Monday, October 8, 2007

the diving bell and the butterfly

The Diving bell and the butterfly:
When I finished The diving bell and the butterfly, the first thing that i thought about was how confusing it was. I never really knew what was going on. Sometimes he was dreaming and other times he was telling a story from his past. To me it seemed like there were a lot of people in the book and i couldn't keep track of who was who. When Jean-Dominique Bauby was describing Josephine, i never really quite understood who she was. I knew that she was his girlfriend, but i always got confused on their relationship. For example when they visited Madonna. When i first started reading the chapter, i thought Josephine was wanted to go to her concert. I found out that it was a religious place from Mr. Hatten explaining it in class. When Jean was visiting with his children, i thought that were assistants from the hospital. Even though the book was very confusing and hard for me to read, i did find some parts to be interesting and very descriptive. Like when he was talking about his lucky day, when the nurse turned the TV on and the commercial said "were you born lucky?" i thought it was ironic in some ways. I also thought that the end of the book was a good conclusion. He talks about opening up his diving bell and a currency to buy his freedom back. For me, that really made the book click.
Overall, i found the book to be confusing but sad. I couldn't imagine living my life like that. Never being able to speak, walk, play sports, or even eat/drink. For Jean-Dominique to write a book about his life in "locked-in syndrome" is amazing, while only being able to communicate with the blink of his eye.

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