And, yes, it remains impossible to decipher objective truth from artistic liberty. Yes, the book reveals secrets and intimate details that one might argue are divulged insensitively. Yes, it is sexually explicit, unswervingly depicting the exploits of Guibert and his predominantly queer, male friendship group. Perhaps it is my own literary naivete, but I found no such mythical beast upon sitting down to read To the Friend. Simultaneously and deliberately shocking and intimate, true and untrue, I expected Guibert’s To the Friend to deliver a sort of sensual linguistic assault, without my knowing what to believe and what to doubt.
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Utilising visceral and direct prose, his work is full of images of sex and violence, apparently designed to shock and provoke, with Julian Lucas describing him as “a young man out to trigger the middle-class.”Ĭouple this lurid legacy with the fact that Guibert primarily wrote autofiction, a literary style that blurs the lines between memoir and fiction, and his work takes on the mythical status of a chimaera: part death, part sex, part exposé. Then there is Guibert’s reputation as the heir to the “body-smeared” literary tradition of Marquis de Sade, Jean Genet, Georges Bataille, et al. These days he is more favourably interpreted as a writer who exposes that which is covered over and unsaid, confronting society with scenes we are complicit in choosing not to see, hear, or understand. This “betrayal” caused a minor scandal, gaining Guibert notoriety for exploiting the lives and secrets of his friends for literary gain. The book captured France’s attention as much for its unblinking account of his diagnosis and subsequent life with HIV/AIDS as for recounting the intimate last days of his friend and public intellectual Michel Foucault, who died of the same disease in 1984. Often referred to as an enfant terrible within literary circles, Guibert shot to fame with To the Friend. Largely unknown outside of France before his book To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life was released in 1990, and still peripheral amongst English-speaking readers until a recent resurgence of his work, I was intrigued by critics’ descriptions of him and his work. To read about Hervé Guibert and his work feels like preparing for an encounter with a mythical creature. On Moving West and Back Again Carrie Beth Esposito.FOUR COLLAGES ON LONELINESS katiehamill.Litro #182: Experimental – The Book Fight Chihoi.Litro #182: Experimental – Where Art Thou Heart: Visual Language Lost on Deaf Eyes Jeremy Caniglia.Hive Mind | Litro Lab Podcast Jennifer Weigel.The Slows | Litro Lab Podcast Larry Burns.
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