Product Description

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize For the four fraught, mysterious days of her doomed maiden voyage in 1912, the Titanic sails towards New York, glittering with luxury, freighted with millionaires and hopefuls. In her labyrinthine passageways are played out the last, secret hours of a small group of passengers, their fate sealed in prose of startling, sublime beauty, as Beryl Bainbridge's haunting masterpiece moves inexorably to its known and terrible end.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29214 in Books
• Published on: 1997-10-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
After taking on the ill-fated Scott expedition to the South Pole in her previous book, The Birthday Boys, the novelist tackles a much larger 1912 disaster: the sinking of the Titanic. The narrator, a 22-year-old named Morgan, brushes up against real-life victims such as John James Astor early in the voyage, while falling in love with the beautiful and unobtainable Wallis Ellery. The deadly maiden voyage of the world's largest ocean liner becomes a journey of self-discovery in this portentous, postmodern work, short-listed for the 1996 Booker Prize.

Review
*'Extraordinary . . . a wholly new and highly individual work of art . . . beautifully written' INDEPENDENT * *'Marvellous . . . exquisite pacing . . . stunning descriptions' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY * 'A narrative both sparkling and deep . . . the cost of raising [the Titanic] is prohibitive; Bainbridge does the next best thing' SUNDAY TIMES * 'Bainbridge's masterpiece' EVENING STANDARD

About the Author
Beryl Bainbridge is one of the greatest living novelists. Author of seventeen novels, two travel books and five plays for stage and television, she has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, and has won many literary awards including the Whitbread Prize and the Author of the Year Award at the British Book Awards.

Customer Reviews

A book for a rainy afternoon
Though set on the Titanic this is a relationship not an action book and as such the sinking (not to give the end away!) is used only as a plot diversion- otherwise it is true, as another reviewer has pointed out, the book could be set anywhere. The repressive morals of the Edwardian period help bring the intrigue along but do tend to make the characters somewhat inaccsesable and unengaging. Nevertheless this makes one of the "reveals" involving a spot of immoral behaviour more shocking than it would have been at the time.
In a nutshell- a pleasent enough story but shouldn't have won the Booker.

A book for a rainy afternoon
Though set on the Titanic this is a relationship not an action book and as such the sinking (not to give the end away!) is used only as a plot diversion- otherwise it is true, as another reviewer has pointed out, the book could be set anywhere. The repressive morals of the Edwardian period help bring the intrigue along but do tend to make the characters somewhat inaccsesable and unengaging. Nevertheless this makes one of the "reveals" involving a spot of immoral behaviour more shocking than it would have been at the time.
In a nutshell- a pleasent enough story but shouldn't have won the Booker.

There really is a quotation to take from every page
Whilst I would only give five stars to a handfull of books that I've ever read, this one merits it.

About the Titanic with an ending that could never fail to surprise, it was a riveting read. Bainbridge got beneath the skin of the characters and one felt more present at the scene than watching any film. The remarkable thing about reading it, though, was how it reminded me of Oscar Wilde's works. There really is a quotation to take from every page.

As Hilary Mantel said in the Sunday Times " ... the cost of raising the Titanic is prohibitive: Bainbridge does the next best thing." And it's true! I'm not on commission, I just love the book.