NEAR: Not exactly a romance

My Take In Brief: An amazing book. A difficult and wonderful book. A quick read that will stay with me for a very long time.

You can read the first chapter and the NYT Review here.

Amazon.com:  4.5 stars after 161 reviews

This brief (132 page) 1997 memoir by former French Elle editor Bauby, who suffered from locked-in syndrome as a result of a massive stroke, was made into a widely acclaimed film (by American Julian Schnabel who directed Basquiat and Before Night Falls) in 2007.   That was when I first heard of Bauby’s story. I bought this book a few months ago, and when I started reading it the other day, I found it impossible to put down. The book is divided into very short — 2 or 3 page — chapters, and has a very gripping, propulsive feel, despite the fact that much of the “action” takes place in Bauby’s head — his memories, or his impressions of daily life in the French seaside hospital that has become his home.

The title refers to Bauby’s description of life with locked-in syndrome: he is mute and paralyzed, and communicates by blinking his one good eye (1 blink for “A”, 2 blinks for “B”, etc. — except the order was actually the most used to least used letters in the French alphabet). This entire memoir was transcribed in this painstaking way, a phenomenal achievement, even if the result hadn’t been this transporting book.  His useless body is his “diving bell”, his mind is his “butterfly”.

I would be lying if I did not admit there are some very sad passages in this book, the one when his children come to visit being the worst for me.  But the amazing thing is that you come away thinking what an incredible memoirist and prose stylist Bauby was, and since he didn’t publish anything prior to this book, you wonder by what miracle it is that this unspeakable tragedy created the irony, ruefulness, reflectiveness, focus, and space that it took to give Bauby something to write and a voice and a means to do it.

Here’s Bauby reflecting on something his condition has taken away:

“Want to play hangman? asks Théophile, and I ache to tell him that I have enough on my plate playing quadriplegic. But my communication system disqualifies repartee: the keenest rapier grows dull and falls flat when it takes several minutes to thrust it home. By the time you strike, even you no longer understand what had seemed so witty before you started to dictate it, letter by letter. So the rule is to avoid impulsive sallies. It deprives conversation of all its sparkle, all those gems you bat back and forth like a ball — and I count this forced lack of humor one of the great drawbacks of my condition.

Whenever I entertain fantasies of being a writer, it is never as a fiction writer, but as a memoirist. Just the way I bet many of you feel when you read a wonderful piece of fiction, that uplifting feeling of the possibility of creating a moving narrative, is how I felt while reading this book. It’s somehow awe-inspiring and galvanizing at the same time.

In many ways The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is about narrative, and about writing more specifically. Bauby was a voracious reader before his accident, and literary references come easily to him. His grandfather reminded him of Victor Hugo.  He compares himself to a character in Dumas. An especially moving memory has him traveling with a female companion on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. But Bauby is more interested in his 600 page book which he cannot stop reading. The trouble he has looking out of the car window, walking to an observation point, or leaving the book in the back seat will feel familiar to any of us who has become obsessed with a story.

The ways that narrative and identity are shaped and contituted by memory is also a crucial theme. Bauby’s memories are the wings of his existence – they don’t merely keep him buoyed by recalling good times, they keep alive his sense of who he is, helping to connect the witty fashion editor he was then to the invalid he is now, and by helping him to make current sense of his existence. A memory of a visit to a racetrack when he got so caught up in the atmosphere that he forgot to place a bet prompts this reflection, which is one of the passages that I think will always be with me:

Today it seems to me that my whole life was nothing but a string of those small near misses: a race whose result we know beforehand but in which we fail to bet on the winner.

There are many many breathtakingly beautiful (and often heartbreaking) images in this book. If you love words, and reflection on words, you will love it. I close this review with my favorite image, one that brought tears to my eyes in delight. Bauby is reflecting on the letters his friends and acquaintances send him in the hospital:

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.