Typically I avoid the movie tie-in books. Like, once a movie gets optioned and made from a book, the book will appear with the poster and branding of the movie on the book. That's what I try to stay away from. that's the main reason I've been avoiding Cormac McCarthy's The Road at my downtown Dollar Bookstore.
But this was different.
Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor of the French Elle Magazine when he had a stroke that resulted in Locked-In Syndrome. His brain was still intact but the only body part he had any control over was his left eye. Nurses and aides would run through a French usage alphabet and Jean-Do would blink when he wanted that letter.
That's how this book was constructed--blinks. It was reported that it took 200k+ blinks to get through it.
But reading it is a special experience. It's breezy despite the circumstances. It's fast and exciting despite the circumstances. It's reflective while not being self-pitying. I've met people who pitied themselves in much more grotesque ways who had far less to complain about than M. Bauby.
The page count is slight, and given an afternoon and a pot of coffee, this book could be finished in a sitting.
Having seen the movie and knowing the story, when I came across this copy I knew I would forego my usual aversion to movie tie-ins and snatch it up to add to my library. I'd recommend it to anyone in need of being inspired.
My favorite piece in the collection is the longest, about a rainy drive with a bitchy girlfriend to Lourdes during a sticky summer weekend. It has possibly the most visceral feelings without the destroyed family dynamic that most of the other pieces carry.
For full disclosure, Bauby died just days after it was first published in French.
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