JEAN-DOMINIQUE BAUBY

JEAN- DOMINIQUE BAUBY

I remember a story that my sister shared with me , she read the story in a old magazine Reader´s of Digest It's an autobiography by French journalist Jean Dominique Bauby, who, after suffering a severe stroke is completely paralysed - except for his left eyelid. Through a quick reshuffle of the alphabet and a patient translator, this book was 'written'. "The diving Bell and Butterfly

the title refers to Bauby's horrific paralysis, which weighted him down, but left his mind free to float off like a butterfly.

It's a short book, for obvious reasons. Bauby had to memorise each chapter for the benefit of his translator and yet this stilted approach doesn't mar his writing. His internal journey in the book is moving and powerfully told. Unintentionally, his writing is philosophical and very poetic. In a passage where he talks about coveting letters from his friends, he says: "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 seems the worst possible way to bring on an epiphany, but there's a sense that Bauby is finally realising what is important and his troubled relationship with his young children is only touched on.

What could also have been a dirge of self-pity is filled with hope. There is even a ripple of humour running through it. When an unfriendly doctor comes to see him and asks if he sees double, Bauby thinks to himself: "Yes, I see two assholes, not one". Some of his most astute observations are about the everyday and it's here he confronts the power of memory. An entire chapter devoted to the joy of eating sausages would make anyone hungry and for Bauby food is a sensuous luxury of the mind when you're fed through a tube in your stomach.

The book is not without its sadness. His children come to see him and his son wipes away his drool; his infirm father is as bed-bound as he is and can't visit. He tells us that he "can weep discreetly. People think my eye is watering." But time and again, the optimism and the perspective we should all have on what constitutes a getting a raw deal in life, breaks through.

beautiful words Bauby were writen in his book and I would like to read some day.