Details
Synopsis
At the age of 44, after a catastrophic stroke and several weeks in a coma, Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor of "Elle" magazine, became a victim of what is known as ''locked-in syndrome.'' Unable to move or speak, though he continued to feel pain, Bauby found eventually that he could move only his left eyelid. Using a specially constructed alphabet based on letter-frequency, he dictated this extraordinary memoir of his ordeal by blinking his good eye. Bauby died in March 1997. In 2007 the memoir was made into a feature film by artist/director Julian Schnabel.
| Size | | Length: | 131 pages | | Height: | 8.3 in | | Width: | 5.5 in | | Thickness: | 0.5 in | | Weight: | 6.4 oz |
Industry Reviews
"His account of the Naval Hospital...is vivid and occasionally grotesque."
Times Literary Supplement - D. J. Enright (04/18/1997)
"Bauby managed to write a book as moving as Job's and as expansive, in its way, as any composed by the wheelchaired, boundless Stephen Hawking....Bauby allows that his 'communication system disqualifies repartee,' but it does beautiful service to all sorts of physical and emotional description....in this strong, slim volume the author displays a writerly control equal to his honesty...There are scenes in Bauby's narrative...that one might be inclined to describe as unbearably sad, if 'unbearable,' thanks to this book, were not a word one will never again use quite so loosely."
New York Times Book Review - Thomas Mallon
"Even if this book were not very good, its very existence would be an achievement. But 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,' the work that Mr. Bauby's brain produced in the few months before his death last year (two days after the book appeared in France), is not merely a triumph of willpower. Translated by Jeremy Leggatt, it is a wistful, poetic, ironic and whimsically affirmative testament by a man who refused to die in spirit even when inside a body that was literally withering away. Mr. Bauby's book belongs to what might be called the literature of extreme circumstance, like the book of Job, moving and powerful in inverse proportion to the tone of brave understatement that Mr. Bauby manages to maintain throughout. You will not soon forget this slender volume, this elegant epistle from within the depths of a cruel affliction."
New York Times - Richard Bernstein
"Despite this laborious method of composition, Bauby's prose is remarkably light: the sentences soar, unburdened by self-pity or despair..."
Adams
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