The diving bell and the butterfly

Review by Choice Review

Bauby wrote this memoir with the blink of an eye. After a stroke, in his 45th year, Bauby is first in a coma and then in a condition called locked-in syndrome, a paralysis that makes him feel as if his body is imprisoned in a diving bell. Within this bell, however, is movement: his "mind takes flight like a butterfly." Transformed from editor in chief of French Elle to the likes, as he points out, of Dumas' Noirtier de Villefort, he experiences each sensation in the present and in memory with great intensity, the smell of French fries, his daughter Celeste singing "Poor Little Rich Girl," the recollections of shaving his father or of soaking in the tub, a Scotch and a good book in hand. He remembers, imagines, and dreams. He learns about his true nature and about others, who respond to his paralysis with anger, fear, or compassion. Bauby is eventually taught an alphabet which allows him to put into words this interior life by blinking his left eye, and this memoir--published in French as Scaphandre et le papillon two days before his death--testifies to the richness of human consciousness despite the body's oppressive entrapment in the diving bell. Highly recommended for all collections. S. Vander Closter; Rhode Island School of Design

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by Booklist Review

On December 8, 1995, at the very beginning of a weekend with his 10-year-old son, Bauby, editor-in-chief of the world's most famous fashion magazine, Elle, suffered a massive stroke. When he emerged from coma more than a month later, his mind was perfectly clear, but he could move only his left eyelid. So he remained until his death on March 9, 1997. In the interim, however, with the help of an alphabet arranged in the order of the letters' frequency in French (e occurs most frequently and so appears first) and recited until Bauby signaled the desired letter with a blink, Bauby dictated, letter by letter, the 28 tiny personal essays of this book. They demonstrate indisputably Bauby's irrepressible love of life. Although trapped as if in a diving bell by his situation, "my mind takes flight like a butterfly," he says, and he ranges through memories, dreams, and reflections, keeping his wits sharp. Never maudlin or religiose, his observations become inspirational, in the manner of much literature about enduring physical adversity, only after they have impressed us--just like good "regular" literature--with their author's strength, affability, curiosity, and gusto. They are a best-seller in France, and with a 100,000-copy first printing, Knopf hopes they will do as well here. --Ray Olson

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In 1995 Bauby, the 45-year-old editor of French Elle, suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed in all but his left eyelid. Out of this waking nightmare (what the medical community calls "locked-in syndrome") he managed to dictate‘letter by letter, in a semaphore of winks‘this memoir of his "life in a jar." He died two days after the book's French publication. Bauby's essays are remarkable simply because they exist, and he earns admiration for having endured, with surprising grace and good humor, what is perhaps the worst imaginable fate. This said, the real poignancy of these pieces is their ordinariness. No deathbed philosopher, Bauby avoids the depths of despair and prefers to view his hospital ward with the sardonic cheerfulness and smiling regrets of an homme moyen sensuel as he remembers meals, baths, work, conversations‘the pleasures taken from him. There are moments of extraordinary sadness and beauty‘when, for instance, Bauby dreams at dawn that he can visit his girlfriend, "slide down beside her and stroke her still-sleeping face" or wishes, during a visit from his nine-year-old son, "to ruffle his bristly hair, clasp his downy neck, hug his small, lithe, warm body tight against me." But Bauby's observations, like his prose, stick to the predictable: the everyday is his sustenance. What is most surprising, in the end, is how little he gave in to the loneliness of his "diving bell," how completely he relied on the butterfly of dreams and memory. That is the triumph of his final words. 100,000 first printing. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Two days after this remarkable book was published in France to great acclaim, its author died of heart failure. What caused such a stir was the method Bauby used to write it. For in December 1995, the 44-year-old former editor-in-chief of the French Elle magazine had suffered a severe stroke that left his body paralyzed but his mind intact, a condition known as "locked-in syndrome." Able to communicate only by blinking his left eyelid, he dictated this book letter by letter to an assistant who recited to him a special alphabet. The result is a marvelous, compelling account of Bauby's life as a "vegetable," full of humor and devoid of self-pity. Although he was trapped in the diving bell of his body, Bauby's imagination "takes flight like a butterflyy....You can wander off in space or in time, set out for Tierra del Fuego or for King Midas's court." His celebration of life against all odds is highly recommended. [Julia Tavalro, who suffers from the same condition, has also written an excellent account, Look Up for Yes, LJ 2/1/97.‘Ed.]‘Wilda Williams, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

``Through the frayed curtain at my window, a wan glow announces the break of day. My heels hurt, my head weighs a ton, and something like a giant invisible cocoon holds my whole body prisoner.'' Thus begins the remarkable testimony of Bauby, who was editor-in-chief of French Elle when he was felled by a stroke in December 1995. The stroke left every inch of his body paralyzed- -except for his left eyelid, which he could blink. But his mind was fully alive, capable of the whole range of thought and feeling from dry wit to sadness to tenderness, and by blinking in response to letters recited by an amanuensis, he dictated ``these bedridden travel notes'' about being locked inside his body. It shows that his rich heart, too, was alive and beating, but it finally gave way in March of this year, two days after the French publication of his book. (First printing of 100,000)

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Prologue Through the frayed curtain at my window, a wan glow announces the break of day. My heels hurt, my head weighs a ton, and something like a giant invisible cocoon holds my whole body prisoner. My room emerges slowly from the gloom. I linger over every item: photos of loved ones, my children's drawings, posters, the little tin cyclist sent by a friend the day before the Paris-Roubaix bike race, and the IV pole hanging over the bed where I have been confined these past six months, like a hermit crab dug into his rock. No need to wonder very long where I am, or to recall that the life I once knew was snuffed out Friday, the eighth of December, last year. Up until then I had never even heard of the brain stem. I've since learned that it is an essential component of our internal computer, the inseparable link between the brain and the spinal cord. That day I was brutally introduced to this vital piece of anatomy when a cerebrovascular accident took my brain stem out of action. In the past, it was known as a "massive stroke," and you simply died. But improved resuscitation techniques have now prolonged and refined the agony. You survive, but you survive with what is so aptly known as "locked-in syndrome." Paralyzed from head to toe, the patient, his mind intact, is imprisoned inside his own body, unable to speak or move. In my case, blinking my left eyelid is my only means of communication. Of course, the party chiefly concerned is the last to hear the good news. I myself had twenty days of deep coma and several weeks of grogginess and somnolence before I truly appreciated the extent of the damage. I did not fully awake until the end of January. When I finally surfaced, I was in Room 119 of the Naval Hospital at Berck-sur-Mer, on the French Channel coast --- the same Room 119, infused now with the first light of day, from which I write. An ordinary day. At seven the chapel bells begin again to punctuate the passage of time, quarter hour by quarter hour. After their night's respite, my congested bronchial tubes once more begin their noisy rattle. My hands, lying curled on the yellow sheets, are hurting, although I can't tell if they are burning hot or ice cold. To fight off stiffness, I instinctively stretch, my arms and legs moving only a fraction of an inch. It is often enough to bring relief to a painful limb. My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time, set out for Tierra del Fuego or for King Midas's court. You can visit the woman you love, slide down beside her and stroke her still-sleeping face. You can build castles in Spain, steal the Golden Fleece, discover Atlantis, realize your childhood dreams and adult ambitions. Enough rambling. My main task now is to compose the first of these bedridden travel notes so that I shall be ready when my publisher's emissary arrives to take my dictation, letter by letter. In my head I churn over every sentence ten times, delete a word, add an adjective, and learn my text by heart, paragraph by paragraph. Seven-thirty. The duty nurse interrupts the flow of my thoughts. Following a well-established ritual, she draws the curtain, checks tracheostomy and drip feed, and turns on the TV so I can watch the news. Right now a cartoon celebrates the adventures of the fastest frog in the West. And what if I asked to be changed into a frog? What then? The Photo The last time I saw my father, I shaved him. It was the week of my stroke. He was unwell, so I had spent the night at his small apartment near the Tuileries gardens in Paris. In the morning, after bringing him a cup of milky tea, I decided to rid him of his few days' growth of beard. The scene has remained engraved in my memory. Hunched in the red-upholstered armchair where he sifts through the day's newspapers, my dad bravely endures the rasp of the razor attacking his loose skin. I wrap a big towel around his shriveled neck, daub thick lather over his face, and do my best not to irritate his skin, dotted here and there with small dilated capillaries. From age and fatigue, his eyes have sunk deep into their sockets, and his nose looks too prominent for his emaciated features. But, still flaunting the plume of hair --- now snow white --- that has always crowned his tall frame, he has lost none of his splendor. All around us, a lifetime's clutter has accumulated; his room calls to mind one of those old persons' attics whose secrets only they can know --- a confusion of old magazines, records no longer played, miscellaneous objects. Photos from all the ages of man have been stuck into the frame of a large mirror. There is dad, wearing a sailor suit and playing with a hoop before the Great War; my eight-year-old daughter in riding gear; and a black-and-white photo of myself on a miniature-golf course. I was eleven, my ears protruded, and I looked like a somewhat simpleminded schoolboy. Mortifying to realize that at that age I was already a confirmed dunce. I complete my barber's duties by splashing my father with his favorite aftershave lotion. Then we say goodbye; this time, for once, he neglects to mention the letter in his writing desk where his last wishes are set out. We have not seen each other since. I cannot quit my seaside confinement. And he can no longer descend the magnificent staircase of his apartment building on his ninety-two-year-old legs. We are both locked-in cases, each in his own way: myself in my carcass, my father in his fourth-floor apartment. Now I am the one they shave every morning, and I often think of him as a nurse's aide laboriously scrapes my cheeks with a week-old blade. I hope that I was a more attentive Figaro. Every now and then he calls, and I listen to his affectionate voice, which quivers a little in the receiver they hold to my ear. It cannot be easy for him to speak to a son who, as he well knows, will never reply. He also sent me the photo of me at the miniature-golf course. At first I did not understand why. It would have remained a mystery if someone had not thought to look at the back of the print. Suddenly, in my own personal movie theater, the forgotten footage of a spring weekend began to unroll, when my parents and I had gone to take the air in a windy and not very sparkling seaside town. In his strong, angular handwriting, dad had simply noted: Berck-sur-Mer, April 1963. From the Hardcover edition. Excerpted from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death by Jean-Dominique Bauby All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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