The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a translation of the French memoir Le scaphandre et le papillon by journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby. It describes what his life is like after suffering a massive stroke that left him with a condition called locked-in syndrome. It also details what his life was like before the stroke.
On December 8, 1995, Bauby, the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma. He awoke 20 days later, mentally aware of his surroundings but physically paralyzed with the exception of some movement in his head and eyes (one of which had to be sewn up due to an irrigation problem). The entire book was written by Bauby blinking his left eyelid, which took ten months (four hours a day). A transcriber repeatedly recited a French language frequency-ordered alphabet (E, S, A, R, I, N, T, U, L, etc.), until Bauby blinked to choose the next letter. The book took about 200,000 blinks to write and an average word took approximately two minutes. The book also chronicles everyday events for a person with locked-in syndrome. These events include playing at the beach with his family, getting a bath, and meeting visitors.
Classic foreign film. It reminded me of this Spanish movie we watched in high school, The Sea Inside, but more extreme--meaning the main character (who is also the bad guy in Quantum of Solace) had more disabilities. It was pretty slow at some parts, especially the beginning, but once it got going it was engaging. A thinker, not really an entertainer. I wish there had been more description about his change of heart...how he went from wanting to die to refusing to pity himself. It did make me want to read the book he wrote. He seemed like a beautiful writer.
Overall, worth seeing if you are in the right mood.
No comments:
Post a Comment