Only that the usual procrastinator in me went on active mode again. I realized this particularly when I noticed the clipping about this contest, which I kept for my reference in joining it: March 31, 2002. Oh well.
So it is only now that I finally got myself to write these lines, these reflections about my favorite book. What’s with all the delay? Why so? What to make of it now?
On hindsight, I guess it was also a simple case of overconfidence on my part, aside from plain laziness and procrastination. Irony of ironies, but come to think of it, these are precisely the defects which The Diving Bell and the Butterfly would surely rail against.
What makes it a truly unprecedented book is not only its contents but also the unusual way it was written. After suffering a massive stroke, author Jean-Dominique Bauby found himself in what is known as the "locked-in syndrome": completely paralyzed, speechless, and only able to move one eyelid. With this eyelid he "dictated" his thoughts and reflections: hence the memoir The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Now what struggling writer wouldn’t be floored by such unusually heroic and remarkable writing circumstances? Jean-Dominique Bauby was able to write a marvelous book in spite of his condition. Here I am instead, struggling and bleeding for every word, with all my delaying, drifting and dillydallying.
I decided that a book written like that is definitely worth considering. First and foremost, it is an inspirational book – but definitely not in the mold of Chicken Soup for the Soul or even Reader’s Digest. It does not waste time in saccharine reflections – perhaps it is just in a hurry for any of that. Bauby realizes he is trapped in a horrible physical condition: "My heels hurt, my head weighs a ton, and something like a giant invisible diving-bell holds my whole body prisoner." But at the same time his new-found freedom affords him near-infinite possibilities for a mental travelogue: "My cocoon becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time, set out for Tierra del Fuego or for King Midas’s court."
It is also a spiritual book, but certainly not in the narrow, traditional sense. Consider, for example, its chapter entitled "Prayer." Jean-Dominique Bauby shares, "In every corner of the world the most diverse deities have been solicited in my name. I try to organize all this spiritual energy. If they tell me that candles have been burned for my sake in a Breton chapel, or a mantra chanted in a Nepalese temple, I at once give each of the spirits invoked a precise task. A woman I know enlisted a Cameroon holy man to procure me the goodwill of Africa’s gods: I have assigned him my right eye. For my hearing problems I rely on the warm relationship that my devout mother-in-law enjoys with the monks of a Bordeaux brotherhood." The book’s concluding lines, described as among "the most heartrending in all of modern literature," poignantly represent the struggle of the human spirit to transcend its unfortunate limitations. Bauby actually describes and ponders the contents of a purse, belonging to Claude Mendibil (the lady who patiently extracted and transcribed Bauby’s thoughts into words): "I see a hotel-room key, a metro ticket and a hundred-franc note folded in four, like objects brought back by a space probe sent to earth to study how earthlings live, travel and trade with one another. The sight leaves me pensive and confused. Does the cosmos contain keys for opening up my cocoon? A metro line with no terminus? A currency strong enough to buy my freedom back? We must keep looking. I’ll be off now."
Last but not the least, it is also actually an autobiography. Jean-Dominique Bauby was editor-in-chief of French Elle magazine, father of two kids. Up to this point, it is still ordinary enough. But when you now consider what happened to him and what he went through (narrated in the penultimate chapter of the book, incidentally) – then you realize, for one thing, the indomitable potential of the human person. The words he "dictated" have come alive – precisely because of his being, precisely because of his person.
And so it is as if we poor procrastinators and drifters are all being admonished, "Go for it, do it now, carpe diem. Life’s too precious and short. Grab it, hold on to it like a drowning man, for you’ll never know when it will just slip away. Any single moment can have lifetime consequences and implications. And because it is so, life is even more valuable. For all its beauty and importance, do not forget that life can be easily snuffed out by a stray bullet, affected by a chance encounter, disabled by a split-second accident. For all that love calls you to do, for all that duty enjoins you to fulfil, now is the time."
Yes, Jean-Dominique Bauby puts us to shame somehow. We should not wait for life-changing incidents to make us do what we want, we should not need contests to make us write. Life is far more too precious, and it is its own reward. Thanks to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly for making us all realize, and even more convinced of, the inestimable value of life.