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lprovenNot of the meepish sort, I hasten to add. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
androctonus is still chiefly noticeable for her absence but then she is in Stoke and working nights.
No, more put in mind by a couple of things I've read recently. Lovedeath by Dan Simmons is a wonderful little collection of five novellas on the joint themes. He wanted to call it Liebestod but his publishers felt it was too obscure. They're not all equally fine, but the final one is possibly the best bit of fiction concerning the horrors of the Great War I've ever read. Recommended.
Then, Bookmooch comes through again, with copies of both Le Scaphandre et le Papillon and The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly - the latter being the English translation of this remarkable little book by Jean-Dominique Bauby. Struck down literally in his prime, at 45 - just six scant years older than me, with two young children - by a massive stroke, Bauby, Editor-in-Chief of Elle, was hit by a massive stroke in the brainstem which left him with "locked in syndrome": quadriplegic, unable to talk, swallow, or do anything much except blink his left eye. (Indeed, in a chapter of visceral terror, he describes them sewing his paralysed right eyelid shut). He dictated this very short book by blinking when his amanuensis spoke the desired letter of the alphabet, going through it again and again, in French frequency order - a subject that again merits its own chapter.
EDIT: to convey the tiniest fragment of the effort involved, it took around 200,000 blinks, each word taking two minutes or more. Truly awesome. The determination, the effort, and the massive writing ability of this man, who, while in these horrific circumstances, wrote, and edited this entire book in his head, then painfully dictated it without a voice. Every word chosen with minute care, every sentence pared down, reworded, rephrased, polished and perfected in the long hours of silence and pain; every paragraph, every chapter, memorized for later painfully slow relaying through one of the few remaining muscles he could control: one eyelid.
It's a very short book but it is a stunning one. He clung to life just long enough to see it published and go straight to number 1, then died a couple of days later. Do not mistake that this was coincidental. Its closing line? "I'll be off now." Profoundly affecting. Not many books make me sit and weep on the Tube.
Now, I am going to try it in French. My command of the language isn't really up to it but I hope to benefit from the experience.
androctonus is still chiefly noticeable for her absence but then she is in Stoke and working nights. No, more put in mind by a couple of things I've read recently. Lovedeath by Dan Simmons is a wonderful little collection of five novellas on the joint themes. He wanted to call it Liebestod but his publishers felt it was too obscure. They're not all equally fine, but the final one is possibly the best bit of fiction concerning the horrors of the Great War I've ever read. Recommended.
Then, Bookmooch comes through again, with copies of both Le Scaphandre et le Papillon and The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly - the latter being the English translation of this remarkable little book by Jean-Dominique Bauby. Struck down literally in his prime, at 45 - just six scant years older than me, with two young children - by a massive stroke, Bauby, Editor-in-Chief of Elle, was hit by a massive stroke in the brainstem which left him with "locked in syndrome": quadriplegic, unable to talk, swallow, or do anything much except blink his left eye. (Indeed, in a chapter of visceral terror, he describes them sewing his paralysed right eyelid shut). He dictated this very short book by blinking when his amanuensis spoke the desired letter of the alphabet, going through it again and again, in French frequency order - a subject that again merits its own chapter.
EDIT: to convey the tiniest fragment of the effort involved, it took around 200,000 blinks, each word taking two minutes or more. Truly awesome. The determination, the effort, and the massive writing ability of this man, who, while in these horrific circumstances, wrote, and edited this entire book in his head, then painfully dictated it without a voice. Every word chosen with minute care, every sentence pared down, reworded, rephrased, polished and perfected in the long hours of silence and pain; every paragraph, every chapter, memorized for later painfully slow relaying through one of the few remaining muscles he could control: one eyelid.
It's a very short book but it is a stunning one. He clung to life just long enough to see it published and go straight to number 1, then died a couple of days later. Do not mistake that this was coincidental. Its closing line? "I'll be off now." Profoundly affecting. Not many books make me sit and weep on the Tube.
Now, I am going to try it in French. My command of the language isn't really up to it but I hope to benefit from the experience.
