The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jean-Dominique Bauby · 1997
After a stroke left Bauby paralyzed except for his left eyelid, he dictated this memoir letter by letter, by blinking. The book is 137 pages of the most weightless prose in any language, written from inside what should have been a sealed room. He died ten days after publication.
The case against
Brevity is the book's condition and also its limit. Some chapters are fully imagined; others are wisps, a remembered perfume, a page and gone. Bauby was an Elle editor and it shows: the prose gleams even from inside the diving bell, and a few chapters mistake polish for weight. An evening reads it whole, and you may want more than it carries.
Memoir · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
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