DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Jean-Dominique Bauby: The Diving Bell And The Butterfly

**lidya-sggf** · 05-16-2008, 08:55 PM

Just to basically agree with Catch22:

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby

It's a short book. Just 138 pages, with few chapters longer than 3-4 pages at most. You might be forgiven for thinking that it's typical of a journalist (Bauby was the editor-in-chief of Elle) used to writing short, snappy articles.

If you didn't know that he wrote the book with his left eye.

It's called locked-in syndrome. One day just like any other, a blood vessel bursts in Bauby's head. When he wakes up, his intellect is still perfectly intact, but his body is almost completely paralyzed. He can move his head slightly, he can blink his left eye, and that's about it. So he writes the book about his experience the only way he can: an assistant reads the alphabet (reordered by how common each letter is in the French language) out loud, and when she gets to the right letter, Bauby blinks.

E S A R I N T U L O M D P C F B V H G J -

*blink*

J?

J.

E -

*blink*

E?

E.

"Je" ("I")? OK, next word.

And so on and so forth, letter by letter.

You'd think he had something very important to tell the world to make that effort. And in a sense I suppose he does. Between the descriptions of his day-to-day "life" at the hospital, he weaves in fantasies of what he'd do if he could, places he'd travel and now has to settle for imagining, the people he knew and still knows, women he's loved, his children... Trying to conjure up and record memories of a life he now realises he will never return to, and which he can feel slipping away with every passing day. He's got so much he wants to say and feel and tell the world, and he has to break out of the prison his body has become in any way possible.

This is a shattering, if slightly uncomfortable read. There's an undertone of both horror, wonder and bitterness (and if anyone ever earned the right to be bitter...), mixed up with a gallow's humour that sometimes chokes on its own laughter. It's a man who still really wants to live, a voracious mind in a dead body, refusing to go gently into that good night - at least not without first putting down on paper that he was here, that he still is, that life is important even if it can suck beyond the telling of it.

He died 3 days after the book was published.

05-16-2008, 08:55 PM	#4
lidya-sggf Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 384 Senior Member	Just to basically agree with Catch22: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby It's a short book. Just 138 pages, with few chapters longer than 3-4 pages at most. You might be forgiven for thinking that it's typical of a journalist (Bauby was the editor-in-chief of Elle) used to writing short, snappy articles. If you didn't know that he wrote the book with his left eye. It's called locked-in syndrome. One day just like any other, a blood vessel bursts in Bauby's head. When he wakes up, his intellect is still perfectly intact, but his body is almost completely paralyzed. He can move his head slightly, he can blink his left eye, and that's about it. So he writes the book about his experience the only way he can: an assistant reads the alphabet (reordered by how common each letter is in the French language) out loud, and when she gets to the right letter, Bauby blinks. E S A R I N T U L O M D P C F B V H G J - blink J? J. E - blink E? E. "Je" ("I")? OK, next word. And so on and so forth, letter by letter. You'd think he had something very important to tell the world to make that effort. And in a sense I suppose he does. Between the descriptions of his day-to-day "life" at the hospital, he weaves in fantasies of what he'd do if he could, places he'd travel and now has to settle for imagining, the people he knew and still knows, women he's loved, his children... Trying to conjure up and record memories of a life he now realises he will never return to, and which he can feel slipping away with every passing day. He's got so much he wants to say and feel and tell the world, and he has to break out of the prison his body has become in any way possible. This is a shattering, if slightly uncomfortable read. There's an undertone of both horror, wonder and bitterness (and if anyone ever earned the right to be bitter...), mixed up with a gallow's humour that sometimes chokes on its own laughter. It's a man who still really wants to live, a voracious mind in a dead body, refusing to go gently into that good night - at least not without first putting down on paper that he was here, that he still is, that life is important even if it can suck beyond the telling of it. He died 3 days after the book was published.
	Quote