Title: Invisible-A Memoir
Author: Hugues de Montalembert
Review: This short book will make you think about life and how you are living it. Are you waiting for something to happen before you actually get out there and live? Blinded by two thieves this author learned to live his life to the fullest. He had a full life before the blindness, but after he refused to let it change things. He traveled and saw the world without the help of his eyes. He met people who opened up to him because they couldn’t look into his eyes and see his judgments. He learned that there are worse things that can happen in life then losing one’s sight.
Where do you fit in this world? What do you have to give and what can others give you. I loved this book and it took a bit over an hour to read. My favorite few paragraphs are at the very end. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but it made me think that life is full of people who need our compassion and help yet we don’t see them. Who will see them if we don’t?
Read this book, take an hour or two and really think about what the pages are saying. This is a book for anyone and everyone. This will change the way you see everyday life. Beauty surrounds us, but do we really ever truly see it? READ THIS BOOK!
Publisher: Atria Books (September 20, 2011) Paperback
ISBN: 1416593675
Copyright: 2010
Pages: 144
Quick Review: 5 stars (out of 5)
Why I Read It: The publisher was looking for reviewers.
Where I Obtained the Book: Sent by the publisher.
Synopsis: Blinded in a senseless attack in his New York home in 1978, de Montalembert, then a filmmaker and painter, was violently forced out of his intensely visual world. In this raw memoir, more a brainstorming session than a narrative, he approaches his new life with stunning directness, navigating the environs of Manhattan and, not much later, Bali and Greenland, with precocious new confidence and ability. He's also painfully honest about the affects of his blindness, refusing the comfort of standard tropes about spirituality but finding wonder in the kindness of absolute strangers, isolation from those closest to him, and other un-thought-of moments of triumph and despair stemming from the way his condition affects his closest relationships. A French-born artist, de Montalembert will draw inevitable comparisons to Jean-Dominique Bauby (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and de Montalembert's effort is certainly a more challenging read, stylistically: broken, brief, at times like a prose poem. It depends on the reader whether this approach makes for a cumulative impact, or just gets tiring. Still, de Montalembert vital, determined voice is worth attending.
Author Biography: Born in France, Hugues de Montalembert is a painter and photographer who was blinded during a violent assault while living in New York in 1978. He is the author of one previous book in English, ECLIPSE (1985). His story was also the basis of the acclaimed documentary film BLACK SUN (2007). He currently lives in Paris.
Wow! What a story. I'll have to read his book.
ReplyDeleteI really did enjoy this book and plan to pass my copy to my mom. thanks for the comment Lisa
ReplyDelete