A Celebration of Life (The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly - Jean-Dominique Bauby)

Member Name: nickyturnill

Product:	The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly - Jean-Dominique Bauby
Date:	14/03/07 (227 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A wonderful and rare insight into life from someone who knew its true meaning

Disadvantages: It's a very sad book with a sad story behind it.

Jean Dominique-Bauby, the editor-in-chief of the French magazine Elle, was just 43 on the 8th of December 1995 when his life changed completely.

Following a stoke, leaving him with damage to his brain stem, Bauby was left with a condition known as 'locked in syndrome'. Locked-in-syndrome is a thankfully incredibly rare condition which leaves the sufferer unable to move any part of his or her body, excepting the eyelids and unable to speak, whilst retaining all mental capacity. This is the world in which Bauby awoke after a 20-day coma following his stroke. It is a horrifying thought.

Jean Dominique-Bauby wrote The Diving-bell and the Butterfly after about 18 months into his life as a sufferer of locked-in-syndrome. He dictated the book to his nurse using just one eyelid. This nurse, to whom the book is dedicated, devised a system in which the French alphabet was re-arranged according to use. The nurse read this aloud and Bauby would blink when the letter he required was read aloud.

And so, using this system Bauby slowly dictated the Diving-bell and the Butterfly, a short book of around 40-50 pages but still an amazing achievement. In the book Bauby talks about life. He talks about the life he used to have and the life he has now. He talks about the things that matter, the things we all take for granted, the things that were so dramatically and drastically removed from him.

Although the book is a sad one, a very sad one and it is sentimental, Bauby does not encourage pity and at the end of the day he meant this book as a celebration of life, a means to reach out to other people and to touch them. It worked for me, this lovely book is one that everyone should give up just a small amount of their time for. You never know what could be around the corner….

The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly was published in France on the 9th March 1997 and it has achieved world-wide aclaim. Jean-Dominique Bauby died just three days later…..

The book can be bought from all good book sellers and online with a recommended retail value of £4.99.

For more information on locked-in-syndrome please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome

http://www.ninds .nih.gov/disorders/lockedinsyndrome/lockedinsyndro me.htm

Summary: Told by the former-French editor of Elle after a stroke which left him with locked in Syndrome.