27. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Rating: ☆☆☆
Recommended by: Andrea Banks
Author: Jean-Dominique Bauby
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir
Info: 132 pages, published June 23, 1998
Format: Book
Summary
In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor-in-chief of French Elle, the father of two young childen, a 44-year-old man known and loved for his wit, his style, and his impassioned approach to life. By the end of the year he was also the victim of a rare kind of stroke to the brainstem which left in him in a state of locked in syndrome. Only his left eye functioned, allowing him to see and, by blinking it, to communicate with the outside world. Amazingly, he dictated his Memoir, a word at a time, blinking to select each letter as the alphabet was recited to him slowly, over and over again. In magical sequences, he imagines traveling to other places and times and of lying next to the woman he loves. Fed only intravenously, he imagines preparing and tasting the full flavor of his favorite foods. Again and again he returns to an “inexhaustible reservoir of sensations,” keeping in touch with himself and the life around him. Jean-Dominique Bauby died two days after the French publication of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Quotes
“But I see in the clothes a symbol of continuing life. And proof that I still want to be myself. If I must drool, I may as well drool on cashmere.”
“The memory of that event has only just come back to me, now doubly painful: regret for a vanished past and, above all, remorse for lost opportunities. Mithra-Grandchamp is the women we were unable to love, the chances we failed to seize, the moments of happiness we allowed to drift away. Today it seems to me that my whole life was nothing but a string of those small near misses: a race whose result we know beforehand but in which we fail to bet on the winner.”
“I need to feel strongly, to love and admire, just as desperately as I need to breathe.”
“Once, I was a master at recycling leftovers. Now I cultivate the art of simmering memories.”
“I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches his home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede. My old life still burns within me, but more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory.”
“Want to play hangman? asks Theophile, and I ache to tell him that I have enough on my plate playing quadriplegic.”
“Whereupon a strange euphoria came over me. Not only was I exiled, paralyzed, mute, half deaf, deprived of all pleasures, and reduced to the existence of a jellyfish, but I was also horrible to behold. There comes a time when the heaping up of calamities brings on uncontrollable nervous laughter – when, after a final blow from fate, we decide to treat it all as a joke.”
“But I see in the clothes a symbol of continuing life. And proof that I still want to be myself. If I must drool, I may as well drool on cashmere.”
“I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches the home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede. My old life still burns within me, but more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory.”
“I hoard all these letters like treasure. One day I hope to fasten them end to end in a half mile streamer, to float in the wind like a banner raised to the glory of friendship. It will keep the vultures at bay?
My Take
That the The Diving Bell and the Butterfly exists at all is a testament to the human spirit. Reading this book, I was constantly amazed that Jean-Dominique Bauby was able to get his story out by blinking a letter at a time. I have full use of both of my hands and am going on the third year of writing my memoir! That aside, I liked this book, but didn’t love it. There are moments of beauty and transcendence, but other parts where it lagged a bit.
