Titanic Book Report

[Haiko Blikian]

hi everyone,

I am doing a book report on Walter Lord's A Night to Remember, for my high school class, and i wanted to know if anyone has ever done this and is willing to provide me with copies of their work which would be very helpful for me, or if someone can give me assistance as to what to focus on for my report!

thanks alot,
haiko blikian

 

[Maureen Zottoli]

Dear Haiko,
I recommend reading the book first. Then come back to us with specific questions. But when you have read the book, one approach, is to write about the book itself or to write from the perspective of who is writing or telling the story. But one thought would be to write a technical comparison between what Lord knew then in his day and compare what is known today wit the discovery of the wreckage. If Lord had known what we know now, would he have written things differently?

But by all means read the book.
Maureen.

 

[Dave Gittins]

G'day, Haiko!

Much depends on what angle you want to tackle. As Maureen says, some of Lord's story is incorrect in the light of later discoveries. There are also some errors noticed only by experts, like the fact that Lord names crewmen not recorded on the crew list. I even wonder if one of his informants was a phony who was never on the ship. You could spend forever looking at that sort of thing.

On the other hand, if your course is concerned more with the book as literature, you could look at the ingenious way in which Lord constructs his narration. Study the way in which he skips through time and space to give us a picture of what was going on, as well as a picture of the ship, the people and the age. Lord's book is not the most accurate for history but it remains the most brilliantly written Titanic book and has the "can't put it down" quality readers love.