The Book of Calamities: Five Questions About Suffering and Its Meaning

by Peter Trachtenberg

What does it mean to suffer? What enables some people to emerge from tragedy while others are spiritually crushed by it? Why do so many Americans think of suffering as something that happens to other people -- who usually deserve it? These are some of the questions at the heart of this powerful book.

Combining reportage, personal narrative, and moral philosophy, Peter Trachtenberg tells the stories of grass-roots genocide tribunals in Rwanda and tsunami survivors in Sri Lanka, an innocent man on death row, and a family bereaved on 9/11. He examines texts from the Book of Job to the Bodhicharyavatara and the writings of Simone Weil.

is a provocative and sweeping look at one of the biggest paradoxes of the human condition -- and the surprising strength and resilience of those who are forced to confront it.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Psychology

464 pages, Hardcover

First published August 20, 2008

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Peter Trachtenberg is the author of the memoir 7 TATTOOS, THE BOOK OF CALAMITIES: Five Questions About Suffering and Its Meaning (Little Brown, August 2008), and ANOTHER INSANE DEVOTION (Da Capo, October 2012), a book about the search for a missing cat that's also an encoded exploration of love and marriage.

His essays, journalism, and short fiction have been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, BOMB, TriQuarterly, O, The New York Times Travel Magazine, and A Public Space. His commentaries have been broadcast on NPR'S "All Things Considered."

Trachtenberg is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.

He's the recipient of a NYFA artist's fellowship, the Nelson Algren Award for Short Fiction, a Whiting Writers Fellowship, a 2010 Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and a 2012 residency at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center. The Book of Calamities was given the 2009 Phi Beta Kappa Society's Ralph Waldo Emerson Award "for scholarly studies that contribute significantly to interpretations of the intellectual and cultural condition of humanity."

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book a few years ago and can't believe I didn't write a review of it -- I coincidentally read it at a time of great trauma and suffering in my life (my granddaughter had just died 8 days before her due date, of a cord knot, and my daughter had wanted nothing more than to be a mother; my husband and I decided to divorce although I wasn't ready to move at that moment because of my granddaughter's traumatic loss; nevertheless I lost my home in NYC and had to relocate to Austin, starting over again from scorched earth). I was reading it on the airplane, flying to Austin with my three suitcases and nothing else.

Again and again the book hit me right in the gut. It asks (and finds answers to) the kinds of questions you ask yourself when you or a loved one are hit by life. Why. Why me. What's possible. What now. When my own assault hit me in 2012, it of course wasn't the first, because life will do this to you. I came out of a severely traumatic childhood asking these questions, and I got a PhD in psychology because I wanted to find answers to them. (I didn't find them there.) I appreciated the variety of calamities he examined, and the wide variety of sources he went to in his quest for answers. Ultimately we find our own, of course, but I always appreciate a guide.

If you read this book, it's probably because you know from trauma. It's probably because you've asked yourself these questions, sought these answers. It's not an easy read, but it's definitely worth reading. And re-reading. And underlining, highlighting, dog-earing. Sharing. Highly recommended.

[Kerri S · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an emotionally tough read, but one I believe we all should embrace for better compassion, empathy and peace. The writing is so compelling that each and every story grabbed my heart and held on to the last page. It deals with philosophy and religion and psychology, none more than the other. It's certainly a read no lover of social studies and world history should miss.

[Suzanne Arcand · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book that brings up important questions. I Highly recommend it.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot. Initially, I was afraid it would be yet another screed assuring me that the power of positive thinking will overcome all odds if only one has faith. However, I trusted the source of the recommendation. I'm happy my bias was wrong. Trachtenberg studies individual tragedy like a geologist studies the ground. He's clearly sympathetic and keenly interested, but he's nonjudgmental about the various responses. We get as close as seeing people's faces, but he doesn't flay or gut his subjects.

Trachtenberg starts with the story of Job, which is my favorite Biblical story because of its complexity and ambivalence. I feel Trachtenberg allows people's reactions to remain as elusive and complex as Job's story. I'm glad he didn't try to distill the experience down into platitudes or conclude that one response is more correct than another.

[Ymaluv · Rating 4 out of 5]

If suffering in the presence of an omniscient and omnipresent God perplexes you, read this book. It helped me better understand the purpose of suffering. I especially enjoyed his explanation about the story of Job from the Old Testament (a story that has always bothered me from the moment I heard it). This book is not a page turner, but it's well written, and thoughful.

[SUVENDRINI HELENA CAMILLE · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely fabulous, especially chapters 2 and 3. Profoundly thought provoking and moving. Inspiring in a very personal and yet academic and objective manner. Provides the language and meaning necessary to move through suffering ... am not alone.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

a thesis on suffering.

[Byron Edgington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here we have a book that takes us into the depths of all that comprises human suffering. Five questions, each with its own painful and diligent explanation/answer read almost like the various circles of Dante's hell. Why me? How do I endure? What is just? What does my suffering say about me? About God? And finally, What do I owe those who suffer? The author cites several characters throughout history who we've come to associate with suffering: Boethius, Gilgamesh & Enkidu, Joan Didion, Victor Frankl, Simone Weil, Thich Nhat Han, and several others who declaim from their own perspective. Trachtenberg circles around one particular cause of all human suffering, religiosity and its singular mission to, as the author says, '...raise human beings to heaven on a tower of corpses.' He examines this further, concluding that our attraction to religion derives from the fact that humans are 'order seeking animals' and that religion is 'man's revolt against mortality.' This book may be singular insofar as, for this reader at least, its author seems more interesting than his topic. Trachtenberg appears to have written this work largely from his own deep dive into the very depths of misery described here. His conclusion seems to be that, to answer any of the five questions, human beings must experience misery, perversion, violence, and depravity first hand. Those of us living modern, sanitized lives quite possibly cannot understand this most basic of human queries: As Gilgamesh asks, 'Must I, too, lie down like him (Enkidu) and never rise again?' Caution, readers, you may want a dictionary close by. Example: To scry=to foretell; Oubliette=a secret dungeon. There are others. The Book of Calamities: Five Questions About Suffering and Its Meaning

[Jennifer Campaniolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hard book to read, but very worthwhile.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing light (literally) or easy about this, but some very insightful ideas and thought-provoking connections across different stories of suffering.

[Cathy Phelps · Rating 5 out of 5]

attempting to read for the second time. This book is heavy so I'm working it in with another.

[Jill]

I want to come back to this when I have more time. The first chapter hooked me, but it was due back at the library and I have too many other things to do right now.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating. Will cause you to consider--and reconsider--ideas and beliefs you have taken for granted all of your life. Read slowly.

[Tara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well written, but underwhelming.