Word: astor
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Despite the continuing marvel of viewing the Titanic, the scientists never forgot they were touring what is, in effect, a mass grave. "You look at parts of the ship and you get flashbacks -- that Captain (Edward) Smith stood here and (Multimillionaire John Jacob) Astor was there, and that's where they were loading the women and children," Ballard told the Boston Herald. "You remember the staircase scene with people going up and down, and you remember the band playing...
That sense of the ominous haunts Brooke Astor's novel: the worst is waiting to occur immediately after the curtain falls on the kind of fiction that has been out of style since the period it concerns. In this dry, sparkling comedy of manners, reminiscent of Edith Wharton's lighter works, the glitter is incessant. Emily Codway, a widow of a certain age -- nearly 60 actually, although she will only admit to 49 -- carries on a sunset flirtation with a fortyish Italian prince, Carlo Pontevecchio. Her sister-in-law Irma Shrewsbury, also a moneyed widow, is romanced by Charlie Hopeland...
...love has become a familiar theme of contemporary fiction: Isaac Bashevis Singer made it the title of a book of short stories; John Cheever, John Updike and Saul Bellow have explored its surprising depths and passions. In their wake Philanthropist Astor, now in her early 80s, slyly subtitles her fourth and best book "a period piece." Actually, it concerns two periods: the year before the Crash and the time after middle age. She is obviously an expert on both. With witty understatement and antic plot, she shows a high social stratum at its apogee. Messages are delivered on silver salvers...
...ancient father, she is momentarily ( transformed into a radiant ideal: "beautiful, charming, intelligent, loving, and the perfect future Principessa Pontevecchio." Irma is another matter: abandoned by Charlie, she becomes one more foolish dowager in the tow of her parasitic heir. But these are merely the bones of the book. Astor's primary theme is irony, and the '20s international set allows her to use it undiluted...
...lower decks were not given a choice, and so, while almost all the women in first class escaped, nearly half of those in third class drowned. There was also an element of happenstance. Boat No. 1, which could have held 40 people, departed with only twelve. While John Jacob Astor went stoically to his death, Henry Sleeper Harper managed to find lifeboat room not just for himself but for his Pekingese, Sun Yat-sen, and an Egyptian dragoman he was bringing home on a whim. Benjamin Guggenheim changed into evening clothes for the occasion, and so did his valet...