Mumsnet Talk

This is the salon to come to for March Book of the Month discussion night where we'll be getting stuck into The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Looking forward to seeing you all here between 8-10 next Tuesday 25th.

And don't forget you can now vote for April's book - a selection of Unsung Heroes - here

ooh that voting is snazzy

Evening all…

What really struck me as I re-read Diving Bell and Butterfly is how, well, positive it mostly is. There’s a passage about ‘cultivating the art of simmering memories’, where he is remembering tastes and the beef is always perfectly cooked, the raspberries exploding on the tongue. Bauby describes the flights of his imagination in such uplifting terms that he makes you glad to have a mind and to be alive. It makes you determined to use your own imagination far more. The horrors are all there, yet I felt uplifted.

How did everyone else find it - positive or too sad to be positive?

It made me think I shoudl stop moaning about my bad back

Hello all. I'm a newbie to the group and glad to be part of it, especially after reading such a remarkable book. I also felt very uplifted by it, with a sense of awe about what the human mind is capable of, with this book being proof! I normally get boks from the library as opposed to buying them, but this one is an exception and will definitely be a source of inspiration to me.

I think I found it too sad to be positive. I couldn't think "Oh what a great triumph of human achievement!" I was just thinking "This is absolutely fecking terrible. Imagine if that was ME." I think it would be the most horrific thing in the entire world. I am rubbish with pain and/or anything remotely debilitating. I told DH that if that happens to me, I want a pillow over my head pronto, please.

A few other thoughts...
I will never think about Sunday in the same way again!
One (of many ) lines in the book really touched me..."even a rough sketch, a shadow, a tiny fragment of a dad is still a dad". There is something so very human and honest about the way he puts this, and it reminded me just how very special and amazing being a parent really is.

Hi Arti, nice to have you.

I thought the most inspiring bit was how important it is to keep communicating. he could so easily have given up and not bothered to write this book, but the fact he wanted to tell everyone how it felt, and how he loved them and their letters, and all his ideas still pouring out.

I kept thinking that if you were unable to move but you could at least speak to loved ones and tell them what you are feeling and thinking, then the boredom and physiucal pain of paraplegia would be manageable. But to be on the phone unable to reply to your daughter, that is the real hell. And he says that he finds the lack of humour one of the worst things too – by the time he’s communicated the joke, it has lost its moment.

I came away from it thinking that to lose communication is to lose your humanity.

(okay, i feel verrrry pretentious now, but couldn;t find a way to say that without it sounding poncey)

Hi all

Slightly fractious toddler this evening, so may need to rush off at short notice. I have read it, however, and I'm ready to pontificate....

Ultimately I found the book uplifting...that someone can suffer such a terrible blow and yet still be unbroken in terms of his reasoning and his ability to enjoy aspects of life.

Ahhh but he didn't feel that he'd lost his humanity did he?

Whereas I am quite sure that I would just spell out K-I-L-L-M-E

I am a total wuss

What I thought was most horrific was that he appeared to have had an affair, left his wife and children, moved in with his girlfriend and THEN a couple of weeks later had this stroke!!! I mean how bad luck is that? You would be kicking yourself

(if you could move a leg)

Hello I am here, changed cookery class so can make it. Thought it was an incredibly sad little book and if I was in his position I would have wanted out immerdiately and not hang around like that. My sister who is a nurse says that level of paralysis is extremely rare. I did read an article somewhere which was done with his estranged partner (the mother of his children) about how he left her and the children and then she became his carere.

Tilly

What I thought was that he retained his humanity, even though he was in some ways what people have termed 'a vegetable', he used the only means he had to let others know that he was still there and still human.

Apparently there are people with the same syndrome who cannot communicate AT ALL...even with one eyelid. That is torture, and I think I would quite literally go insane.

Arti, i agree - the way the kids cling on to his dad-ness and try to hold it together is very moving. The way he describes the pain of not being able to hug his son is almost unbearable.

morningpaper, I think I would demand pillow too. But only because I don;t believe I would ever be able to write a book like this one.

I want to know what combination of qualities led to the author doing this book and not giving up. he sounds like he's quite proud, and determined to prove the gossipers wrong about him being a vegetable. But it must be more than that. Because most people I know would want a pillow over the head straight away and sod writing a book.

He obviously didn't want to die, and possibly the only way he could try and redefine himself as someone who had a life to live was by writing the book.

Another thing that struck me: the structure of the book worked so well in giving you short insights into his cocoon. It was similar to visiting him in hospital and tuning in to his mind, and each time there’d be something different. I think teh writing and the structure both have a clairty to them that must have come from all the perfecting and honing he did in his mind.

What did everyone think of the artistic merits of the book?

I also think this must be of major use to the medical world about the insights into someone awho does have a major stroke and how much they can feel or be aware of

I think the qualities that led him to write the book are those that also led him to his career as chief editor as Elle, and it made me think about how despite his paralysis, his intact mind and his determination and strength allowed him to retain that fundamental essense of himself.

I think part of the artistic merits comes from the shortcomings of his condition. He has only limited physical experiences and has to describe them in depth because he doesn't rush around doing a lot of things.

Equally, I think the passages when he describes his past life also benefit from his enforced period of reflection.

On a lighter note, my fully house trained DH is curently washing the kitchen floor, having done the dishes (after putting dd to bed).

I may allow him 10 minutes on the wii for good behaviour

Hi! Bit late! I thought the book gave a real and rare insight into severe disability. Despite paying lip service to disabled 'issues', society on the whole views those who are very physically disabled as another, unfortunate species, rather than people like you and I, but with a motor impairment. The author remained himself, despite the stroke.

I also liked the structure of the book, and was blown away by the fact that he actually managed to write and edit it in his mind-the end product being something I thought was far more readable, eloquent and honest than many books I've read.
Sophiewd-I'm in the medical field and I agree the book does give an amazing and unique insight into what people can be capable of despite having such a debilitating condition-it is so easy to forget this in the often dehumanising medical environment.

You could see that he hadn't become a saint because if the stroke either (people are often sanctified as 'brave' etc etc). He was still what he had been: cosmopolitan, a bit vain, a bit shallow, a bit selfish, warm, loving, and heart-breakingly aware of the things he had lost.

I gues we have the (relatively) rare combination here of someone who was a writer becoming disabled, so the book has artistic merit, rather then just being an explanation of the condition.

Are there any other books of this nature out there? I vaguely remember Sue Townsend writing something on her disappearing eye sight.

I thought his achievement was quite literally incredible: to put together such beautifully constructed, coherent sentences and paragraphs when he had to spell out each WORD so painfully painfully slowly.