When at high distances from the origin of the world (especially beyond 2^24 = 16777216) the enchantment table does not correctly track the player's position, and the book therefore behaves oddly.
A fix can be found in this mod: https://github.com/polgaria/FarLands
I think you could've put this whole suite of issues into just one issue, which is that particles use a 4-byte floating point number for their X, Y, & Z position, which is notorious for losing precision when you're going to extremely high numbers. If you went far enough into the world, you'd only see particles every 4, 8, 16, etc. blocks.