04 April 2012

Life Imitates Art, Titanic Edition

Morgan Robertson's novella titled . . . "Futility, or The Wreck of the Titan" recounts many of the elements that makes Titanic a truly epic story -- the iceberg, the lack of lifeboats, the number that perished. But the most spectacular detail of Robertson's retelling of the Titanic story is that it was written in 1898, a full fourteen years before the actual event!

More details: here.

Was it merely the kind of informed predictions you read at this blog on a regular basis?

Jules Verne, writing at about the same time as Robertson, had a number of stories that turned out to be similarly predictive. A good modern example of the same kind of fictional prediction is a book by Tom Clancy that set forth events quite similar to the 9-11 attacks, with a commercial jet used as a weapon to inflict mass death by flying into a national landmark.

Or was it genuine supernatural prescience?

Denver, via Molly Brown, our own plucky home town Titanic survivor, has always felt a close tie to list historical event, and the link above to the Denver Public Library website is part of a major effort in town to remember the 100th anniversary of that most famous of 20th century shipwrecks this month.

No comments: