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You Are Here: Gangway :: Book
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| The Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico
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By Charles Cu'Bine
In 1937, Paul Gallico sailed from England, aboard Cunard's flagship, the Queen Mary. Two days out from Southampton, a series of large waves struck the 1,018-foot liner. The gargantuan ship keeled over to port at an alarming angle. From the dining salon, Gallico peered out the port next to his table and watched the sea rushing past, only a couple of feet from the glass. This is the event that, thirty years later, would be the inspiration for his novel, The Poseidon Adventure.
For those who are only familiar with this story through Irwin Allen's blockbuster film, the novel will hold quite a few surprises. I will endeavor not to give away too many of these during this review.
In his first attempt at an adult adventure novel, Gallico succeeds in giving The Poseidon Adventure a strong sense of suspense and a richly detail group of diverse and complex characters. As with the film, the basic story concerns the efforts of a small group of passengers attempting to escape the liner after it is capsized by a seismic sea wave. But the novel is more grim, more complex, and more existential than the film.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the novel, is the process in which Gallico strips his characters to the very core of their beings. Layer by layer, like an onion, his characters are stripped of their security, their dignity, and their pretentions. As they shed their clothing, they also shed their illusions and beliefs that might hinder their struggle to survive.
As the characters are forced to discard their proprieties and conventions, Gallico does a masterful of job of building them into people of depth and dimension. One of the finest examples of this is the relationship between Jane and Richard Shelby.
In the beginning of the book, the reader sees them as a typical upper middle-class couple of little merit or interest. After the disaster, we slowly begin to see the disgust and disdain in which Jane views her husband. As her anger slowly and silently builds to volcanic proportions, her husband's strong and manly image is inversly eroded, revealing a fragile weakling who hides his fears in the pretty and comforting trappings of social convention.
When Jane eventually explodes, no one is as surprised as Richard. She blasts away everything in her path. Jane destroys her husband in much the same manner as Vesuvius destoyed Pompeii. She leaves in her wake, only the scorched and smouldering shell of his confidence, his ego, and his identity.
Also among this motley collection of characters, and certainly Gallico's most complex, is the Reverend Frank "Buzz" Scott. Scott is something of a mystery to those he leads through the ship, as well as to the reader. A star fullback at Princeton and an Olympic decathlon champion, the athlete perplexed everyone when he enrolled in a seminary school and became the Reverend Dr. Scott. Now his fellow passengers are curious as to why the twenty-nine-year-old minister is on this cruise and why he has "severed his connections" with his church.
Scott's own theological beliefs are unorthodox, but fall in well with his reputation as an athlete and a man of action. He sees himself as the captain and star player on God's Team. Scott's relationship with God is one of bargaining. If he promises this or that, then God will surely grant him his wishes. At the same time, he believes that God helps only those who help themselves. As long as Scott and his followers do their very best to survive, fight their hardest, and never stop struggling onward and upward, then God will let them safely reach the goal line.
When members of the team show weakness or incapacity, Scott easily abandons them without remorse or second thought. The intensity and fervor of Scott's fanaticism does not allow him the luxury of pity or regret. This steely facade begins to rapidly flake away as members of the party are lost. As the story progresses, Scott's image of his god becomes less like a celestial Tom Landry and more like the Norse god Odin, a bloodthirsty, tempermental god, demanding sacrifice for his favor. Stripped of his faith in god as a wise and paternal coach, The Reverend Scott, filled with anger and disillusionment, sacrifices himself in the belief that this appeasement will allow the others to escape.
Part of that which makes Gallico's characters so fascinating is that he does not always fully explain their thoughts or actions. Why was a rough and uncultivated New York City Cop on a month-long cruise with his vulgar and shrewish wife? How could they afford it? Was the Reverend really just taking a holiday? And what really happened to Robin?
He leaves the reader with unanswered questions as is the case when we are thrown into contact with strangers in our own lives. We may learn bits and pieces or a great deal about a stranger in a casual encounter, but we are rarely indulged with a full understanding of that person's motivations, viewpoints, or philosophies.
Such is the case with Mary Kinsale, a British spinster of plain appearence and impecable manners. She seems almost the archetype of the withered old maid. One is left to question her veracity regarding her family, her history, even the existence of her long dead fiancee Gerald (the cliched flyer killed during the war). Is she telling the truth, or is the woman mentally unbalanced and living in a harmless fantasy world of her own design? Either answer still leaves the reader unprepared for her startling revelations concerning the Reverend Scott. A secret which I will leave the reader to discover on his own.
By using a limited omniscient viewpoint on only a few characters (principally, Jane and Susan Shelby, Hubie Muller, and Mike Rogo), Gallico creates a sense of mystery around many of the others. This is certainly true of Scott. Gallico never allows us into his mind. We only see Scott as the other passengers do, and thus creates an enigmatic and dynamic aura about the character.
Gallico's writing style is concisely descriptive giving the reader a strong sense of the claustrophobic suspense and imminent danger felt by his characters. Throughout the book, the reader does not forget for an instance where the characters are or how close they are to impending doom. The novel is almost unrelenting in its sense of urgency. The characters are ceaselessly faced with death by fire, water, and panic.
There are flaws in the novel. The religious allegory, if intentional, is muddled and diffuse. Sometimes the Scott character seems a symbol of the Christ figure, sometimes the Moses figure. I believe that the religious symbology is unconcious on the part of Gallico, as the theme is not fully fleshed out.
Gallico also seems to have difficulty creating plausible female characters. Perhaps it is the most obvious flaw in the book. Belle Rosen, Jane Shelby, and Nonnie Parry are the most believable women in the book, but Linda Rogo and Susan Shelby are rather difficult to accept at times. Linda Rogo is relentlessly callow and cruel. She is a selfish and manipulative bitch, of whom the reader will have little sympathy. The true pathos of the character is that she is never redeemed by the author, and though he offers an explanation for her behavior, it still does not excuse her vicious cruelty and hate. The character of Linda seems to be more of a catalytic device for the author, rather than a real person.
With Susan, Gallico attempts to create a coming-of-age theme. For the most part he is successful. Susan is a well developed and wholly believable character, until a traumatic event midway through the novel. Gallico uses this event to show us the maturation of Susan, but she suddenly becomes unbelievably accepting of this most horrific violation of her person. I don't believe any woman could so easily and with such poise embrace such an occurence. Susan is either superhuman in her capacity to forgive and accept or the most masochistic fictional character this side of The Story of O.
Overall, The Poseidon Adventure makes an excellent and fast read, which leaves the reader feeling almost as stunned and exhausted as the survivors. It is a story of courage and strength of character, of failure and loss, nobility and savagery. It is a story of intense drama and great suspense. In short, everything an adventure story should be. |
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PoseidonAdventure.com All logos and trademarks are property of their respective owners. Excerpts used under U.S. Code : Title 17 : Section 107. Everything else, including design and graphics, Copyright © 1996-2011 Joyce A. Rogers. All rights reserved.
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