Spotlight on … Herve Guibert To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life (1990)

 

‘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.

Patrice Chéreau & Hervé Guibert, César 1984 du Meilleur Scénario Original et Dialogues pour L’HOMME BLESSÉ

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)

 

Interview

 

« […] Je parle de la vérité dans ce qu’elle peut avoir de déformé par le travail de l’écriture. C’est pour cela que je tiens au mot roman. Mes modèles existent, mais ce sont des personnages. Je tiens à la vérité dans la mesure où elle permet de greffer des particules de fiction comme des collages de pellicule, avec l’idée que ce soit le plus transparent possible. Mais il y a aussi des grands ressorts de mensonge dans ce livre. »

Le roman est composé de souvenirs, numérotés de 1 à 100, dont les plus anciens datent du début des années 80, et les plus récents de la fin des années 80 (après la découverte de sa contamination) jusqu’au début des années 90. Ce laps de temps de 8 à 10 ans équivaut d’ailleurs approximativement à la durée d’incubation du virus mortel comme nous l’apprend assez rapidement Hervé Guibert.

Le roman, dès la première page, met en place un suspens avec une phrase plutôt étrange qui interpelle le lecteur : « J’ai eu le sida pendant trois mois. Plus exactement j’ai cru pendant trois mois que j’étais condamné par cette maladie mortelle qu’on appelle le sida. »

Dans un premier temps, peu chronologique, Hervé Guibert évoque des souvenirs de son ami Muzil (Michel Foucault) et nous parle des signes qu’il perçoit ou pressent de son propre destin à travers l’agonie et la mort de celui-ci. Dans un deuxième temps, quand, à partir de janvier 1988, Hervé Guibert apprend qu’il est atteint du sida, le récit des souvenirs devient beaucoup plus ordonné, chronologique et rigoureux. Guibert porte alors une attention minutieuse à la progression de son mal, notée au jour le jour, comme en témoignent notamment des descriptions cliniques voire scientifiques de sa propre maladie :

« Le processus de détérioration amorcé dans mon sang se poursuit de jour en jour, assimilant mon cas pour le moment à une leucopénie. Les dernières analyses, datées du 18 novembre, me donnent 368 T4, un homme en bonne santé en possède entre 500 et 2000. Les T4 sont cette partie des leucocytes que le virus du sida attaque en premier, affaiblissant progressivement les défenses immunitaires. Les offensives fatales, la pneumocystose qui touche les poumons et la toxoplasmose le cerveau, s’enclenchent dans la zone qui descend en dessous de 200 T4 ; maintenant on les retarde avec la prescription d’AZT. »

L’auteur, par moments, semble développer un rapport étrange voire ambigu avec sa maladie : il l’accepte et l’aime d’une certaine manière, tant il apprécie « l’incroyable perspective d’intelligence qu’ouvre le sida dans [s]a vie », cette « maladie merveilleuse […] qui donnait le temps de mourir, et qui donnait à la mort le temps de vivre, le temps de découvrir le temps et de découvrir enfin la vie […] »

Mais même si l’auteur semble ainsi parfois se complaire dans sa maladie, il ne manque pas de nous évoquer sa peur d’être démasqué, de la dégradation physique et de la mort imminente :

« J’ai senti la mort venir dans le miroir, dans mon regard dans le miroir, bien avant qu’elle y ait vraiment pris possession. Est-ce que je jetais déjà cette mort par mon regard dans les yeux des autres ? »

Seuls quelques-uns de ses amis proches en effet sont mis dans la confidence lorsqu’il apprend qu’il est atteint par le virus mortel. Hervé Guibert, au moment de l’écriture, a deux amants, dont l’un, Jules, est lui aussi atteint du sida et au courant de la contamination de son ami, et l’autre pas. Dans ce contexte de non-dit la contamination semble latente entre tous ces personnages appartenant au milieu homosexuel et le sida prend alors l’apparence d’une véritable bombe à retardement.

D’ailleurs, quand son « ami » Bill, un Américain, patron d’une entreprise pharmaceutique, se déclare au cours d’un dîner détenteur d’un vaccin capable de soigner le sida, il ne sait pas encore qu’Hervé Guibert est malade :

« Bill est dans un état d’excitation indescriptible, qui va emporter avec lui notre dîner, et monopoliser toutes nos conversations : il nous annonce tout de go qu’on vient de mettre au point en Amérique un vaccin efficace contre le sida […] »

Un immense et bouleversant espoir naît alors chez l’auteur, qui lui fait croire à une guérison possible, comme en attestent les premières phrases du livre. Quand par la suite Bill apprend la séropositivité de Guibert, il lui promet une injection rapide du vaccin une fois que les derniers tests auront été effectués mais n’en fera finalement jamais rien, reculant chaque fois l’échéance, prenant la fuite régulièrement à l’autre bout du monde, ne donnant plus signe de vie, etc. Bill finira même un jour par faire à Hervé Guibert cette déclaration stupéfiante : « De toutes façons tu n’aurais pas supporté de guérir. »

Commence à s’éclairer alors l’étrange titre de l’ouvrage : À l’ami qui ne m’a pas sauvé la vie est en fait une dédicace à Bill, qui deviendra au fur et à mesure un véritable imposteur aux yeux d’Hervé Guibert. La dernière page de l’ouvrage, teintée d’ironie, apparaît tel un doigt d’honneur hautement dressé vers Bill et clôt l’ouvrage de la manière suivante :

« La mise en abîme de mon livre se referme sur moi. Je suis dans la merde. Jusqu’où souhaites-tu me voir sombrer ? Pends-toi Bill ! Mes muscles ont fondu. J’ai enfin retrouvé mes jambes et mes bras d’enfant. »

Non, « Ce livre n’est pas un testament », comme le déclarera l’auteur après la publication de son roman, mais « un livre qui donne des clés pour comprendre ce qu’il y avait dans tous les autres livres et que parfois [il] ne comprenais pas [lui]-même […]». Aux réticents donc : ce livre n’est ni larmoyant, ni même dénonciateur, mais plus simplement un livre exutoire et une certaine quête de vérité.

 

Book

Herve Guibert To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life
Serpents 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. I’m still in Spain today. If you don’t know this book by Herve Guibert, I definitely recommend it.