"Cavalcade" to the rescue! (or so I thought)

(I can't believe the following blog is from over four years ago first published in 15th July).

I went to see the film "Me before You" and a lot of the same fictionalized and glassed over realities were present. I thought the best and most realistic part in the film was the ending. It was the same thing I had written about in other blogs, how money can cushion even that level of disability. I'm not sure if his ditzy female assistant ,would have been so attracted to him, if he was living in subsidized accommodation watching every penny with an out of shape body watching the rest of the world relentlessly pass by.

At home dying with the flu, and in between coughing fits the book "Cavalcade" by Bruno de Stabenrath, is keeping me sane and amused, and the brain cells engaged. I love the writing, and cannot imagine ever being near the horrible world of tetraplegia.

"You don't miss what you've never had" is a very true saying, and to go from unadulterated hedonism to complete dependency on others is unthinkable. Thankfully (as far as I've read anyway) he doesn't try to sugarcoat his experiences, which he likens to a "long grotesquely cruel execution".

I love his use of language. I can relate to so much, his "floppy, jelly like body" So far he has avoided the trigger word of "god" the great default crutch. I hope he does not go down that road. Is it not patently obvious that the only god worth mentioning, is the one staring back through the mirror?

My only fear that it may actually be dreaded fiction, that it may in fact be too well written, too book reader and market focused to the neglect of the horrible minutia of that existence.

I find it hard to believe that he has hot French women lining up to straddle him, as he lies with a newly tetraplegic body stinking of you know what, and being spoon fed.

Such daily realities does not make for pleasant reading perhaps, or maybe its just geared at the same old platitudes. Case in point,  "Le Figaro" paper describes it as "a hymn to life". I'll keep reading though, with sick bucket at hand!

Update 29/7/12:Yes it sure was fiction, the second half of the book made that very clear. It was full of oversights and read like "50 Shades of Grey". The idea of this sexually charged tetra, who has women chasing after him hid a lot of facts, which just made it very clear that the author had never been one himself.

No mention of the tetra gut, he would have piled on with the lack of exercise. Forget having a sexy bath with a hot Brazilian. Being hoisted into it slowly by a female assistant would have put a very different angle on that. The un-sexiness of dependency, was never really ventured into. Well written but fantastical!