Reading Can Be a Disaster

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As the cycle of tragedy in the Mideast continues — decades of vicious oppression of Palestinians by Israel, vicious attacks on Israel by Hamas, all the deaths, etc. — among the words that describe the ghastly situation is: disaster. And since this is a book blog, I’m going to write about disaster in literature.

There are of course novels about devastating wars, novels about the unimaginable horror of the Holocaust, and so on, but I’ve covered those topics before. This post will be mostly about one-off disasters happening within a relatively small window of time.

As we read about these situations — fictional but reminiscent of, and sometimes based on, real disasters — there is of course much drama amid the dread. Instances of courage, instances of cowardice, wondering if the characters will survive, etc.

Before I knew last week that I would write this post, I happened to be reading Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s compelling novel One Amazing Thing — about nine people in an unnamed American city trapped in a passport/visa office when a major earthquake hits. The interpersonal dynamics among this multiracial group are fascinating as they try to control their fear while thinking of ways to escape or at least survive until possible rescue. Meanwhile, they pass some of the agonizing hours telling at-times-enthralling tales to each other about their lives — making the novel almost a short-story collection of sorts.

I also thought of Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, about attendees at a posh party in a South American country who are taken hostage. In this novel, the interaction is not only between the party guests but also between the guests and the attackers during what turns out to be a four-month standoff. Good vs. evil? It’s more complicated than that.

Paul Gallico’s The Poseidon Adventure? A tidal wave turns a cruise ship upside down. Not ideal. But quite riveting as the surviving passengers try to save themselves.

In Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, a museum bombing is the focus only of the first part of the novel, but that bombing sets off a series of consequences, actions, and events that drive the rest of the Pulitzer Prize-winning work.

What will happen at the end of the book hangs over Nevil Shute’s On the Beach. Nuclear war has devastated much of the Earth, a massive radioactive cloud is heading toward Australia, and the novel’s characters in and near Melbourne know it’s coming.

Your thoughts about, and examples of, this topic?

My literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Baristanet.com, which has merged with Montclair Local. The latest piece — about the split-vote approval of a controversial redevelopment in my town — is here.

139 thoughts on “Reading Can Be a Disaster”

  1. I just read a news item that Israel and Hamas has agreed to a cease fire. I believe that Trump must have put pressure on Netanyahu to accept this cease fire in return for American aid. Hamas has been greatly weakened but they still seem to be in control in Gaza.

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    • Thank you for the comment, Tony. I hope the ceasefire does happen — and holds. And, yes, you’re absolutely right that Trump deserves some credit for it. He did indeed put pressure on Netanyahu — one corrupt authoritarian to another. If only Biden, months and months ago, had put pressure on Israel to stop the genocide by threatening to withhold U.S. aid and weapons shipments. But he was too weak, too scared of AIPAC donors, too pro-Israel, too anti-Palestinian, etc. A huge stain on Biden’s presidency.

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  2. I came across an Arab proverb quoted in a non-fiction book which I read in 9th grade which has haunted me ever since ” Peace is the dream of the wise, war is the history of man”.

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  3. I must say its rather difficult to read sci-fi books without a nuclear disaster being mentioned and/or anti-utopias as well as negative utopias which eventually turn into disasters. I can only think of one book re: a disaster that turned out fairly well which is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, although Dorothy Gale and friends faced mini disasters all along the way. And then there are the wrong place/wrong time disasters where one is set upon by a murderous fiend/fiends such as the Clutter family In Cold Blood by Capote or those individuals killed by the Manson family. Its sad to say I never knew a time where there wasn’t a war or murderous fiends I can accept a rogue wave, a tornado, earthquake, etc; however, I don’t think I’ll ever reconcile myself to the thought a man would take up arms against his fellow man when we all have to contend with the wraith of mother nature; however, I guess its just the human material.

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      • Thank you, Susi, for the interesting, wide-ranging comment! Yes, sad, negative, and even dystopian things/events are more likely in sci-fi and other literature (because they’re more likely in real life). Depressing but true. 😦 And, as you say, even many books with at least semi-happy endings put their characters through a lot along the way. Last but not least, I agree that humankind should concentrate on fighting climate change instead of each other. Not a chance, though. 😦

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  4. I can’t think of a fiction book about a 1 off disaster, that I’ve read.
    Does a mini personal disaster count?
    I’m thinking of the classic “Captains Courageous” by Kipling.
    It’s a disaster for the young boy who falls off a ship, and is saved by fishermen who can’t return him until fishing season is over.
    It’s a disaster for his family,..

    The first book that came to mind was not fiction.
    Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors … Piers Paul Read
    Thanks for the topic, Dave!

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  5. On the topic of favorite novel endings, I’m certain I’ve mentioned IB Singer’s generational family saga, “The Family Moskat”. In the present context, the novel is again pertinent.

    As German bombs begin to rain down of Warsaw, one of the characters, a deeply religious and studious man, runs down the street shouting “Death is the Messiah! Death is the Messiah!”

    What followed, beyond the novel’s end, was the Holocaust and the killing fields and all the horror of the Second World War.

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    • Thank you, jhNY! That is quite a sobering conclusion, with plenty of truth. And, yes, still relevant despite the novel coming out in 1950. (Just looked that up.) I haven’t read “The Family Moskat,” but have found I.B. Singer’s short stories to be very compelling.

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  6. It is hard to get factual, unbiased information about the Israeli-Hamas War, two examples are Shani Louk the young Israeli woman whose body was abused by Hamas, whether or not she was alive at the time, and even more importantly whether the explosion (which caused hundreds of deaths) at Al-Ahli Hospital was caused by an Israeli air strike or by a rocket fired from Gaza by Islamic Jihad which exploded in midair and fell on hospital grounds.

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    • You’re right, Tony — the fog of war and all that. It doesn’t help that there are a lot more journalists in Israel than in Gaza, and that the cutoff of electricity in Gaza isn’t exactly conducive to reporters and “amateur” media observers keeping cell phones and computers charged.

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  8. Natural disaster stories always interest me and to some degree it’s interesting to see/imagine how one could survive something terrifying like a rogue wave or flood or something like that. War is tough for me – I find many war movies interesting, but the gruesome parts are hard. It’s tough for me to stomach since it’s people causing those battles, but a good war story can captivate people and move them, too.

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    • Thank you, Sara! Yes, readers of disaster fiction often think of how they’d react and what they’d do if they were in the characters’ situation. And war stories (whether movies or novels) can indeed be hard to take and hard not to be compelled by at the same time.

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  9. A wonderful conversation about disasters, Dave. I now have titles to add to my TBR stack of book. I generally read non-fiction books that speak of disasters (Simon Winchester/Krakatoa), but I believe that the Richard Llewellyn’s bestselling and timeless classic, “How Green Was My Valley” is relevant. The novel includes a coal mine disaster. I have often wondered why we are drawn to “disaster” stories. Perhaps they give us a glimpse into the human experience during times of extreme adversity. They remind us of the fragility of our existence, allowing us to confront our personal fears of loss and grief.

    I must leave you with one of my favourite quotes from “How Green Was My Valley:

    “But you have gone now, all of you that were so beautiful when you were quick with life. Yet not gone, for you are still a living truth inside my mind. So how are you dead, my brothers and sisters, and all of you , when you live with me as surely as I live with myself.” Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley

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    • Thank you, Rebecca! Yes, memorable books about disasters can be fiction or nonfiction. “How Green Was My Valley” (which I haven’t read) sounds like a great example in the novel realm. Very poignant quote from that book you cited at the end of your comment. And very insightful words by you about why many people might be drawn to reading about disasters.

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  10. Hi Dave, a good interlude to this posts. I’m watching it all unfold in horror. Books involving disasters … hmmm! John Wyndham, who I’ve mentioned before, used disasters as his settings for The Chrysalids (nuclear war), The Day of the Triffids (a meteorite shower that blinds humanity), The Kraken Wakes (attack by aliens which causes the polar ice caps to melt), and The Midwich Cuckoos (aliens impregnating all the women in an English village). I do believe Stephen King was influenced by John Wyndham and got some ideas from him (The Stand from The Day of the Triffids), and The Dome (for The Midwich Cuckoos). A few other books: The Second Mrs Astor (featuring the sinking of the Titanic), A Farewell to Arms (not WWI generally, but the Battle of Caporetto which resulted in the murder of Italian military leaders who retreated) and A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe which features The Great Plague of London in 1664.

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  11. Thank you, Dave, for having proposed “One Amazing Thing “, which I have added to my reading list:) When I read your post yesterday, I immediately thought about a book exploring all wars and relationships, which had deeply touched me then. In the meantime I even found it on my bookshelf and the title is “REGENERATION” by Pat Barker. It starts with the following sentence: I am making this statements as an act of wilfull defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those, who have the power to end it.

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  12. I suppose that most habitants of the Gaza strip suffer of the so called Stockholm syndrome. They threw out the Palestinian Authority because of their corruption and nepotism, just to find out that the cure was worse than the disease. The Oslo agreements were deliberately undermined by the Hamas bombing raids, and then the Israelis elected Netanyahu in office, who pushed it even deeper into the abyss. And now you have a new radicalization on both sides of the debate. Have you ever wondered why Hamas is so insistent in keeping waging a war that they know they can’t win? When this war would be considered as a crime, the first thing the police would do is having a close look at those who’re benefitting from it. Netanyahu clings at his position to avoid prison on bribery charges and can only do so if he keeps the religious zealots in his coalition happy. On the Palestinian side the picture isn’t that clear to me, but there must be someone (or a group) who has a personal interest in keeping things festering.

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  13. Disastrous amounts of work forced me to follow the blog from a distance. Enjoying some time off in New York, I offer War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. About as catastrophic as it gets. It is a testimony to the greatness of Wells as a writer that the novel continues to succeed in exciting and entrancing a present-day readership exposed to the most stunning of computer generated or enhanced phantasy and science fiction.

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    • Thank you, Dingemon! Sorry about all your work; I hope it has eased off a bit? H.G. Wells was masterful at depicting disaster scenarios in a number of novels, including “The War of the Worlds,” as you mentioned. And, yes, his books still seem quite timely and relevant despite many of them being well over 100 years old. I’m also a big fan of his “The Time Machine,” “The First Men in the Moon,” and “The Shape of Things to Come.”

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      • Also “The Island of Dr Moreau”, though, as in many Wells pieces of fiction, the end comes too quick and too neat for my expansive taste. It did read to me as a metaphor for colonialism, though my interpretation may well be an outlier.

        That book gave rise to the movie “The Island of Lost Souls”, starring maniac doctor Charles Laughton, and later to Adolfo Bloy Casares’ “The Inventions of Morell”, and later still, with a nod toward Wells and Casares (and ETA Hoffmann), to Angela Carter’s “The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman.”

        I prefer all of these in the order listed, which also happen to be the order in which they were created. No doubt, Wells really started something!

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    • War of the Worlds (the book, not the movie which missed a lot of the point of the book) is a great recommendation. I really admired HG Wells depictions of the aliens as having become so advanced they really only had huge brains and relied on their machine creations to do everything the body could/should have done. It is such an interesting thought.

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  14. My thoughts ran to two books, Dave, but both are non-fiction. But they are wonderful narratives – ‘Isaac’s Storm’ by Erik Larson about the hurricane in Galveston in 1900, and ‘Dark Tide’ by Stephen Puleo about the 1919 Molasses Flood in Boston. Each are hard to put down.

    A novel (that I think I mentioned for an earlier theme) is ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ by Kurt Vonnegut which is about several things, including the fire bombing of Dresden.

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    • Thank you, Dan, for those three excellent mentions! There are definitely some nonfiction books that are every bit as compelling as novels, and hurricanes and floods are certainly dramatic and devastating subjects. As for “Slaughterhouse-Five,” it’s a VERY memorable novel.

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  16. The news of the savage killings in Southern Israel by Hamas shocked me more than any news since the attacks on 9/11. The tragic irony is that many of the victims were relatively liberal Israelis who were sympathetic to Palestinians.

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  17. It’s interesting how one reacts during crisis and disaster. I found myself watching the most gruesome tv-series when one of my loved ones was dying many years ago. Something I would normally not feel well watching. But at the time, reality was so much worse than any fiction and it somehow gave me some solace. Today, seeing what is going on in the world, disasters piling on top of each other, I have a hard time bringing myself to watch or read grim stories. It’s just too much. Perhaps it is age, or it’s just being fed up with tragedies… and I am sure no fiction writer can top these real life disasters unfolding all around us right now… but I do feel an urgent need for more light than darkness at the moment. Thanks for a thought-provoking post!

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  18. I’m not sure this entirely fits, but your piece reminded me of it, Faulkner’s moving short story: “Turn About” a at times humorous, always interesting, but in the end, tragic story of the interaction of American fliers and British torpedo-boat raiders in WWI – and their common confrontations with death.

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  19. A very appropriate topic for this catastrophic moment in the Middle East. When we least expect it, disaster can strike us at any time and place. I have not read the first two novels you’ve mentioned. Nevil Shute’s On the Beach left a lasting impression after I read it in my adolescent years. During a disaster, we are most vulnerable and often reveal our truest selves. Such situations provide opportunities for telling compelling stories of human connection and resilience.

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    • Chita Banerjee Divakaruni is a brilliant writer. I just read “The Forest of Enchantments”. This is the story of Sita, the legendary heroine from the Indian epic Ramayana. The book explores Sita’s journey, from her childhood to her marriage to Lord Rama, and her subsequent exile and time spent in the forest. While not aligned with your topic of conversation, Dave, Sita’s journey is fraught with disasters, which reveals Sita’s resilience, courage and loyalty.

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