Why people recommend it
Futility, Or The Wreck of the Titan is a late nineteenth-century novella about a massive ocean liner that strikes an iceberg and sinks, bearing eerie resemblances to the real-life Titanic disaster. Dave Portnoy discussed the narrative on The Joe Rogan Experience in June 2024 by reading from an article that detailed the plot of the short novel written by American author Morgan Robertson, focusing on how the fictional ship named the Titan met its tragic fate. Ben Bowlin also explored the book on Stuff They Don't Want You To Know in February 2023 during an episode dedicated to Titanic conspiracy theories and coincidences. Bowlin noted that the novel was published in 1898, a full fourteen years prior to the actual demise of the Titanic, and highlighted the astonishing number of specific similarities between the fictional catastrophe and the historical maritime disaster. Both discussions used the uncanny parallels found in Robertson's work to examine cultural fascinations with predictive fiction, historical coincidences, and the enduring mystery surrounding one of history's most famous shipwrecks.
Who recommended it
- Dave Portnoy Discussed
- Ben Bowlin Discussed
Dave Portnoy — 1 mention
“a short novel called the futility the wreck of the Titan published in the US writer Morgan Robertson a novel that tells the story of the world's largest passenger ship the Titan and how it sank after hitting an iceberg”
Ben Bowlin — 1 mention
“in a novel written in 1898 known as futility or wreck of the Titan it was a guy named Morgan Robertson and 14 years before the Titanic met his demise he wrote a novel that had a lot of similarities to what happened to the Titanic”
Also mentioned in the same episodes
- The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and Related Tales (Balloon Hoax / Descent Into the Maelstrom / How to Write a Blackwood Article / Loss of Breath / Ms. Found in a Bottle / Mystification / Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket / Pit and the Pendulum / Premature Burial)
- The red market
- What Was the Titanic?