The Book of Calamities: Five Questions About Suffering and Its Meaning
Synopsis:
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? Some of these these questions are as old as civilization, others as urgent as today's headlines from Baghdad and New Orleans. This powerful, majestically eloquent book approaches them anew. <!--break--> Combining reporting, personal narrative, and moral philosophy, The Book of Calamities tells the stories of grass-roots genocide tribunals in Rwanda and tsunami survivors in Sri Lanka, of an innocent man on death row, and a family bereaved on 9/11. It examines texts from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the writings of Victor Frankl and Simone Weil and from the Book of Job to The Way of the Bodhisattva to understand how individuals and civilizations have grappled with suffering, trying to find immunity from it or, failing that, meaning in it. The Book of Calamities is a provocative and sweeping look at one of the biggest paradoxes in the human condition—and the astonishing strength and resilience of those who are forced to confront it.
"From the clusters of far-fetched, incongruous, and extraordinary similitudes that compose The Book of Calamities, Peter Trachtenberg wrings the most remarkable insights, and expresses them in precise and beautiful language. To read this staggering book is to enter into suffering, pass through it, and go beyond." -- Madison Smartt Bell, author of Toussaint L'Ouverture
Book Excerpt:
Everybody suffers: War, sickness, poverty, hunger, oppression, prison, exile, bigotry, loss, madness, rape, addiction, age, loneliness. We suffer, depending on our religious or ideological convictions, because we are born in sin; because God has chosen us; because he is punishing us; because we are bound by craving and illusion; because suffering makes us better. We suffer because some of our cells are programmed, when exposed to certain biological stressors, to turn cancerous. We suffer because some of us have nothing and others have everything and those with everything want even more. We suffer because some reptilian portion of the brain delights in murder and sways not only individuals but entire nations to its purposes. We suffer because at a very early age we learn that we are going to die and spend the rest of our lives in dread of it.
Everybody suffers, but Americans have the peculiar delusion that they’re exempt from suffering. . . . This book is meant to address that delusion. It explores suffering as a spiritual phenomenon, a condition that afflicts the spirit as well as the body; this is true of both the pain we endure and the pain we only witness. It explores the ways that people try to make sense of suffering, in order not to be destroyed.
Topics/Categories:
Afghanistan, Genocide, Hurricane Katrina, Illness, Justice, Moral Philosophy, Politics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Religion, September 11, Slavery, Suffering, Trauma
Genre:
Biography and Memoir, History, Journalism, Narrative Nonfiction, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics, Religion - Spirituality
Type of Work:
Publishers:
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Original Publish Date:
2008-08-27
ISBNs:
0-316-15879-8
Publishing Notes:
Little, Brown & Co., August 27, 2008. http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com
Formats:
Hardcover
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