“His inner life was like the distant gleam of a candle which a traveller sees by night across some desert place, and knows that a living being dwells beyond the silence and obscurity,” writes Dumas. He also takes us on a vivid voyage through his memories of his work, holidays, and family.In Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte-Cristo, the character Noirtier de Villeforte also suffered this “monstrous, iniquitous, revolting, horrible” condition. Using an intuitive alphabet, through blinking, he learns to communicate, and painstakingly dictates this book.Likening this suspended animation to “a giant invisible diving-bell holding my whole body prisoner” he describes the unforgiving reality of disability and the banality of complete dependence for communication, ablutions, or even changing the television channel-something many doctors, patients, and carers can identify with.To escape, his “mind takes flight like a butterfly” and he finds solace in fantasies of wine, women, and song. Only Sandrine, his speech therapist, reaches out with kindness, patience, and empathy. He discusses scabrous orderlies, “arrogant, brusque, sarcastic” doctors, and a fear of losing the use of the “only window to his cell,” his left eye. The resulting “locked-in syndrome” means he is unable to speak or move-his only means of interaction is through blinking his left eye.The book focuses on his room in a naval hospital on the north coast of France. Translated from the French, The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly is a beautiful and poignant account of a 45 year old father of two falling victim to a catastrophic stroke.
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