Psalm at Journey's End

by Erik Fosnes Hansen

Book Overview

A "virtuoso" novel (Time) of the Titanic disaster-told from the perspective of the ship's motley band of European musicians. Translated by Joan Tate. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374238685
• ISBN13: 9780374238681
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 371 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

An incredible book

Erik Fosnes Hansen has written a magnificent book that just grabs hold of you and stays in the back of your head a long time after you've read it. He is incredibly good at describing the characters and really makes you feel for them. I simply loved this book, and recomend it to anyone (as long as you're not expecting a sentimental ship movie).

A Real Page Turner!

I admit that the movie did spark my interest in the book; nonetheless, this book engaged me right from the beginning. We've all heard about the musicians on the Titanic (playing until the very end, etc.) and I liked how this author imagined what these notorious musician's lives were before they sailed, and worked this idea into the basis for a novel. And unpredictably, the author did not paint pictures of the musician's lives as being glorious and richly cultural; lives whose glory and culture were only further richened by the opportunity of playing music for the wealthy on the Titanic. Instead, he painted an unexpectedly dark portrait of their lives; chronicling individual tales of despair, lost hope and opportunities. He also describes the time period in such vivid detail, that the European "sets" which serve as the background for the story come across to the reader as dismal as the musician's lives itself. Sound depressing? You bet! But despite all this, a reader can easily relate to their disappointments and actually mourn for these characters at the end. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.

Starts slow, but turns into a great book !

Curiously, I have started to read this book long before all the hype about Titanic, the movie, and I had stopped reading it in the middle. The movie made me start reading it again. As the reviews indicate, the start of the book is not that compelling, especially because the tales of the regent's life seem to contain nothing but misery, drama and sorrow. But the book really gains momentum when the lives of the other musicians start to be explored. Helped by brilliant and vivid descriptions of the characters aboard and the ship itself, the author gives us a vision of the tragedy from the viewpoint of other little tragedies, that had started long before the musicians drowned while playing at the ship's deck.

A luminous novel of the Titanic musicians

By now, everyone has seen the "Titanic" movie (3, 4, or 5 times!). This magical novel traces the life-journeys of each of the musicians on board the Ship of Dreams. It's more about life, love, mystery and fate than about the ship itself, but no matter. One of the best novels I've read in years! Highly recommended.