'Herve Guibert’s To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life (A l’ami qui ne m’a pas sauve la vie), published in French in 1990, is a first-person account of a young writer’s confrontation with a range of physical, psychological and social effects of HIV, dating from 1980 to 1989 and thus spanning the decade in which the first clinical reports of what would provisionally be termed Gay-Related Immunodeficiency were made public, GRID yielded to AIDS as the rate of infection rapidly attained epidemic proportions, and the earliest generations of treatments were first heralded and then rapidly encountered the limits of their potency.
'Within the narrative’s precisely delineated historical parameters – hence, crucially, in the absence of a vaccine as well as a treatment regime sufficiently effective to counter the virus over time – its introductory claim, uttered in the first person and the past tense, lends itself to understanding as fictive: practically no “serious and authentic” testimony of the time could truthfully, rightfully include this sentence, for between 1980 and 1989 most anyone who had AIDS for three months, period, would be writing it on the far side of death. And indeed, despite numerous overtly autobiographical elements (chief among them the young writer’s recurrent self-identification as “Herve” and “Guibert,” as well as the transparent figuring of the author’s friend Michel Foucault in the character called Muzil), the French edition declares its status on both cover and title page: roman.
'But at several telling junctures in To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life, a fundamental law of the novelistic genre is transgressed when author and narrator converge to become indistinguishable. These instances, at least six in number, prove to have two traits in common: a reference to the work itself as it is being written, and an act or event of dating that demarcates its provenance. The unsettling experience of reading these passages leads us to ask (among other things, certainly) what the co-presence of these traits inscribes in the relations between novel and autobiography, fiction and testimony.' -- Makurrah's Blog
12 photographs by Herve Guibert
Bio
'After working as a filmmaker and actor in his teenaged years, Herve Guibert turned to photography and journalism. In 1978, he successfully applied for a job at France's prestigious evening paper Le Monde and published his second book, Les aventures singulières (Éditions de minuit).In 1984, Guibert shared a César award for best screenplay with Patrice Chéreau for L'homme blessé. Guibert had met Chéreau in the 1970s during his theatrical years.
'Guibert's writing style was inspired by the French writer Jean Genet. Three of his lovers occupied an important place in his life and work: Thierry Jouno, director of an institute for the blind whom he met in 1976, and which led to his novel Des aveugles; Michel Foucault whom he met in 1977; and Vincent M., a teenager of fifteen, who inspired his novel Fou de Vincent.
'In January 1988 Guibert was diagnosed with AIDS. From then on, he worked at recording what was left of his life. In June the following year, he married Christine, the partner of Thierry Jouno, so that his royalty income would eventually pass to her and her two children. In 1990, Guibert publicly revealed his HIV status in his novel À l'ami qui ne m'a pas sauvé la vie (tran. To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life). Guibert immediately found himself the focus of media attention, featured in newspapers and appearing on several television talk shows.
'Two more books also detailing the progress of his illness followed: Le Protocole compassionnel (trans. The Compassionate Protocol) and L'Homme au chapeau rouge (trans. The Man With The Red Hat) which was released posthumously in January 1992, the same month French television screened La Pudeur ou l'impudeur, a home-made film by Guibert of his last year as he lost his battle against AIDS. Almost blind as a result of disease, he attempted to end his life just before his 36th birthday, and died two weeks later.' -- herveguibert.net
Media
from Guibert's 'La Pudeur ou L'impudeur' (1991)
clip: 'L'Homme Blesse', dir: Patrice Chereau; written: Herve Guibert & P.C.
Herve Guibert on photographer Bernard Faucon (in French)
Further
Herve Guibert Website (in French)
Pour Hervé Guibert: Entretien avec Guillaume Ertaud et Arnaud Genon
DELIRIUM: A Herve Guibert Site (in French)
Herve Guibert @ answers.com
Book: Jean-Pierre Boule 'Herve Guibert: Voices of the Self'
Buy Herve Guibert's books (in English & French)
Book
Herve Guibert To the Friend Who Did Not Save My LifeSerpents Tail
'In 1990 Hervé Guibert gained wide recognition and notoriety with the publication of A l'ami qui ne m'a pas sauvé la vie (To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life)". This novel, one of the most famous AIDS fictions in French or any language, recounts the battle of the first-person narrator not only with AIDS but also with the medical establishment on both sides of the Atlantic.
'Guibert's work is a brilliant example of the emphasis on disclosure that marks recent queer writing-in contrast to the denial and cryptic allusion that characterized much of the work by gay writers of previous generations. He treats the notions of falsehood and truth with a postmodern hand: as overlapping constructs rather than mutually exclusive ones - or, to use Michel Foucault's expression, as "games with truth."' -- Ralph Sarkonak
Excerpts
More precisely, for three months I believed I was condemned to die of that mortal illness called AIDS…. But after three months, something completely unexpected happened that convinced me I could and almost certainly would escape this disease, which everyone still claimed was always fatal…. That I was going to make it, that I would become, by an extraordinary stroke of luck, one of the first people on earth to survive this deadly malady.
*
On this twenty-sixth day of December, 1988, as I begin this book, in Rome…several months after those three months when I was truly convinced I was lost, and after the months that followed when I was able to believe myself saved by the luckiest of chances, wavering now between doubt and lucidity, having reached the limits of both hope and despair, I don’t know what to think about any of these crucial questions, about this alternation of certain death and sudden reprieve….
*
Today, January 4, 1989, I tell myself I’ve got only seven days, exactly seven days to tell the story of my illness, and of course I’ll never meet the deadline, which is going to play havoc with my peace of mind, because I’m supposed to call Dr. Chandi on the afternoon of January 11 so that he can tell me over the phone the results of the tests I had to have on December 22…thus beginning a new phase of the illness…plus I’d hardly slept at all for fear of missing the appointment made a month earlier…and when I did get any sleep that night before those awful tests when they drew off an appalling amount of my blood, it was only to dream that I’d been prevented for various reasons from keeping this appointment that was so decisive for my survival…and I’m actually writing all this on the evening of January 3 because I’m afraid I’ll collapse during the night, pressing on fiercely toward my goal and its incompletion….
*
‘Oh yes, your blood test. Is it time for your appointment already? tomorrow, my God – how quickly time flies!“ Later I wondered if he’d said that intentionally to remind me that my days were now numbered, that I shouldn’t waste them writing under or about another name than my own, and I remembered that other, almost ritual phrase he’d used a month before, when he’d studied all my latest blood analyses, noted the sudden inroads the virus had made, and asked me to have a new blood test to check for the presence of the antigen P24…so that we could set in motion the administrative procedure required to obtain the drug AZT, currently the only treatment for full-blown AIDS. “Now,” he remarked, “if we do nothing, it’s no longer a question of years, but of months.”
*
It was on the afternoon of December 22 that I decided, with Dr. Chandi, not to go to that appointment on January 11, which he would keep for me in order to obtain the anticipated medication, playing a role on both sides, if he had to, or making me think that this was the only way to get the drug, through this pretence of my presence, by using up the time assigned for our appointment to fool the monitoring committee. I’m supposed to call him on the afternoon of January 11 to find out my test results, and that’s why I’m saying that as of today, January 4, I have only seven days left in which to retrace this history of my illness, because whatever Dr. Chandi will reveal to me on the afternoon of January 11, whether it’s good news or bad (although it can only be more or less bad, as he’s taken care to let me infer), might well threaten this book, risk crushing it right at the source, turning my meter back to zero and erasing the fifty-seven pages already written before kicking my bucket for me.
*
1988 brought the revelation of my illness, a sentence without possibility of appeal, followed three months later by that chance event that managed to persuade me I could be saved. In this chronology summing up and pinpointing the warning signs of the disease over a period of eight years, when we now know that its incubation period is between four and a half and eight years… the physiological accidents are no less decisive than the sexual encounters, the premonitions no less telling than the wishes that try to banish them. That’s the chronology that becomes my outline, except when I discover that progression springs from disorder.
*
As a matter of fact, I haven’t done a stitch of work on this book these last few days, at the crucial moment for the deadline I’ve given myself for telling the story of my illness; I’ve been passing the time unhappily, waiting for this new verdict or this semblance of a verdict…but today, January 11, which should have been the day of the verdict, I’m biting my nails down to the quick, having been left entirely in the dark about something that is perfectly clear to me, because I tried calling Dr. Chandi at his office, but couldn’t reach him…. So here I am tonight without the results, upset at not knowing them on the evening of January 11 the way I’ve been expecting to ever since December 22, having spend last night, I might add, dreaming that I wouldn’t have them….
*
After we’d had our blood samples taken…we saw one boy come out again absolutely in shock…paralyzed at the news written all over his face…. It was a terrifying vision for Jules and me, which projected us one week into the future, and at the same time relieved us by showing us the worst that could happen, as though we were living it at the same time, precipitously, second-hand…. Suspecting that our results would be bad and wishing to speed up the process…Dr. Chandi had already sent us to the Institute Alfred-Fournier for the blood analyses that are done after a seropositive result, specifically to ascertain the progress of the HIV virus in the body…. Looking over my lab slip, the nurse asked me, “How long have you known that you’re seropositive?” I was so surprised I couldn’t answer her. The results of the blood analysis were to be sent to us in about ten days, before the results of the seropositivity test would be known, in that precise interval of uncertainty…. On the morning we went to find out the results of the seropositivity tests he told me my blood workup wasn’t good; that they’d already seen the bad news there even without knowing the results of the other test. At that instant I understood that a calamity had hit us, that we were beginning a period of rampant misfortune from which there would be no escape. I was like that poor boy devastated by his test results.
*
I’ve re-counted the days on my calendar: between January 23 [1988], when I’d received my death-sentence at the little clinic on the Rue du Jura, and this March 18, when I’d received another news flash that might prove decisive in seeping away what I’d been officially told was irreversible, fifty-six days had gone by. I’d lived for fifty-six days, sometimes cheerfully, sometimes in despair, alternating between sweet forgetfulness and ferocious obsession, trying to get used to my impending doom. Now I was entering a new phase, a limbo of hope and uncertainty, that was perhaps more terrible to live through than the one before.
*
…I was afraid this new pact with fate might upset the slow advance – which was rather soothing actually – of inevitable death…. For though it was certainly an inexorable illness, it wasn’t immediately catastrophic, it was an illness in stages, a very long flight of steps that led assuredly to death, but whose every step represented a unique apprenticeship. It was a disease that gave death time to live and its victims time to die, time to discover time, and in the end to discover life…. And unhappiness, once you were completely sunk in it, was a lot more livable than the presentiment of unhappiness, a lot less cruel, in fact, than one would have thought. If life was nothing but the presentiment of death and the constant torture of wondering when the axe would fall, then AIDS, by setting an official limit to our life span – six years of seropositivity, plus two years with AZT in the best of cases, or a few months without it – made us men who were fully conscious of our lives, and freed us from our ignorance. If Bill were to file an appeal against my death sentence with his vaccine, he’d plunge me back into my former state of ignorance.
*
It’s strange to wish someone Happy New Year when you know the person might not live all the way through it: there’s no situation more outrageous than that, and to handle it you need simple, unaffected courage, the ambiguous freedom of things left unsaid, a secret understanding braced with a smile and sealed with a laugh, so in that instant your New Year’s wish has a crucial but not weighty solemnity.
*
I’ve decided to be calm, to follow to the end this novelistic logic that so hypnotizes me, at the expense of all idea of survival. yes, I can write it, and that’s undoubtedly what my madness is – I care more for my book than for my life, I won’t give up my book to save my life, and that’s what’s going to be the most difficult thing to make people believe and understand.
*
When I learned I was going to die, I’d suddenly been seized with the desire to write every possible book – all the ones I hadn’t written yet, at the risk of writing them badly: a funny, nasty book, then a philosophical one – and to devour these books almost simultaneously, in the reduced amount of time available, and to write not only the books of my anticipated maturity but also, with the speed of light, the slowly ripened books of my old age.
----
*
p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Well, you probably know most of this, but Galliano finally apologized yesterday, renounced his words, is going into rehab, etc. He was also ordered to face trial yesterday for breaking the French law that prohibits making anti-Semitic statements. From what I understand, no one is at all certain what will happen now vis a vis him or the position at Dior. The Galliano/ Dior runway show will happen as planned on Friday, as will the opening of a long-in-the-works Galliano/ Dior retrospective exhibition here in Paris. The question is whether he'll be there. The word here is that it's probably too early to guess accurately at Galliano's replacement. Dior is famously cautious, and there were swirling, supposedly concrete rumors last year that had Gareth Pugh or a couple of other designers would take over their men's line that came to nothing. Yury says Riccardo Tisci is happily entrenched at Givency, and he would be surprised. He says Haider Ackermann is a possibility, but that his style is so un-Dior-like that it doesn't seem all that likely. The Haynes 'MP' sounds very intriguing, of course. When does it start running? ** Dandysweets, Hey, I! Thank you so much again for the delights of yesterday. You rule! ** Allesfliesst, Hey. I kind of really like the sound of that science/ performance for kids. Well, no surprise. Oh, I sent you the 'Jerk' DVD, gosh, quite a while ago. I assumed you'd gotten it, I guess. It hasn't been returned, at least not yet, so that's weird. I can probably score another DVD and send it again if you don't get the one I sent, although, if I send it again, I think I'll register the package or whatever they do over here in Europe in order to track packages. ** Wolf, Hey. I probably shouldn't have shared that thing with my sister. I guess it was bothering me, even though it was pretty typical. I guess that, what with the visa thing, it stood out more. It's complicated stuff, obviously. None of my siblings have ever been interested in what I do. It seems willful, but I don't know. I've been with Yury for more than seven years, and, even now, none of them know how to spell his name, even though I've corrected them and explained how to spell it a thousand times. They just don't care enough to register the info. None of them read my books or pay attention to when they come out or anything. None of them have ever attended a reading I've given or a performance I'm involved in or shown any interest in doing so. A while back, there was talk of a documentary film being made about me and my stuff, and I thought how odd it would be if the director interviewed my family because they wouldn't know what the hell any questioners were talking about. Most of the time, I'm used to it, and it just seems strange, and it doesn't bother me that much, but once in a while I wonder what it means, and I have no idea really. Thanks for caring, pal. I started looking for Eeyore post stuff yesterday. It might just work. ** Sypha, The US paperback of 'MLT' is my worst book cover ever. It would be awesome if you posted more on that church on your blog. I'd love to see that. Give a heads up, yeah? ** Toniok, Hey, man! Really good to see you! Billy Childish, yes, although I know his music, and especially the Thee Headcoats stuff, a lot better than I know his writing. I do like what I've read though. Which book of his did you read? ** Steevee, Hey. ** Schlix, I really liked that Mutter video. Oh, they did the music for Nekromantik! Then yes, I do know their work a little bit. I was just spacing on the name. Nan Goldin made photos of some of the members? That's interesting. Yeah, I'll go spend more time with their music, thank you a lot! You good? ** Misanthrope, You can get yourself shapely by summer. I can't quite imagine you being okay with a vegan diet, but if you were to go vegan for a few months, the weight would zoom off. Whenever I've gone vegan, I look like a skeleton after about five months. Life is definitely weird, man. ** Creative Massacre, I'm glad you're feeling better. And very nice that the NYC trip is cemented, not to mention attaining the GoPro cam. That's some much deserved brightening going on there, pal. ** Andrew, Hey. Yeah, Yury echoed you on Tisci. I'd be really surprised if they took Pugh for the women's line. I would guess they'll choose more conservatively than that. I think if they were really smart, they'd try to hire my pals Rodarte, although Kate and Laura would never go for it. I'll check out the new Pugh and Mugler (online, sadly) lines today. Thanks, A! ** Statictick, Hey, N. Glad you liked the Topor stuff. And awesome that you had a good time with Ian. Hey, what's the latest on your book? Where are you in the process exactly? ** Frank Jaffe, Howdy, Frank! Nice to see you, man. Excellence about your school break and your exuberance. Oh, so John is coming after all? You'll have a blast, and he'll be incredible. I don't know if he still does, but he used to read my blog religiously, so, if you need conversation topics, you could mention you're a d.l., and of course give him my love. I'm getting pretty wary of 'Heartbeats'. You didn't like 'Blue Valentine'? Interesting. Still haven't seen it. I guess it's a divider. Hope the quick study and night's sleep did you well, man. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hi. Uh, I think the Gaga video is pretty crappy, I guess. It just seems like a melange of really familiar, fashionable stuff. A little Madonna rip off/referencing, a little 'Barbarella' meets 'Brazil', some standard 'trippy' animation, a lot of fashion magazine spread looking stuff. It's like the video is wearing lip gloss or something. It's just more proof to me that she doesn't have a truly daring or original idea in her head. She had the money and clout and success to hire a video director with new, wild ideas, but, just like she did with the song itself, she played it really, really safe. So, yeah. I don't really know Thomas Dekker. Hold on, I'll image google him. Mm, based on photos, I guess I don't think he's all that attractive, to be honest. I like the idea of seeing his contacts though. I get the feeling you could just write a novel based on your life and maybe let your imagination take over sometimes, but I don't know if writing that kind of novel would interest you? I think it could be really something, in my opinion. I'm sorry you felt sick yesterday. Your theory about that is interesting and kind of makes a lot of sense. I found this website thing yesterday where they posted quotes from Charlie Sheen and Gaddhafi, and you had to guess who said what, and it was actually read hard to tell, and that was kind of funny. I hope your bad mood has passed. Your report was a pleasure anyway, just so you know. My day: Not much yet again. Let's see ... I worked more on the copyedit, but I didn't finish it yet, maybe today. My editor is wanting ideas of people to ask for blurbs for 'TMS'. I'm always bad at that, but I threw some names out, and my agent did too, and we'll see. I made some more notes about future fiction. I did some blog post making. I looked into the Italy trip and started trying to figure that out and how to afford it. We have to make reservations and stuff pretty soon. I paid my rent. The Recollets has this gallery space that they rent out sometimes, and yesterday they rented it out to the French Boy Scouts for some meeting, so there were Boy Scouts wandering around the place. I had coffee with Kiddiepunk and Oscar, and we caught up, and that was nice. I think we might go see 'True Grit' today, but I have to check with them. The temperature outside kept changing in this weird way from very cold to mild to sort of chilly to cold again all day randomly. Another person wrote to me wanting the contact info on one of the escorts in one of my posts. I met Yury after his work at the Apple Store near the Paris Opera to look at the new Macbook Pros, and, yeah, they're cool, and I'm going to buy one although I have to wait a little bit because I'm having to spend money on the Italy trip right now. Then we came back here, by which time it was nighttime. I ate my usual. Yury watched the Apple event that unveiled the iPad 2, and I did internet stuff and sort of watched some hidden camera comedy reality show that was very, very mildly amusing. And slept. And that's it. What is it, Thursday? Yes, it is. How was yours? ** 'Matt', Hey, Matt. Very nice to see you. What's the theater piece and the video you're working on? Oh, cool, I like the Vimeo performance piece. Mind if I imbed it here? Assuming that's okay, ... Everyone, d.l. 'Matt' aka the artist Matthew Doyle made a really cool and very scenic short performance piece/ video that I'm going to imbed at the bottom of the p.s. so you can watch it. Do. I mentioned you to Gisele in Oslo, but we were frantically getting 'I Apologize' together, and she said to talk to her about that again this weekend when I see her. And I will. And if you want to write to her as a reminder or anything, sure, go ahead. Sorry for the protracted process, man. ** Postitbreakup, Wow, that is a lot of work. Is there always that much work, or is it some temporary fluke? Keeping busy is good, I guess, right? I like being busy. Maybe not as busy as you are, but at least you earn money when you're being busy, unlike me, ha ha. I think my siblings probably think I'm the most stable one of them, which I am, and I think they use that as an excuse not to pay attention to what I actually do. They tell themselves I'm 'fine' and problem free and that there's no need therefore to ask anything about me or something. Who knows. ** Chris (British), Well, yeah, your life is a whole lot more valuable than that. It's okay to read people's comments. I think a lot of people do that, and it's all open to anyone who wants to read all or parts of it all. Thanks for the kind words about my day. Today is okay so far. 'Flipper' is what made dolphins into saints for my generation at least, and it probably has a lot to answer for. 'Lassie' too, I guess. And 'Gentle Ben'. And 'Alf'. And 'E.T.' ** As I am now done, let me turn your attention over to the great Herve Guibert book that is in my spotlight today. Peruse and enjoy, please. Tomorrow begins our long weekend-long, collectively made Joy Division Day, so watch for it. Later.
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