“Illness Is The Night-Side Of Life”

by Zoë Pollock

In her review of Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of All Maladies, a biography on cancer, Roxana Badina reflects on the tragic condition of French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby, author and protagonist of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly:

In the cytotoxic raging against the dying light, a patient’s will can and often has been dismissed altogether. No matter what one endures, however, the imperative to affirm one’s power persists, even in those encased in the sickest and most ghostly bodies. “I need to feel strongly, to love and admire, just as desperately as I need to breathe,” Bauby wrote. … Philosophers, painters and poets suffering grave illness have effected their self-transcendence through their imagination and work. But when we are ill, our ability to express ourselves often fails us, precisely when we need it the most.