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

Peter Trachtenberg
Little, Brown and Company (2008)
ISBN 9780316158794
Reviewed by Carol Hoyer, PhD, for Reader Views (12/08)

 

“The Book of Calamities” is a very thoughtful and intriguing book on why people suffer and what did they do to cause this? Do we believe that people who suffer deserve this?

The author, through his own learning and conversations with individuals from Manhattan to Rwanda, gives us a good idea as to why individuals suffer and why we can’t seem to get rid of suffering. Many people, when tragedy happens such as a death of a small child or an event like 9/11, ask questions such as: How do I go on? - Is my suffering the result of other people’s malice? - What do I require in the way of justice? Often there are no answers to these questions.

In one narrative the author describes his visit to victims of the Tsunami where many families were lost and whole towns disappeared. One of the villagers said that Tsunami orphans were made fun of by others in the village as “unlucky.” How could these children control what had happened to them? Many of their fathers had left to find work elsewhere and what was left of the family was destroyed in a few minutes. Here the Buddhists call this fate “karma.” Many thought that the corruption of the government caused the Tsunami. Their way of thinking is that wholesome acts bear pleasant consequences and unwholesome acts unpleasant ones. So were these children being held responsible for the acts of the government and their parents?

In the western world the thought is that we make our own suffering and shouldn’t be surprised when it happens. Many individuals believe that they have control of their life and how they obtain the material items of the world. We believe as the author says that even the unluckiest of us can transform themselves to be lucky. So why isn’t that the same thought worldwide?

One of the things I particularly liked about “The Book of Calamities” by Peter Trachtenberg is that the author didn’t try to force his views on the reader. He gave us his information and experiences and let us come to our own conclusions.

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