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

Peter Trachtenberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 27, 2008

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. THE BOOK OF CALAMITIES 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. (2008)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Trachtenberg (Seven Tattoos) wryly observes: Everybody suffers, but Americans have the peculiar delusion that they're exempt from suffering. He shared in this denial until a friend died of cancer, and then he began to ask questions. Most of these are unanswerable, he admits. Why me? How do I endure? What is just? What does my suffering say about me? about God? And what do I owe those who suffer? This book is a layman's response to unimaginable anguish, a collection of powerful stories rather than a philosophical treatise. Writing movingly about victims and survivors of natural disasters, war, genocide, domestic violence, addiction, illness, suicide and injustice, he deftly intermingles their stories with observations from religion, philosophy and literature. Not everyone will want to face this much misery, and Trachtenberg offers no easy solutions. His book, however, like Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, succeeds because it asks the right questions, calls on the experience of articulate witnesses and—through skillful narrative and trenchant observation—beguiles the reader into facing heartbreaking reality. (Aug. 27)
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Review

"Searching and often searing . . . . a work of real moral intricacy . . . . beautiful and unsettling." -- Salon
"Captivating . . . . lyrical and poignant, penetrating and challenging." -- Charlotte Observer 


"Terrifying and wondrous . . . . a masterful collage of personal narrative, journalism, biblical criticism, and layman's philosophy. . . . A rare and invaluable kind of writing, almost scriptural in its scope."-- Search Magazine 

[Starred Review] "Writing movingly about victims and survivors of natural disasters, war, genocide, domestic violence, addiction, illness, suicide and injustice, Trachtenberg deftly intermingles their stories with observations from religion, philosophy and literature....The Book of Calamities, like Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon, succeeds because it asks the right questions, calls on the experience of articulate witnesses and--through skillful narrative and trenchant observation--beguiles the reader into facing heartbreaking reality." (Publishers Weekly )

"Frank and urgent....Trachtenberg raises complex questions about justice, malice, compassion, blame, self-pity, personal responsibility, faith, and doubt....He harvests wisdom from the likes of Primo Levi, Siddhartha, and Simone Weil, from Aeschylus's Oresteia and the book of Job." (O, The Oprah Magazine Cathleen Medwick )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (August 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316158798
• ISBN-13: 978-0316158794
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #693,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the 1950s and '60s. Anyone who wants to know what the neighborhood was like then should read Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet, a book I love for its signature mix of intellectual rumination and amorous and fiscal misadventure. My parents were Jewish immigrants from Europe. They had arrived in this country in the 1940s, my father as a refugee. They passed to me a portion of their awed gratitude for the American promise, not the promise of fast money but the promise of laws and rights that are as binding on the powerful as on the weak. This may be why I am sickened and outraged whenever I see that promise broken. I suspect that my parents also imparted to me a sense of myself as an outsider, someone for whom setting down roots might be, if not impossible, unwise.

I attended a public grade school and private high schools, with some interruptions on account of stupidity and bad behavior. From very early on I read eagerly and indiscriminately. I read the Hardy Boys and Moby Dick, The Bacchae and Naked Lunch, On the Road and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, The Free-Lance Pallbearers and The High Window. I loved literature and I loved trash and for a long time had only a vague idea of what distinguished one from the other. I earned a BA in English and Theater from Sarah Lawrence College and then a MA in Creative Writing from City College, where I studied with Donald Barthelme, Frederick Tuten, and Francine du Plessix Gray.

For most of my life I lived in New York City, except for seven years in Baltimore and six months in Amsterdam, Holland. For the last nine years my wife and I have lived in the mid-Hudson valley. I've worked as a free-lance journalist, copywriter, and editor; an instructor of creative writing, an arts administrator, receptionist, security guard and a (staggeringly inept) stage carpenter. I have also been an actor and performance artist. Part of the inspiration for The Book of Calamities was being commissioned to write and perform a monologue on the theme of an angry and judging God for an evening at The Kitchen. My subject was the Book of Job.

In the course of researching The Book of Calamities, I interviewed genocide survivors in Rwanda, people in refugee camps in Sri Lanka (where I worked as a volunteer for local NGOs in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami), a survivor of the 900-day blockade of Leningrad, and Hurricane Katrina evacuees in Dallas.

In 2008-9 I was an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Since then I've taught at Manhattanville College and Bard College. In June 2010, I'll be teaching at the Iowa Writers' Festival.

The Book of Calamities is the winner of the 2009 Phi Beta Kappa Ralph Waldo Emerson Award, given to a book that contributes to the interpretation of the intellectual and cultural condition of humanity.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Marvellous and unique, October 3, 2008

By 

Ginny (Livonia, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Book of Calamities: Five Questions About Suffering and Its Meaning (Hardcover)

I have never read anything like this before on any subject. The author is highly intellectual, almost overly so, yet also profoundly emotional in his response to human experience. He can write about ancient philosophy and make it as immediate as pop culture without losing any depth or seriousness--he truly makes art and culture timeless and universally applicable whether he is writing about the case of child-murderer Andrea Yates or the Rwandan genocide, or two young women suffering from a rare and deadly disease. Many of the stories in this book are appalling; many are profiles in courage.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars i needed this book, January 12, 2009

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slow reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Book of Calamities: Five Questions About Suffering and Its Meaning (Hardcover)

I am SO glad I read this book. Despite my initial hesitations (just wasn't eager to read about suffering), once I committed myself to the book, I couldn't put it down. Peter Trachtenberg does an excellent job of summarizing intelligent related work I would like to read directly but probably never will (Epic of Gilgamesh, Book of Job, Simone Weil)and interwtining it with engrossing narratives of people making sense of their own suffering. The author adroitly weaves these strands together leading the reader through important questions and answers without being intrusive. I plan to read it again (& some parts again & again as they will continue to intrigue me). I recommend it for thoughtful reading on universally relevant topics.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent, October 13, 2008

By 

jon grife (maryland) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Book of Calamities: Five Questions About Suffering and Its Meaning (Hardcover)

i could not put this book down. it proved novel and enlightening in so many ways. it is an exciting exploration of human suffering and god's place in the world. Trachtenberg is a tremendous writer and thinker and i can't wait for additional writings.