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tracisbooks's review
3.0
Okay, the short version: A dude buys a haunted wine box from eBay and stuff starts happening. He flips out and the box changes hands, and the current owner goes to epic lengths to figure out what the heck is up, and then builds a box like the Ark of the Covenant, and then ends his search without making any real conclusions.
The long version: This book actually tells two different stories and leaves the final conclusion up to the reader. It’s a little more factually based than most paranormal investigation books, probably due to the fact that the author is very grounded in the academic world. I liked this; I liked having the “haunted/possessed” account as well as the “hoax” account side by side—a lot of paranormal books tend to focus on one or the other and seem to hide or outright dismiss the sometimes compelling evidence of the other side. This book is less about what the author himself believes and more about making a reliable resource for anyone who’s interested in learning more about the Dibbuk Box. (I’m going to switch spellings here; I’m more comfortable with “dybbuk” so that’s what I’m going to type.)
For rating purposes, I enjoyed this book. I liked the way the author was thorough and how he truly stopped to consider both sides of the coin, as I’ve said before. I found a few things hard to get past. First and foremost, I [was always taught] that the use of [excessive brackets] when quoting a source is [poor writing etiquette], and maybe that is [untrue], that’s [not the point]. The point I’m trying [to make] is, this [sure was a pain in the butt] to sit here and read, wasn’t it? [Try several pages of writing exactly like this.] It’s distracting.
Second, I kept running across things like “Ethel played the slot machines regularly, adding to her fortune with the winnings. She lived to be 103 years old and used her own form of Jewish magic to beat the odds and win.” (Not the only example, just the last one in the book and the easiest to find for me.) Now, come on, author. The majority of the times you mention Jewish mysticism and magic has to be that they’re using it to make more money? Way to perpetuate the stereotype. (googling “Jews and Money” to get me this result from the ADL even makes me feel like an asshole.)
2a) Author also spent a lot of time telling about how his wife/family/friends didn’t approve of his having the box and instead of being honest he spent a lot of time sneaking around or outright lying about what he was doing (in one instance even about a Wiccan ritual he was doing based on the recommendation of a coven out of state… he was in the crawlspace of his rental house with a box he and his family believed was evil… just seems like a bad idea. Also, I don’t understand how a self-proclaimed Methodist, using a Wiccan ritual he claims he’s uncomfortable with, expects to trap a Jewish spirit and make it go away?) Anyway, there were a few instances where the investigation seemed to be just a little aggressive, too. Not docking stars for this paragraph, just mentioning all this.
Finally, and this is corroborated by the afterward, despite the fact that the author goes to reasonable lengths to learn a little about Judaism while he’s studying the box and its contents, he never once attempts to explain why a dybbuk, a displaced spirit that possesses a living person, would be literally trapped in a box. A box is not living. A dybbuk possesses a living entity. So therefore, whatever’s inside this box cannot be a dybbuk. So why, in a book that tries so hard to look at this issue objectively, is this never discussed? Probably for the same reason the bundles of “hair” were never tested after one source tells him it’s probably from a Barbie doll. The author works on a college campus—anyone in the biology department probably would have been happy to take a look under the microscope and tell him if the hair was human or not.
Now, either way, personally I still came out of this believing that while the box itself is probably a fake, the idea of a dybbuk still scares me to death and I have absolutely no trouble believing that this box is responsible for the phenomena that occurred (either because someone was trying to play a joke and they did something they shouldn’t have and made it evil or just because so many people believe in its power, it has kind of become what everyone fears). I’m not rating based on the content of the book (in other words, my beliefs made no impact on the rating), but I feel like the omission of these details stopped the author from drawing a more solid conclusion, which a lot of people seem to have wanted.
It was enjoyable, though.
The long version: This book actually tells two different stories and leaves the final conclusion up to the reader. It’s a little more factually based than most paranormal investigation books, probably due to the fact that the author is very grounded in the academic world. I liked this; I liked having the “haunted/possessed” account as well as the “hoax” account side by side—a lot of paranormal books tend to focus on one or the other and seem to hide or outright dismiss the sometimes compelling evidence of the other side. This book is less about what the author himself believes and more about making a reliable resource for anyone who’s interested in learning more about the Dibbuk Box. (I’m going to switch spellings here; I’m more comfortable with “dybbuk” so that’s what I’m going to type.)
For rating purposes, I enjoyed this book. I liked the way the author was thorough and how he truly stopped to consider both sides of the coin, as I’ve said before. I found a few things hard to get past. First and foremost, I [was always taught] that the use of [excessive brackets] when quoting a source is [poor writing etiquette], and maybe that is [untrue], that’s [not the point]. The point I’m trying [to make] is, this [sure was a pain in the butt] to sit here and read, wasn’t it? [Try several pages of writing exactly like this.] It’s distracting.
Second, I kept running across things like “Ethel played the slot machines regularly, adding to her fortune with the winnings. She lived to be 103 years old and used her own form of Jewish magic to beat the odds and win.” (Not the only example, just the last one in the book and the easiest to find for me.) Now, come on, author. The majority of the times you mention Jewish mysticism and magic has to be that they’re using it to make more money? Way to perpetuate the stereotype. (googling “Jews and Money” to get me this result from the ADL even makes me feel like an asshole.)
2a) Author also spent a lot of time telling about how his wife/family/friends didn’t approve of his having the box and instead of being honest he spent a lot of time sneaking around or outright lying about what he was doing (in one instance even about a Wiccan ritual he was doing based on the recommendation of a coven out of state… he was in the crawlspace of his rental house with a box he and his family believed was evil… just seems like a bad idea. Also, I don’t understand how a self-proclaimed Methodist, using a Wiccan ritual he claims he’s uncomfortable with, expects to trap a Jewish spirit and make it go away?) Anyway, there were a few instances where the investigation seemed to be just a little aggressive, too. Not docking stars for this paragraph, just mentioning all this.
Finally, and this is corroborated by the afterward, despite the fact that the author goes to reasonable lengths to learn a little about Judaism while he’s studying the box and its contents, he never once attempts to explain why a dybbuk, a displaced spirit that possesses a living person, would be literally trapped in a box. A box is not living. A dybbuk possesses a living entity. So therefore, whatever’s inside this box cannot be a dybbuk. So why, in a book that tries so hard to look at this issue objectively, is this never discussed? Probably for the same reason the bundles of “hair” were never tested after one source tells him it’s probably from a Barbie doll. The author works on a college campus—anyone in the biology department probably would have been happy to take a look under the microscope and tell him if the hair was human or not.
Now, either way, personally I still came out of this believing that while the box itself is probably a fake, the idea of a dybbuk still scares me to death and I have absolutely no trouble believing that this box is responsible for the phenomena that occurred (either because someone was trying to play a joke and they did something they shouldn’t have and made it evil or just because so many people believe in its power, it has kind of become what everyone fears). I’m not rating based on the content of the book (in other words, my beliefs made no impact on the rating), but I feel like the omission of these details stopped the author from drawing a more solid conclusion, which a lot of people seem to have wanted.
It was enjoyable, though.
adotwahl's review
3.0
Three and a half stars really.
The beginning was pretty slow going and hard for me to get into - not a good sign for such a short book. However, chapters 7-10 were riveting. If the whole thing had been as good as those 4 chapters, it would have been phenomenal.
The beginning was pretty slow going and hard for me to get into - not a good sign for such a short book. However, chapters 7-10 were riveting. If the whole thing had been as good as those 4 chapters, it would have been phenomenal.
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