The book won't take you more than an hour or two to read (most likely), and I think it's a worthwhile view to explore, especially now as we enter a new year. To all of you, thanks very much for reading thus far, and I promise more to come (The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is my current book so expect to see a post on that in the next week or two).
Quite recently, I was catching up on Criminal Minds Season 9, and watched an episode that stuck with me. The show of course shows many horrific scenarios, but this one was thought provoking. The detectives in the show were working to catch a man that was lobotomizing his victims. Working with a man that the assailant had allowed to escape, the team tried to solve the case. However, given the operation, the man was left unable to speak or move, so the team had to get him to spell out works using a pallet with the alphabet listed. The trauma that Jean-Dominique Bauby suffered after a stroke at age 43 was not unlike the character in the episode. While his mind remained largely intact, his body ceased functioning as it had. Bauby essentially became locked in, unable to speak or move. His book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly or Le Scaphandre et le Papillon in the original French, a little over a hundred pages, was written letter by letter (literally) with the help of an interpreter who held up a panel with the alphabet listed and transcribed the sentences that the famed Elle magazine editor had composed in his mind. It is nearly impossible to critique a novel like this, I think. The writing is clear and sparse, and the imagery is beautiful. Through his writing, Bauby allows his readers to experience locked in syndrome, the frustration of being unable to communicate. I think this is well worth a read for anyone interested in the condition or who wants a fresh perspective on what it means to be alive. The book is split-categorized, as memoir and inspiration. I dislike the latter attribution for books in general. Nevertheless, Bauby's resolve to capture his perspective from such a diminished state, and explain to the world what living could be is entirely admirable. He died just two years after suffering the stroke, only three days after the novel was published.
The book won't take you more than an hour or two to read (most likely), and I think it's a worthwhile view to explore, especially now as we enter a new year. To all of you, thanks very much for reading thus far, and I promise more to come (The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is my current book so expect to see a post on that in the next week or two).
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