– Ruth, “Titanic” survivor
On the night of April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic of the White Star Line hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank, killing 1,517 people (the mind still boggles), due to there not being enough lifeboats for all the passengers (and numerous other perfect-storm conditions).
I have a couple of friends (phone call for Hunter, paging Hunter) who are absolutely obsessed with Titanic, and people who are obsessed with the entire Titanic story are among my favorite obsessives on the planet. I love obsessives, even if they are obsessed with things I don’t give a hoot about. I love people who are INTO things. I personally don’t crochet, but if you are obsessed with it and have crochet books and crochet magazines and patterns scattered about you at all times, I’m in. I can’t remember when I found out Hunter’s encyclopedic knowledge of all things Titanic, but once I did, I realized very very quickly that I was in WAY over my head and I should just stop, admit when I am in the presence of a master, and let Hunter fly. I know a tiny bit about the story, trivial bits, but my attempts to contribute to the conversation were pathetic. Considering what I was dealing with. I would say, thinking I was really being smart, “So that dude who somehow survived and was basically pilloried for doing so —” Hunter cut me off. “Bruce Ismay. He was Managing Director, and his father actually created the White Star Line.” There was a brief pause and then we both BURST into laughter.
Mmmkay. I’ll shut up now. And from that point on, I got Hunter talking about Titanic as much as I could.
People who are really into that story are a little bit cuckoo, and I love them for it.
For me, it is not so much the sinking of the ship that is the horrifying thing to contemplate (although that is definitely awful) – it is the aftermath (described so vividly in the title of this post by “Ruth”), with 1,500 people thrashing about in that freezing water, miles and miles from anywhere – with lifeboats full (or half-full) of people bobbing nearby, listening to the sound of the death throes. To me, that is the part my soul cringes away from, not even allowing myself to imagine it.
Thomas Hardy (love his novels, but might love his poetry even more) wrote a poem about Titanic called “The Convergence of the Twain”. That title gives me a chill of dread just looking at it. “Convergence”. And then “twain”. One object, two objects … converging.
An amazing and terrifying poem.
I have nothing else to add, I am no Hunter, but I did want to take a moment to acknowledge what happened on this day in history.
The Titanic
The iceberg
The Convergence of the Twain
by Thomas Hardy
I
In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.
II
Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.
III
Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls-grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.
IV
Jewels in joy designed
To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.
V
Dim moon-eyed fishes near
Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: “What does this vaingloriousness down here?”…
VI
Well: while was fashioning
This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything
VII
Prepared a sinister mate
For her – so gaily great -
A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.
VIII
And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.
IX
Alien they seemed to be:
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,
X
Or sign that they were bent
by paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,
XI
Till the Spinner of the Years
Said “Now!” And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.
I am not obsessed but I’m definitely intrigued by the whole Titanic thing and I’d LOVE to sit down with an obsessee and just listen.
Do you know the poem ‘After the Titanic’ by Derek Mahon? It’s about Bruce Ismay and his life after the disaster. Great poem. I know most of it by heart (studied it for the Leaving Cert).
When Hayden was about 7 or 8, he was obsessed with the Titanic story. OBSESSED. He had at least 20 or 30 books on it and we had, at one time, EVERY FREAKING Discovery Channel, History Channel, and National Geographic Channel special saved to our DVR for his viewing pleasure.
It was insane.
Now? He still watches the movie, but I think it’s more for Kate Winslet’s boobs than anything else. The books are gathering dust, and the shows have been deleted. Makes me kinda sad.
Personally, I don’t really like thinking about the Titanic too much. I realise I sound babyish, but whatever – I tend to get really freaked out and panicky when I think too hard about it. I used to drive myself nuts as a little girl, imagining myself on the ship as it went down. And obviously, because all I had to go on was the Cameron film, I cast myself as one of the penniless Irish down on the lower decks, struggling to get out. You know the scene where they’re all rushing to get out of the gates, but they’re barricaded? Ugh. Also, for years my family went to France during the summer and we took the ferry. I would spend the night wide awake in the little bunkbed, staring at the ceiling, listening to my mother snoring and patiently waiting for the ship to go down. Ferries are noisy, and every little creak, every woosh of water outside, every footstep and every voice I heard outside seemed to signal imminent disaster!
“a sinister mate”
shivers
Lisa – I’ve known a couple of little boys who went through a similar thing. Cashel was never a big Titanic fan – he was more of an Ernest Shackleton freak.
It is sad when someone grows out of it and gets into boobs above all else. Although that has its good side as well.
Catherine – I do know what you mean. I have a fear not only of drowning but of ever seeing a wave as large as the ones that would overturn a cruise ship. I just don’t ever want to see it. It is one of my biggest fears on the planet. I have seen first-hand the destruction of big waves, having grown up in a hurricane state – and I just don’t ever want to see a wave that is 40, 50 feet tall. When I have nightmares, it is about such waves.
Oh, and I do not know that poem about Ismay – looking it up now.
Wow. Posting it here … the line about “the late light of June” put a chill to my heart.
“After the Titanic”
by Derek Mahon
They said I got away in a boat
And humbled me at the inquiry. I tell you
I sank as far that night as any
Hero. As I sat shivering on the dark water
I turned to ice to hear my costly
Life go thundering down in a pandemonium of
Prams, pianos, sideboards, winches,
Boilers bursting and shredded ragtime. Now I hide
In a lonely house behind the sea
Where the tide leaves broken toys and hat-boxes
Silently at my door. The showers of
April, flowers of May mean nothing to me, nor the
Late light of June, when my gardener
Describes to strangers how the old man stays in bed
On seaward mornings after nights of
Wind, takes his cocaine and will see no-one. Then it is
I drown again with all those dim
Lost faces I never understood. My poor soul
Screams out in the starlight, heart
Breaks loose and rolls down like a stone.
Include me in your lamentations.
I have a book called Chronicles of the 20th Century which is a collection of newspaper articles from 1900 to the 1980′s – the article about the Titanic begins “The unthinkable happened early this morning in the North Atlantic.” It goes on to say, “as the band played on stoically, the largest passenger vessel in the world disappeared beneath the surface”.Can you imagine waking up to find that in your morning newspaper?
Two lifeboats were sucked under as the ship sank, according to this article.
Unbelievable.