PC070: The Dybbuk In The Bottle

[Anarkey]

However, I had a lot of trouble getting over the pronunciation in the reading. Getting someone familiar with Hebrew or Yiddish pronunciation would have been a good idea.

I have to second this.  I cringed each time a Yiddish word or name was pronounced wrong, which was a lot of cringing. "Avram" in particular, but the second vowel in "Dybbuk" wasn't quite right either.  Not to mention the "Baal Shem Tov" - ouch.  The reader did a great job, otherwise - but I really wish he'd have asked someone how to pronounce things.

It will be Schadenfreudish of me, but my glee is mostly relief that I'm not the sole resident in the lesser hell of garbled pronunciations.  Welcome, brothers! 

[f5iver]

Pronunciations aside, I loved loved loved the story.

Definitely one of my favorite PC stories.

[thomasowenm]

Good fun story.  I am not familiar with Jewish mythos, outside of  Christianity heritages, so this story was new and welcome.  although it was predictable I was not bored because of the unfamiliar nature of it.  Good job the reading was good, even for the mispronuciations which I didn't even know were there.  Overall I give this one a B+.

[Jason Creighton]

I enjoyed this one. A bit formulaic perhaps, but well-executed and fun.

Am I the only one who thought there might be something sinister about the Rabbi? His request for Avram's blind obedience and his house had me suspicious until nearly the end of the story.

[kibitzer]

Question: is this a "traditional" Jewish fable, or one that uses those elements to create something new yet familiar?

Either way, loved the fable feel and the story itself. The reading was a touch on the "and now boys and girls, here's today's story" side, but only a touch. Overall a great reading. I, too, have a thing about pronouncing things correctly but I didn't notice it with this one coz I ain't Jewish :-) And I don't speak Hebrew.

I recently did a reading for LibriVox about "Monsieur Mangin, The French Humbug" and went to some pains to go over the French words and phrases (not many) with a lovely French lady I work with. I was so proud of myself -- until I realised after it was all done, I had consistently mis-pronounced "Mangin". :-( I had to laugh at myself -- nothing important, just the main character's name!!

[eytanz]

Question: is this a "traditional" Jewish fable, or one that uses those elements to create something new yet familiar?

Either way, loved the fable feel and the story itself. The reading was a touch on the "and now boys and girls, here's today's story" side, but only a touch. Overall a great reading. I, too, have a thing about pronouncing things correctly but I didn't notice it with this one coz I ain't Jewish :-) And I don't speak Hebrew.

I didn't catch any mis-pronunciations myself, but that's mostly because as a Israeli Hebrew speaker, anything in either Hebrew or Yiddish spoken by an American sounds mis-pronounced to me. The dialects are quite different.

[Listener]

Good story. A little too long, and Rabbi Meltzer being there was kind of coincidental -- how did the local rabbi get him in town? Or did he have Rabbi Sonar? I almost expected Meltzer to be some sort of creation of the dybbuk.

The usual excellent reading from Fowle; I think the story was better for there being very few characters, as he sometimes goes overboard with the voices.

Pretty good overall.

[LaShawn]

Very nice. This would be a story that I can have my 5-year-old listen to. I love dark tales, but I also love tales like this where good triumphs and the main character even learns a lesson or two.

[jay daze]

I enjoyed the story.  My only exposure to this type of tale is through I.B. Singer, who I think would have probably been a lot tougher on the main character, much to my own sadistic enjoyment...  Mmmm does that sound wrong?

[cdugger]

As is happening to me quite often with all 3 podcasts, I am finding a story that starts out with "Oh, I'm not gonna like this one..." and ends with "Wow! I gotta hear that again!"

Major kudos for this one. The writing and the reading were great!

I expected to miss out on most of the references, not being Jewish. I didn't feel that way at all. If I missed something, I don't know it. Not once did I find myself wondering what the author was saying.

I always say that fiction should entertain me. If it happens to enlighten or instruct, so much the better. In the end, though, it's all about enjoying the story. And I really enjoyed this one.

This one in particular brought back some great memories. Most of you know the ones. Over at a friend's for 9 hours, playing DnD. The DM throws in a Wish.
"Oh, great!", you say to yourself (because you don't dare say it out loud!). "I know this guy. No matter what I wish for, he's gonna ruin my whole night!"
But you can't pass it off to another player. He might just pull off the best Wish ever, then you night is ruined. And the next day as your buddy brags about it. And the next week as he still brags about it.
You know, that memory!

I like that memory. Especially now that I am old and fat.

So, to the author, I say...

More. Now.

[Unblinking]

This was a really cool story.  It seemed like a genuine folktale, whether it was or not.  It had the style of a fable, which I rather enjoyed, though I didn't expect to when the story started.  Generally I don't like long fable stories, but this one did very well.  I also don't normally like a story where the protagonist doesn't do much to help resolve the problem--since the rabbi did everything for him--but again, it just worked here.

[Unblinking]

I don't mean to step on Mr. Asplund's toes, but Dybbuks aren't really demons.  At least not within  Jewish mythology.  They're ghosts of human beings who have escaped from Gehenna, or Hell.  We do have demons.  They're called Shedim, but like Dybbuks they tend to be more interested in possessing living people than taking corporeal form.

I went on Wikipedia to make sure I had all this right, and it turns out there is one Kabbalistic sect in which Dybbuks appear as big red monsters: Yeshiva Dungeons and Dragons, founded by Rabbis Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

Oddly enough, I believe I heard the word Dybbuk for the first time just 6 days ago when I went to "A Serious Man" in theaters--dybbuks are discussed in the opening scene, and they are represented as Schreiber described--as ghosts of humans descended from Gehenna.  I had already seen the title for this one so I was looking forward to reading a story about them, and I was a bit disappointed that it turned out to be a more run-of-mill demon archetype.

[Unblinking]

I enjoyed this one. A bit formulaic perhaps, but well-executed and fun.

Am I the only one who thought there might be something sinister about the Rabbi? His request for Avram's blind obedience and his house had me suspicious until nearly the end of the story.

Yes! I thought that too.  I figured throughout the whole thing that the Rabbi would drive the demon off and keep the house for himself, sending Avram away, or perhaps keeping him on as a servant.  He wouldn't have been a bad person for it--he would have kept his part of the bargain to rid Avram of the demon, and when he told Avram he had to obey him, he never promised to sell the house back to him.

Also, is it possible that this rabbi was sent by the still-living rabbi who bottled the demon in the first place?  We don't know what that rabbi asked for before the bottling--maybe he asked for longevity! 

[Wilson Fowlie]

Today's panel of Girl Genius featured a mention of a dybbuk.  Seems to be a different kind than that described in this story, or, for that matter, the other descriptions people have offered here.

[Unblinking]

Today's panel of Girl Genius featured a mention of a dybbuk.  Seems to be a different kind than that described in this story, or, for that matter, the other descriptions people have offered here.

The comic says "She is like a... a dybbuk, I tink." so even they're not really sure. 

The opening scene to "A Serious Man" seems to follow pretty closely what I've been able to find about the Jewish mythology where it originated.  Just like other creatures, there are variations in popular media (look what's become of Frankenstein's Monster), but I'd consider the source to be the defining version.

[Ocicat]

Dybbuk's were mentioned in Neil Gaiman's "Anansi Boys", weren't they?  Though possibly by a different spelling, I don't know, I have the audiobook version.  Anyway, there it was a sort of a ghost / spirit, I think.  The Foglio's may have gotten the idea from there.

[eytanz]

A dybbuk is a pretty well known element in Jewish folk tales; I don't think there would be any particular reason for the Foglios to have gotten it from any particular recent source. In Hebrew, btw, the word "dybbuk" is limited to a spirit (ghost or other) that is possessing a living body. As far as I understand, the Yiddish use of the word extends to all manner of ghosts and spirits.

[Sgarre1]

A great Dybbuk story is the play "Teibele And Her Demon" by Isaac Bashevis Singer & Eve Friedman.

Then there's "Dybbuk, Shymbbuk, I Said 'More Ham!'", as mentioned in BEST IN SHOW... (Eugene Levy, I loves ya!)

[Wilson Fowlie]

Dybbuk's were mentioned in Neil Gaiman's "Anansi Boys", weren't they?  Though possibly by a different spelling, I don't know, I have the audiobook version.

That is one of the most brilliant readings ever.  And now I can't find my MP3s of it.