Monday, October 8, 2007

Diving Bell and the Butterfly Analysis

I think that the book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was boring. Although it was interesting to here such an original story, I overall did not like the book. I thought that the author hopped around a lot to different events which left me confused and lost. He often talked about characters he had yet to talk about without explaining who they were, which also made me not like the book. All of these things made me not like the book as much, but the one thing that absolutely drove me crazy was how metaphoric the book was. I would try to interpret the metaphors, but most of the time not interpret them right, or I would not get the metaphor at all and just kept reading hoping that there would be clarification later in the book.
On the other hand I did like some things in the book. I liked the authors choice of descriptive language. I thought it really helped me, the reader, envision what was happening in the book. I also like how the book was short. The length helped you to not loose interest in the book. Lastly I thought the story itself was the best part of the book. I thought the idea of a man being locked in his body was really interesting to read about. For example, I never realized how often he must be uncomfortable. The idea of him feeling stiff and uncomfortable never really crossed my mind. I thought people who were paralyzed couldn't feel there bodies period.
In conclusion I would not recommend the book to other people. Instead, I would tell them to research the story itself. The flashbacks and metaphors made the book to confusing, so if someone researched the story I think that it would have a better effect on them than reading the book.

2 comments:

ZZ3T said...

you do understand that this is a true story, right? this book was written from the point of veiw of jean-dominique bauby (the author) by blinking his left eye. he wrote this story probably to keep himself sane and as way to communicate to his children that he was really there. he died two days before it was published.
i hope that the circumstances under which it was written have changed your opinion of this "short" book.

Unknown said...

Anyone who is unable to differentiate between here and hear should not be giving their ignorant advice to others.

Ps. Your a superficial reader.