You’re the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine. You’re living it pretty much large, not giving a second thought to anything in your life — like most of us. You consider yourself successful — and you are. One day, as you’re testing that new BMW for the magazine, entirely out of the blue, you have a stroke. This stroke leaves you completely paralysed. Completely? The only way you can communicate with the world is by blinking your left eye and slightly moving your head.
This is the story of Jean-Dominique Bauby and how this stroke changed his life. He writes about his experience in the hospital, how he spends his excruciatingly long hours frozen in his bed, what his family, friends, acquaintances and colleagues make of his situation. Almost everyone is frightened of him. I’d be frightened of him; I only hope this book might have made me think twice about my reflex reactions.
Every word, every page counts, when the only way to share it with the world is by blinking once for “YES” or twice for “NO” at a series of letters recited to you for every letter, of every sentence…
It didn’t have as much an impact on me as the film, probably because I came in contact with the latter first. But the film shocked me. I’m not sure which medium would be better suited for this story. Picturing the loneliness and disability through the written word in your own head is one thing, of course, a very powerful thing. But watching the masterfully shot film that gives life to Jean-Dominique’s daydreams, his only form of entertainment, as well as taking it away from his stagnant reality, showing how terrible it can really be, moved me in a whole different way (pun unintended).
Every time I catch myself being bored nowadays I think of Jean-Do and what he could be doing in my body instead of me. It works — for now. We humans are notorious for our exceptionally bad memory and how it comfortably lets go of the things that matter the most.
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