Summary:
Imagine the horror of waking up in a coffin, surrounded by suffocating darkness, with no hope of escape. Drawing on historical records and eyewitness accounts, this book reveals the grim reality of those who were inadvertently entombed before their time. From cases of war, where whole battalions have been covered in earth whilst still living, to ritual and superstition, from voodoo to suttee in Haiti and India, as well as the immurement in walls or errant monks and convent sisters. Less-known cases of burials of the living, through murderous intentions and natural disasters are also told, alongside tales of fakirs and hypnotists whose challenges were to have themselves put into a grave and left for days.
Amidst tales of terror, this book also celebrates the resilience and heroism of those who defied death’s grasp, providing a wealth of historical detail and many cases which have never before appeared in print. From the invention of bell-rigged coffins to the formation of societies dedicated to preventing premature burials, discover the remarkable measures taken to combat this age-old fear.
Through meticulous research and a gripping narrative, Buried Alive separates fact from fiction, shedding light on the truth behind centuries of taphophobia. This book is a haunting reminder of the fragility of life and the enduring power of human resilience in the face of our deepest fears.
Review:
So, that all sounds pretty interesting, right? Stories of people surviving being buried alive, accidents and murders and heroism and the resilience of the human spirit and all that. I wish that I could tell you that this is the case. Unfortunately, I can’t.
To be fair, quite a few of the stories, when taken in isolation, are interesting. The incidents in this book span several hundred years, including some surprising ones from the 21st century–I wouldn’t have thought anything besides an accident could produce buried-alive stories, but there are a few. You’ll see mention of well-known incidents like the bus full of schoolchildren buried in California, or the landslide in Wales that swallowed a school. You’ll probably be unfamiliar with most of them, like I was: the one that has stayed in my head is the battalion of soldiers on the verge of going over the top of a trench in WW1 who were buried by a sudden trench collapse, leaving only their gun barrels sticking out of the dirt.
The problem with this book is that beyond grouping the events by chapters with broad themes, there’s really no effort to make a coherent narrative. Even within chapters, the way that the stories are presented is extremely scattershot. They follow the formula of “This happened. And this happened. And this happened.” This makes the book come across as almost nothing more than a random list of stories. The incidents bounce all over the globe with no rhyme or reason–a story from England is followed by one in China, followed by one in India, followed by another one in England. While I certainly don’t expect a psychological breakdown of why such things happen, I would like to have seen some effort to tie the stories together and make some smooth transitions between groupings. Because of this, I kept getting bored with what I was reading. The most interesting story can lose some of its luster when it’s presented as simply one in a laundry list of similar tales.
Editing is needed in other areas too. There are some instances where the author writes that someone was “literally buried alive”, which is redundant when the entire book is about people literally being buried alive. There’s also a strange quirk where the locations of the stories being related are given with varying levels of specificity. Locations in England are often only given by county name, while others are much more complete. It’s like the author assumed that any readers would be familiar with England and the country didn’t need to be included.
Admittedly, I picked up this book out of morbid curiosity, and I wish my curiosity had been rewarded better. If you’re okay with dry recitations of facts, you might want to give this one a try, but otherwise, I don’t really recommend it.
