had followed the advice of critics I would have missed seeing some good movies, wouldn’t have listened to some really good music albums and my bookshelf would look rather empty. I would also have missed James Cameron’s Titanic because if I remember correctly it was a movie critic at the NYT who gave this movie a fearful bagging and predicted the movie would sink without trace to the bottom of the sea, just like the real Titanic. The rest, as they say, is history.
A while back I rated Ghosts of the Titanic a good read and I haven’t changed my mind. After all, who knows what really happened aboard Titanic that night? To take a thought from “Ghosts”, a discussion between
Walter Lord and the author considers the fact that we only know a third of the Titanic story because only a third of the people survived. As most of those survivors came from the boat deck we know very little about what happened on the other decks. More mysteries.
Finally, just in case anyone thinks I only like off-beat books, among my favourite books on the Titanic are:
Titanic: An Illustrated History by Don Lynch
The Loss of the SS Titanic…..It’s Story and It’s Lessons by Lawrence Beesley
A Night to Remember and
The Night Lives On by
Walter Lord
Titanic At Two a.m. by Paul Quinn
The Truth about the Titanic by Col. Archibald Gracie
Dave Gittens rated Charles Pellegrino a "raving ratbag". Dave's entitled to his opinion. Dave lives in Australia as I do and he has a nice website but I have to say "raving ratbag" is right over the top in my opinion. I've read some fairly lousy books including ones on the Titanic but I've never felt I had to denigrate an author in that manner. To each his own I guess.
I have written before that books and movies etc are subjective. I have my opinion others have theirs. I don't mind reading a book by someone who is unafraid to use their imagination. I'll even excuse some errors. Mind you I'm yet to read a Titanic book without some errors, it seems it's part of the territory and understandable too.
