The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I am not a reading person. I rather watching films, maybe that sounds a bit lazy, but I really enjoyed reading this book. The reason is that "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" is a translation of the French memoir "Le scaphandre et le papillon" by journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby. While I read a book, words are very familiar to me, including names, places and some pronouns. I lived in Paris for four years. My French is even better than English. This is why I was really able to pay attention during reading this book or the book has only 139 pages. I have thought sometimes that what if I suffer some kind of illness or disability that makes me unable to live an independent life and be trapped within a useless body. That has been always my worst fear ,even now. In the story, Bauby lost everything. Yes. I can say everything, even though he can use his one eyelid. He tells his personal experiences and thoughts in dealing with a stroke that left him completely paralyzed, speechless and able only to move one eyelid. This was a cruel blow to a man in his prime, the editor of the French edition of Elle magazine and father of two young children who lived a charmed life. Think how easily people can give up when things don’t go their way. However, he did everything what he wanted to do. First, he learned how to speak by blinking an eye with the help of a therapist and a remarkable alphabet whose design is based on the letters’ frequency of use in the French alphabet. I still remember Bauby's answer when a therapist asked what he wants to do. His answer was "Death". Did he really want to die? Before he was interested something, he might want to die. Because people cannot live without a hope and a will. Bauby accepts his situation fully, even if he finds it frustrating and his acceptance enables him to explore the good and bad about his life, take control of what he can and let go of the things that are beyond him. The title "The Diving Bell and The Butterfly" refers to his weighed down body and the fact that he can still hear the butterflies wings flapping in his mind. I think butterfly represents Bauby himself that was now free to fly and wander, even thought he cannot move. It is kind of an irony, but in his mind, he could have done whatever he wanted to do without any barrier. Since he realized his condition, he started to rose above his condition as a flying with a flap of the wings of butterfly. On the other hand, the diving bell which binds him, represents his restrained body ,until he recognized it. “Reflected in the glass I saw the head of a man who seemed to have emerged from a vat of Formaldehyde…For a moment I stared at the dilated pupil, before I realized it was only mine”(Bauby 24-25).
What I like most is that Bauby has a sense of humor under his circumstance. I guess this sense of humor became his motive power to maintain his life. I did not have a religion which most people depend when they are in trouble. In the story, he has two children and wife. However, I don't think they are a reason that Bauby is capable of carrying out his life. Bauby found out his way to live with pleasure, not sorrow. In my opinion, this is what we are lacked; finding an energy of life anyhow like Bauby achieved.