Notes from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 4/6/24 thru 4/28/24
Vintage Books, ISBN 0-375-70121-4
Le Scaphandre et le papillon
https://archive.org/details/lescaphandreetle00baub_0/page/n7/mode/2up
0 Théophile: theo- "god", phílos "beloved" (also Theodore, dôron
"gift".) French only: "en leur souhaitant beaucoup de papillons."
4 Resuscitate (revive) < re- suscitāre (stir up, excite) < sub-
citāre (move, excite, summon a person, quote a text). A DNR
request (= Do not resuscitate) is the consent of the bearer to
not be revived with CPR upon a heart attack. (Cardiopulmonary
resuscitation: kardía "heart" + pulmō "lung".)
5 "At seven the chapel bells begin again to punctuate the passage
of time, quarter hour by quarter hour." I found this article
interesting:
https://maureenssuitcase.com/2018/12/29/the-bells
about the tradition in some places in France of 24-hour bell
ringing. The scheme is 1 bell for XX:15, two for XX:30, three
for XX:45, and four + the hour for XX:00 (so 6 for 2:00, 16 for
midnight and noon).
"Set out for the Tierra del Fuego", archipelago at the southernmost
tip of South America.
9 "In one flash I saw the frightening truth. It was as blinding
as an atomic explosion and keener than a guillotine blade."
13 "Clay ramparts, walls of sand, Maginot lines": the Maginot Line
"begun in 1920..widely considered impregnable, but outflanked in
1940" (OED).
19 French frequency table, here given ESARINTULOMDPCFBVHGJQZYXKW.
Comparison using the program ~simon/trinkets/freqtable:
ESARINTU LOMDPC FBVHGJQ ZYXKW Given in the book
EAITSNUR LODCMP VQFHBGJ XYZKW Les Misérables (Tome I)
EAISTNRU OLDMCP VQFBHGJ XZYWK Le Comte de Monte-Cristo
22 "Ils répondent « Bien », et me repassent illico la main."
Illico, fam., sur-le-champ, immédiatement < in-locus
45 "He also sent me a photo..In his strong, angular handwriting,
Dad had simply noted: Berck-sur-mer, April 1963." (The village
of the maritime hospital.)
47 M. Noirtier from Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, victim of apoplexy
like Bauby, described thus by de Villefort his son in chapter 48:
"M. Noirtier, for whom France was a vast chess-board from which
pawns, rooks, knights, and queens were to disappear, so that
the king was checkmated -- M. Noirtier, the redoubtable, was
the next morning poor M. Noirtier, the helpless old man..a dumb
and frozen carcass, in fact, living painlessly on."
Chapter 58, 75; Noirtier who murdered Franz d'Épinay's father.
48 "On ne badine pas avec les chefs-d'œuvre." -- On ne badine pas
avec l'amour. Agir d'une manière enjouée.
81 Samizdat: clandestine or illegal copying and distribution of
literature (originally in the Soviet Union) -- sous forme de
copies dactylographiées -- interdits par la censure ou
difficiles à trouver.
99 "Alcibiades' dog" -- a Roman sculpture also known as the
Jennings Dog, of the extinct Molossian breed, possibly an
important monument, linked to Alcibiades (an Athenian politican)
because Plutarch cites him as having had a dog with its tail cut
off.
