To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life

by Hervé Guibert, Linda Cloverdale (Translation)

In To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life, critically acclaimed French writer Hervé Guibert has created an unnervingly intimate novel about an imaginative and vital young man confronting the ominous spectre of AIDS in his life. Le Nouvel Observateur calls it "a masterpiece."

Written in the form of a journal, this novel offen both an unflinchingly honest examination of daily life under a death sentence, and the impact of the disease on a group of gifted and artistic people—a circle of French artists and intellectuals spinning out of control in shared fear and uncertainty, discovering that talent and genus offer little solace: Muzil, the brilliant young philosopher whose dangerous underground exploits have life-and-death consequences; Marine, the eccentric and unreliable movie star who uses her jet-set life as an escape from reality; Muzil's friends and lovers, who attempt to salvage the groundbreaking texts that Muzil is both furiously churning out and trying to destroy before his death; and the narrator himself, who, upon discovering that he is also infected with the virus, runs from doctor to doctor, searching for answers, terrified and yet fascinated by the changes he and his friends are undergoing.

The world of To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life is not merely one in which AIDS has suddenly appeared, it is a place where intellect and creativity, sexuality and friendship, responsibility and continuity—whether they ultimately help or fail—are the only things worth fighting for.

Genres: Fiction, France, Queer, LGBT, Gay, Novels, French Literature

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

(Saint-Cloud, 14 décembre 1955 - Clamart, 27 décembre 1991) est un écrivain et journaliste français. Son rapport à l'écriture se nourrit pour l'essentiel d'autobiographie et d'autofiction1. Il est également reconnu comme photographe et pour ses écrits sur la photographie.

Hervé Guibert est issu d’une famille de la classe moyenne d’après guerre. Son père est inspecteur vétérinaire et sa mère ne travaille pas. Il a une sœur, Dominique, plus âgée que lui. Ses grand-tantes, Suzanne et Louise, tiennent une place importante dans son univers familial. Après une enfance parisienne (XIVe arrondissement), il poursuit des études secondaires à La Rochelle. Il fait alors partie d’une troupe de théâtre : la Comédie de La Rochelle et du Centre Ouest. Il revient à Paris en 1973, échoue au concours d'entrée de l’Idhec à l'âge de 18 ans.

Homosexuel, il construit sa vie sentimentale autour de plusieurs hommes. Trois d’entre eux occupent une place importante dans sa vie et son œuvre : Thierry Jouno, directeur du centre socioculturel des sourds à Vincennes rencontré en 1976, Michel Foucault dont il fait la connaissance en 1977 à la suite de la parution de son premier livre La Mort propagande et Vincent M. en 1982, un adolescent d’une quinzaine d’années, qui inspire son roman Fou de Vincent. Il est un proche du photographe Hans Georg Berger rencontré en 1978 et séjourne dans sa résidence de l’Ile d’Elbe.

Il est pensionnaire de la Villa Médicis entre 1987 et 1989, en même temps qu'Eugène Savitzkaya et Mathieu Lindon. Ce séjour inspira son roman L'Incognito.

En janvier 1988, il apprend qu’il est atteint par le sida. En juin de l’année suivante, il se marie avec Christine S., la compagne de Thierry Jouno. En 1990, il révèle sa séropositivité dans son roman À l'ami qui ne m'a pas sauvé la vie - qui le fait connaître par ailleurs à un public bien plus important. Cette même année il est l'invité de Bernard Pivot dans Apostrophes. Ce roman est le premier d'une trilogie, composée également du Protocole compassionnel et de l'Homme au chapeau rouge. Dans ces derniers ouvrages, il décrit de façon quotidienne l'avancée de sa maladie.

Il réalise un travail artistique acharné sur le SIDA qui inlassablement lui retire ses forces, notamment au travers de photographies de son corps et d'un film, La Pudeur ou l'Impudeur qu'il achève avec la productrice Pascale Breugnot quelques semaines avant sa mort, ce film est diffusé à la télévision le 30 janvier 1992.

Presque aveugle à cause de la maladie, il tente de mettre fin à ses jours la veille de ses 36 ans. Il meurt deux semaines plus tard, le 27 décembre 1991, à l'hôpital Antoine-Béclère. Il est enterré à Rio nell'Elba près de l'ermitage de Santa Catarina (rive orientale de l'Ile d'Elbe).

Les textes d'Hervé Guibert se caractérisent par la recherche de simplicité et de dépouillement. Son style évolue sous l'influence de ses lectures (Roland Barthes, Bernard-Marie Koltès ou encore Thomas Bernhard, ce dernier "contaminant" ouvertement le style de A l'ami qui ne m'a pas sauvé la vie).

Hervé Guibert compose de courts romans aux chapitres de quelques pages, qui se fondent souvent sur des faits biographiques maquillés de fiction. Le lecteur est saisi par l'intrigue brutalement exposée (ainsi dans Mes parents), et appuyée par des passages au vocabulaire sophistiqué ou par des descriptions crues de tortures ou d'amours charnelles. Ce texte est en grande partie extrait de son journal intime publié en 2001 chez Gallimard (Le Mausolée des amants, Journal 1976-1991).

Il travaille avec Patrice Chéreau avec qui il coécrit le scénario de L'Homme blessé qui obtient le César du meilleur scénario en 1984, mais aussi avec Sophie Calle. Journaliste, il collabore dès 1973 à plusieurs revues. Il réalise des entretiens avec des artistes de son époque comme Isabelle Adjani, Zouc ou Miquel Barceló qui fait plus de 25 portraits de lui. Il écrit des critiques de photographie et de cinéma au service culturel du journal L

Reviews

[Rowena · Rating 5 out of 5]

"My blood, unmasked, everywhere and forever, naked around the clock, when I'm walking in the street, taking public transport, the constant target of an arrow aimed at me wherever I go. Does it show in my eyes?"- Hervé Guibert, To The Friend Who Did Not Save My Life

This was a tough review for me to write especially having lost a relative to AIDS as a teenager, a relative who lived at my parent’s house until a few days before he died. Having witnessed the painful death of a loved one to this disease , it surprised me that I'd even consider picking this book up. Well, morbid curiosity got a hold of me really after I watched a documentary on Foucault in which there was mention of a friend of his documented his final months before succumbing to AIDS. This friend is Hervé Guibert and this story is both a fictionalized account of Foucault’s death and Guibert's own experiences with the disease.

This book takes us back to the dark days of the 1980s when HIV/AIDS was a relatively new disease on the horizon and was downright terrifying. It makes you feel a lot of compassion for the gay community must have felt frightened when it looked like this disease was only affecting them. It takes you into the world of pseudoscience and medical quackery when doctors just had no idea how to cure the disease.

I found myself very much affected by this book. It definitely had a lot to do with my personal experiences but it was more than that. Being a healthy person the book made me realize how everything changes when you get seriously ill. Relationships change, your body changes, your goals may change, the way you look at life as well. How would we live if we were given such a death sentence? How can you live knowing your body isn't yours anymore?

"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's amazing how a book filled with such sadness could be so lyrical but this book really was. This book is such a naked exposure of Guibert's self, his fears, vulnerability, despair and so on. I really felt like I was intruding. There were some explicit scenes of course, and it was brutal at times.

Not an easy read because of the subject matter but one that I'd recommend. The story will stay with you.

[Noel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Self-portrait at the top of the Empire State Building, in New York.

Anyone who follows me has probably noticed I’ve been reading obsessive-compulsively about the AIDS crisis and the East Village art scene. The root of this is doubtless my obsession with David Wojnarowicz and, consequently, everyone he cared about—as well as my inability to move on from one subject to the next until I’ve exhausted it (which is, of course, impossible), a perhaps long-dormant quirk roused by my recent commitment to reading more. Anyway, I was curious about the gay literary response to AIDS from outside Anglophone literature and, surprisingly, couldn’t find much of anything (doubtless due in part to under-translation) other than Guibert, whose Gallic detachment is a fascinating foil to Wojnarowicz’s florid, full-blooded passion. (Guibert’s photographs also echo the sensuality of those of Wojnarowicz’s mentor and sometime lover, Peter Hujar.) Wojnarowicz is certainly the better artist of the two… Guibert was criticized by ACT UP for merely using AIDS as a key to self-revelation. “I came to ACT UP to oppose Hervé Guibert,” said Philippe Mangeot, one of the founders of the Parisian chapter:

For Guibert, AIDS is the best possible scenario for homosexuality—AIDS is programmed, it’s an epiphany. Guibert’s whole strategy was to give a meaning to AIDS. All of a sudden we were dealing with a purely sacrificial logic and, for the sacrifice to be complete, the victim had to consent. So there it was: Guibert was the consenting victim. That really disgusted me. Guibert told me that a good queer is a dead queer: for myself, I need other fictions.

Guibert himself seems to validate this view when he admits that ever since he was twelve, he’s had a “thing about death.” After seeing Roger Corman’s Premature Gentleman, in a coffin at a movie theater called the Styx, he “constantly sought out the most spectacular attributes of death, begging my father to let me have the skull that had accompanied him through medical school, hypnotizing myself with horror films and beginning to write, under the pseudonym of Hector Lenoir, a story that recounted the anguish of a phantom chained in an oubliette in the castle of the Hohenzollern, gorging myself on macabre tales like the ones in those Alfred Hitchcock anthologies, wandering around cemeteries and breaking in my first camera with photographs of children’s tombs, going all the way to Palermo just to see the Capuchin mummies, collecting stuffed birds of prey, like Anthony Perkins in Psycho, because death seemed to me horribly beautiful, magically appalling…” When he gets his positive HIV test, he admits he feels “a kind of jubilation.” “I began to disdain this bric-a-brac, put away the medical school skull, avoided cemeteries like the plague, for I’d reached another stage in the love of death, as though I were impregnated by death in my innermost being and no longer needed those trappings, but desired instead a closer intimacy with my idol, continually seeking the feelings it provoked, the most precious and hateful of all: fear and longing.”

I’d say Mangeot is largely right—but not, I think, altogether. Having read his book Ghost Image, about photography at the edge of death, it’s difficult not to read Guibert’s illness as the concretization of his most intimate existential aspirations, which thus provides the crystallizing element in his autofictional project’s construction (Guibert helped popularize the genre). (Cultural differences are certainly at play here. The very notion of a gay “community” in the American sense hardly existed at all in France. Terminal illness was also considered a very private matter. ACT UP of course was an American export.)

There’s racism scattered here and there (perhaps throughout Guibert’s oeuvre), surfacing particularly when Guibert talks about Africa as the culprit. He doesn’t seem to care (or even think) much about the consequences of AIDS at all outside his highly privileged circle of friends, which affords him the chance to get experimental drugs before others. But he does have rage. And this rage, unsublimated into activism, pours out onto the page like black bile, in a violent, bitter torrent that splashes on nearly everyone his pen encounters. His friend Marine (a veiled Isabelle Adjani), for example, who promises to star in a film of one of his scripts but deserts him to marry an American multimillionaire actor, after being his mistress for some time. In Guibert’s revenge piece, she appears at the César Awards (annoyingly translated as the “Academy Awards”) “in a god-awful white dress looped with pearls, wearing her hair in a frumpy bun, and tottering on too-high heels with her fur piece awry like a drunken Mae West, when she wasn’t even thirty years old yet, a dress that screamed bad luck, in my opinion…” (You can see what she really looked like here.) He hopes she gets what he has. He hopes she dies from it! He’s withering in his description of the frosty staff and the rather crude facilities of the hospitals he visits, which remind him of Dachau. Channeling Thomas Bernhard, whom he explicitly characterizes as his competitor, he writes in a mode that… well, isn’t quite funny, but threatens at any moment to turn funny, despite its extreme rancor. His comedy similarly draws its venomous nourishment from his rage against bourgeois propriety and social codes—which must be what propels him to “out” Foucault’s AIDS (which his sister wishes to have struck from the registrar: “The sister had demanded that they cross this out, that they blacken it completely, or scratch it out if they had to, or even better, tear out the page and redo it, for while these records are of course confidential, still, you never know, perhaps in ten or twenty years some muckraking biographer will come and Xerox the entry, or X-ray the impression still faintly legible on the next page”)—as well as his sadomasochistic tendencies. Guibert is shameless, or rather, perhaps, ostentatious of what others would be ashamed of, for he’s a ghost now, trapped in a twilight zone that AIDS has created, a no-man’s land, where Eros and Thanatos are the most passionate of lovers, and where what could be heaven blossoms into hell. He’s going to haunt his friends and society reminding them of their broken promises. “Like Muzil [Foucault], I would have liked to have had the strength, the insane pride, as well as the generosity, to tell no one, allowing friendships to live as lightly as air, carefree and eternal.” But he couldn’t! All this thrills me.

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

English: To the Friend who Didn't Save my Life / German: Dem Freund, der mir das Leben nicht gerettet hat
Writing in the tradition of Bataille, Genet and de Sade, Guibert shows illness as violence, as obscenity. In this text, a pioneering work of autofiction, the author describes the process of dying of AIDS in the second half of the 1980's. Upon its initial publication, the book was perceived as a scandal, because it also gives detailed accounts of Michel Foucault's love for sauna orgies and his demise of AIDS (he was a good friend of Guibert and officially died of cancer, which wasn't true), and it talks about Isabelle Adjani's mental strain as a woman in the film industry. The title-giving "friend" is a pharma representative who gives Guibert hope, but fails to fulfill his promises. Guibert, severely ill, finally died two weeks after attempting to take his own life (which, obviously, happened after finishing this book, but the book already reflects his detailed thoughts on when and how to kill himself).

The text paints a grim picture of Guibert's odyssee between doctors and hospitals when HIV was still a death sentence and the people treating it didn't know what they were doing, because the science just wasn't there. The language is sometimes full of agony, and often sarcastic, reminiscent of Guibert's great idol Thomas Bernhard: The author claims to be infected with both HIV and Bernhard's literary style. Also, Guibert gives an impression of how the groups particularly threatened by it and those affected tried to deal with the illness. The narrator/Guibert is desperate and terrified, he tries to outrun destiny, but we are constantly reminded of his decline by the mention of his free-falling T cell count. His sick friends use different tactics trying to cope, and Guibert's portayal of the power struggles in the first French AIDS organisation is rather sobering.

A worthwhile read that for some reason doesn't get enough attention. You can listen to my German radio piece about it (including statements by translator Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel) here, and you can also check out Guibert's Cytomegalovirus: A Hospitalization Diary.

[Alwynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brave, beautiful, brutal, absurd, overwhelmingly intense, Herve Guibert’s brilliant auto-fictional piece is an innovative, completely unorthodox chronicle of living in a world and a body transformed, increasingly dissected and disfigured by AIDs. Guibert’s disjointed narrative can be challenging to read. It’s marked by abrupt shifts in style and atmosphere, unexpected leaps in time and space - from the early years of the 1980s when rumours of a so-called ‘gay plague’ started to circulate, through to the late 1980s when Guibert finally confronts his own mortality. Although his illness manifests early on, Guibert postpones a formal diagnosis, there are no treatments available, confirmation’s merely the acquisition of a label that marks out its bearers, a certain route to isolation and pariah status. As Guibert’s story progresses it’s evident that the culture and the silences surrounding AIDs are almost as deadly as the illness itself.

I thought Guibert’s writing was remarkably accomplished, even as it veers between drily observational and diatribe, it’s never less than impressively disciplined. Long, hypnotic sentences alternate with moments of terse, documentary-style clarity. Sometimes he’s consciously channelling the spirit of Thomas Bernhard, an approach that’s swiftly derailed by passages fuelled by grotesque, Genetesque excess. These then collide with detached, almost clinical accounts of his treatment by an array of so-called medical experts: charlatans who inject his body with bizarre concoctions, manipulative doctors who mine him for gossip, profit or sources of investment from his famous friends, all the while subjecting him to exhaustive, often pointless, tests, a succession of needle-pricks and bloodletting resembling some obscure form of medieval torture. This is juxtaposed with an intimate, tender series of snapshots charting the inexorable decline of Guibert’s close friend and neighbour, the erudite, witty Muzil, a public intellectual now obsessed with blending into the background. Guibert’s grief at the loss of his friend is a stark contrast to his own experience of betrayal by another friend Bill, who teases and tantalises with promises of a revolutionary cure, even though he knows it doesn’t exist.

When Guibert’s roman faux (false novel) was published in France in 1990, it was celebrated but also condemned for its candid depiction of Muzil, a thinly-veiled version of renowned philosopher Michel Foucault. In addition, the book was slated by gay activist organisations like Act-Up, for the way it depicted gay relationships and what was seen as a highly personal, apolitical stance. But even though the first cases linked to AIDs dated back to 1981, and the level of infection was higher than in many other European countries, the French response to AIDs reflected lingering social taboos around illness, constructed as an individual rather than a collective concern, something that should happen behind closed doors, out of sight. However, the highly publicised controversy surrounding Guibert’s account not only made him an overnight celebrity but unexpectedly opened up broader conversations about the disease, making it that much harder to overlook or wilfully ignore.

Recently republished in English To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life

[David Carrasco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Los que nacimos en los sesenta y vivimos la vida en los ochenta tenemos algo en común: a todos nos falta alguien. Un hermano que se fue antes de tiempo, un amigo que se perdió en la bruma, un novio, un compañero, un amante que la enfermedad se llevó sin avisar. El sida no pedía permiso, no perdonaba y dejaba detrás un vacío que todavía nos duele. Es un recuerdo que marcó una generación —quizá la verdadera generación perdida—, te atraviesa y no se va. Por eso nos cuesta tanto afrontar libros como este, en el que surge la voz de Hervé Guibert escribiendo mientras observa cómo todo a su alrededor se desmorona. Porque no puedes evitar preguntarte: ¿se puede escribir sobre la propia muerte como si fuera una novela?

Hervé Guibert lo intentó, y en Al amigo que no me salvó la vida convirtió esa pregunta en una bomba de relojería. No hay prólogo amable ni advertencia de seguridad: en la primera línea ya te dice: “Durante tres meses tuve el SIDA”, y tú sabes que eso no es médicamente posible, pero también que no estás aquí para una clase de biología. Estás aquí para asistir a un combate a calzón quitado entre un hombre y su enfermedad, entre la verdad y la ficción, entre la esperanza y la certeza de que no habrá milagro.

La historia —si es que a este tipo de confesión se le puede llamar así— sigue a un narrador en primera persona: el propio Hervé Guibert, fotógrafo, escritor y cineasta francés. Lo acompañamos durante un par de años cruciales, desde que el sida empieza a llevarse, uno a uno, a sus amigos más cercanos, hasta que la enfermedad le alcanza a él. Son mediados de los ochenta, cuando el sida era todavía un fantasma mal definido: se hablaba de “la peste rosa”, los hospitales no sabían cómo tratarlo y el miedo —más que el virus— se encargaba de aislar a los enfermos.

A partir de ahí, el libro se convierte en una especie de pseudo diario: capítulos muy cortos, casi fogonazos, que alternan recuerdos, reflexiones y crónicas médicas. Esa estructura le da agilidad y urgencia a la lectura, pero también puede resultar un hándicap: los amigos y conocidos entran y salen con nombre propio, sin introducción, sin contexto, como si el lector ya estuviera en la conversación desde hace años. El resultado es que a veces cuesta saber quién es quién, y hasta el final no terminas de encajar todas las piezas. ¿Es un defecto? Quizá. O tal vez sea parte del pacto implícito: aquí no se explica todo, igual que la vida no lo hace.

Lo que sí se explica —y se explica demasiado bien— es el deterioro físico y la idea del suicidio. Guibert mide su recuento de linfocitos T4 como quien cuenta monedas para un viaje en metro sin retorno. No hay solemnidad, pero sí una crudeza que roza lo clínico, salpicada de ironías y de un humor que parece más un acto de autodefensa que un recurso literario. En ese tono se nota la influencia de Thomas Bernhard —un autor al que Guibert confiesa en la propia novela admirar y detestar a partes iguales—, con frases largas, obsesivas, que se enroscan sobre sí mismas, y luego cortes secos, como si necesitara tomar aire antes de volver a sumergirse.

El “amigo” del título es un personaje real disfrazado apenas por un pseudónimo —un hombre, alto directivo de una industria farmacéutica, que le promete un tratamiento experimental milagroso y “desaparece” en el momento decisivo. Y esa ausencia se convierte en un agujero negro que todo lo devora: la confianza, la gratitud, la fe en que la amistad pueda ser un lugar seguro. No hay traición explícita, ni gritos, ni grandes escenas de ruptura: hay un hueco, un silencio que se lo come todo. La novela es tanto una crónica de la enfermedad como un ajuste de cuentas feroz, donde cada página es mezcla de confesión íntima y acusación pública.

Pero reducir el libro a un documento sobre el sida sería quedarse corto. Es también un retrato de un París intelectual que ya no existe, un escenario en el que los cafés y las habitaciones se llenaban de escritores, fotógrafos y filósofos, muchos de ellos desaparecidos antes de tiempo. Además, Guibert no se detiene ante la fama ni la intimidad: asigna nombres ficticios a sus amigos y conocidos más cercanos, desde el “amigo” traidor (Bill) hasta figuras reconocibles como la actriz Isabelle Adjani, a quien llama Marine, o el filósofo Michel Foucault, amigo íntimo de Guibert y fallecido de sida, que aparece como Muzil. Este recurso no solo protege identidades, sino que intensifica la sensación de que estamos ante una obra híbrida, entre diario y novela, donde lo personal se transforma en literatura sin concesiones. Y aunque Guibert no hace un homenaje sentimental, su mera presencia carga el texto de una melancolía brutal: aquí se habla de una generación entera que se fue apagando mientras el resto del mundo miraba hacia otro lado.

Por eso no es difícil percibir ecos de otras voces que abordaron el dolor, la enfermedad y la muerte con igual honestidad: Duras, con su mirada clínica y poética en El mal de la muerte, o incluso Didion en El año del pensamiento mágico , donde la introspección se convierte en un espejo del deterioro físico y emocional. Y más allá de la autoficción, Guibert dialoga con esa tradición literaria francesa de crueldad elegante y precisión moral que encontramos en Bataille o en los ensayos de Sartre sobre la libertad y la angustia. Todo esto se filtra en su escritura, sin necesidad de nombres explícitos en cada página, dejando al lector intuir un París —y una literatura— donde la vida y la muerte se entrelazan sin concesiones.

Y es que, en cierto modo, la autoficción le permite a Guibert un doble movimiento: protegerse y exponerse al mismo tiempo. Ficcionaliza lo justo para esquivar la pornografía del dolor, pero deja bastante verdad como para que cada página duela. Por eso, al leerlo, uno no sabe si está frente a una novela, un diario, una confesión, o un ajuste de cuentas. Y quizá no importe ponerle etiqueta: lo que importa es que, incluso sabiendo el final, la voz que habla aquí sigue viva, terca, irónica, incómoda.

Ponerle nota a este libro es casi una broma: Guibert no escribió para agradar, sino que dejó literalmente su vida en esta obra, página a página. Guibert falleció a finales de 1991, apenas un año después de publicar el libro. Y creo que lo mínimo que uno puede hacer es reconocerlo y leerlo. Por eso le doy cinco estrellas: porque pocas veces un libro logra ser al mismo tiempo un testimonio brutal, una confesión íntima y una obra literaria que no te permite apartar la mirada.

No hay moraleja, ni cierre que te reconcilie con el mundo. Al contrario: cuando acabas, te queda la sensación de haber escuchado a alguien que, traicionado por su cuerpo y por algunos de sus amigos, todavía tuvo la lucidez y la ferocidad de contarlo. Y eso, quizá no pudo salvar su vida, pero salvó su voz. Una voz que, treinta años después, continúa interrumpiendo cualquier intento de pasar página y sigue arañando como esos gatos cabreados que no se dejan acariciar.

[Danilo Scardamaglio · Rating 5 out of 5]

La dolorosa discesa agli inferi scandita dall'AIDS, la consunzione e il terrore vissuti dal narratore, il tutto espresso in una commovente e salvifica sincerità. L'opera (a metà tra autobiografia e romanzo) racconta in prima persona l'esperienza della malattia vissuta da Guibert (malattia che lo porterà alla morte), dove la propria storia personale si interseca alla storia di due amici: la prima, quella di Muzil (alter ego di Foucault), diventa premonitrice della propria malattia; la seconda, quella di Bill (letteralmente l'amico che non mi ha salvato la vita), sarà una storia fatta di inganni e manipolazioni, giocata sul peso della disperazione e della consapevolezza dei giorni contati.
La scrittura di Guibert non si appiattisce su una cupa disperazione dettata dalla malattia, né tantomeno si piega su una scansione diaristica delle tappe di distruzione del proprio corpo e della propria anima. È una scrittura fulgida, espressionistica, fatta di scatti e ripiegamenti, vorticosa e accattivante. Ed è in effetti una scrittura, come scrive lo stesso Guibert, che nasce dall'AIDS: malattia non solo da considerare per l'abisso a cui essa conduce (e soprattutto nell'89, anno di inizio composizione del libro), ma anche per la luce di rivelazione che essa apporta. Osservare la vita dalla morte diventa un filtro di osservazione privilegiato, in cui le cose iniziano ad apparire per ciò che esse sono realmente.
(Non dimenticherò mai la crudezza e la tenerezza di quell'ultimo capitolo).

[Maria Lago · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frenética novela, carrera a contrarreloj de alguien que muere. Guibert se interesa tanto por el mecanismo de la enfermedad que lo mata que olvida contarnos cómo se siente, olvida su rabia.
De verdad, es un asunto muy, muy frío.
Quizás debería releerla, ahora que lo pienso...

[Saxon · Rating 5 out of 5]

i read the first seventy-five pages of this book while sitting in an ER waiting room...fitting? Definitely.

Guibert's world seems to be losing color as his t-cell count continues to drop and friends all around him become the victim of this new and strange disease that seems to only target homosexuals. The words make you feel his fatigue, his empty stomach as he waits in line for another shot in the arm to see how low his count is, his frustration, delusion, and despair. All the while the sentences become lengthier and comma-ridden as if they are in search of an escape or an answer themselves.

Based on his own life, some may criticize this book as being a bit self-serving and it may be. However, that only humanizes the portrayal of the characters to such a realistic point that we are forced to reflect upon ourselves, see things we knew to always be there but didn't want to admit, and give credit to Guibert's sharp insight and relentless honesty for exposing such.

There are some disturbing and difficult images/scenes in this book that are so vivid that they'll stay with me for awhile.

[Tittirossa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un pugno allo stomaco. Nel 1992 l'Aids era mortale nel 99% dei casi, la cura era di là da venire, e le speranze di vita molto basse. Guibert viene a conoscenza di una cura sperimentale e della possibilità di essere inserito nel trial. Ma i suoi valori non sono abbastanza buoni, e l'amico che potrebbe aiutarlo non lo fa (con ragioni motivate).

Un libro che solo fino ad un certo punto si può leggere con distacco, poi sopravviene l'angoscia. Non so se per lui sia stato un conforto scrivere, o solo un modo per anestetizzare la mente in attesa della fine. Provare a sublimare l'arrivo della fine continuando a scrivere, senza essere estetizzanti o patetici richiede una grande arte, e almeno questo avrebbe potuto essere di consolazione (solo che inesorabilmente è morto).

[Sara Zovko · Rating 1 out of 5]

Autobiografski roman francuskog pisca govori o njegovoj borbi s opakom bolesti kojoj još uvijek nema lijeka, a to je AIDS. Čitala sam nekoliko ovakvih knjiga i sve su prepune emocija koje te dotiču na svakoj stranici što nije ni čudno jer AIDS je opaka bolest, umire se polako i u velikim bolovima, a i dalje ju prate brojne kontroverze i nerazumijevanje. Kad sam naišla na ovu knjigu uzela sam ju u ruke bez puno razmišljanja, ali... hrpa likova koji se pojavljuju bez objašnjenja tko su i što su, vremenski tijek pomalo zbunjuje , a i sam tok pisanja je nekako usporen, a sam kraj nedorečen. Ne događa se često da se kod ovakvih tema i ovakvih knjiga moram natjerati da ih pročitam do kraja, ali kod ove je bilo tako. Nakon što sam završila knjigu imala sam osjećaj da zapravo ništa nije rečeno do kraja i nije mi do kraja bilo jasno što je pisac točno htio postići ovom knjigom? Osvetiti se prijatelju koji ga je prevario obećanjem da će ga izliječiti? Nedostaje emocija, iako je ova knjiga pisana u obliku dnevničkih zapisa.
Bolna tema, ali na žalost meni teško da će ova knjiga ostati u pamćenju.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never felt so close to a book or to a writer as I did with this one and with Herve Guibert. While reading, I started looking for other books from him, also his photography albums, which are very intimate and daring.
His writing has a proustian touch, he dissects everything to the most intimate and deep elements, which sometimes can be almost uncomfortable for the reader.
After reading this, let's just say, it is great to be gay in 2019, not having to put up with the horror that HIV and AIDS represented in the 80s and in the 90s.

Guibert's writing is what writing should be: daring, uncomfortable, like a scream. Rarely I had enjoyed every chapter, every page, every paragraph, every sentence, every word, every letter in a book.

[Nora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guibert's writing is so compelling. There are these long long sentences that flow with perfect rhythm: you fall into them, or are picked up by them like a cow in a tornado. Swooped from beneath, not too heavy to be lifted and then swirled around and practically blinded, only to be dropped, minutes later on terra not so firma, which is where I am, having finished the book this afternoon. Now I feel compelled to read a bio about Foucault, now my curiosity is peaked about Guibert's film made during his final weeks. I will read 'Compassion Protocol' and become better acquainted with this much talked about man, this voyeur, this cherub, who was, according to Wikipedia, the 'Andy Warhol of AIDS'.

[Laurent De Maertelaer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Onwaarschijnlijk intense kroniek van een enerzijds onafwendbare en anderzijds reeds lang aangekondigde dood. Verraad en vriendschap gezien door de ogen van het literaire wonderkind Guibert, die op 36-jarige leeftijd uit het leven stapte nog voor aids hem te grazen had. Vriendschap voor Muzil (Michel Foucault) en verraad door Marine (Isabelle Adjani) en vaccin-kwakzalver Bill: 100 korte hoofdstukken, in prachtige ellenlange en bezwerende zinnen, werken toe naar het zelfgekozen einde van de seropositieve Guibert. Mooie ode ook aan Thomas Bernhard: ’ik ben tegen de virtuositeit van Thomas Bernhard in opstand gekomen, en ik arme Guibert, ik speelde des te bezetener, ik poetste mijn wapens om de kampioen van deze tijd te evenaren, ik arme kleine Guibert, voormalig heerser der wereld, die heb moeten buigen voor aids en voor Thomas Bernhard.’

[lön liest · Rating 4 out of 5]

er hat tatsächlich ihm nicht das leben gerettet

[Edragone · Rating 4 out of 5]

4

Un roman intéressant qui suit deux personnages séropositifs dans un cadre où le narrateur est lui-même séropositif. C'était à une époque où les scientifiques balbutiaient et ne savaient pas exactement ce dont il s'agissait : on découvre donc à mesure que le temps avance les espoirs et les craintes des personnages qui sont terrorisés par le VIH quand ils se rendent compte que la mort est la finalité de la chose.
On pourrait dire que le roman est divisé en deux (même s'il ne l'est pas explicitement), d'abord avec le premier personnage, un ami du narrateur et d'Hervé Guibert, Michel Foucault, et un autre de ses amis, Bill.
L'histoire est particulièrement émouvante, d'autant plus dans un contexte où d'autres épidémies du même genre peuvent surgir à n'importe quand.

[Fede La Lettrice · Rating 3 out of 5]

3stelle & mezza

• "All'amico che non mi ha salvato la vita" di Hervé Guibert è un’opera struggente e toccante, un urlo di dolore e di amore che si intrecciano nel racconto di una malattia devastante.

• Il libro, in parte autobiografico, narra la discesa nella sofferenza di un uomo che vede la propria vita scivolare via a causa dell’AIDS, ma lo fa con una lucidità che sorprende e ferisce. Guibert riesce a trasmettere un senso di disperazione profonda, ma anche di tenerezza, parlando del tradimento di un amico che non ha potuto, o voluto, salvarlo.

• L’autore non cerca la pietà, ma offre uno spaccato crudo e sincero della sua esistenza, mettendo a nudo le sue paure e la sua vulnerabilità.

• La scrittura di Guibert è penetrante, quasi chirurgica, riesce a far percepire la lotta contro l’ineluttabile e, allo stesso tempo, un disperato desiderio di aggrapparsi alla vita, alla speranza, agli affetti.

• Nel corso del racconto, Guibert cita lo scrittore austriaco Thomas Bernhard, il cui stile crudo e implacabile sembra risuonare nelle pagine del libro. Guibert si rifà a Bernhard per descrivere il proprio rifiuto verso la pietà e l’autoindulgenza, evocando un parallelismo tra le loro scritture, entrambe contrassegnate da un senso di disillusione e di ribellione contro l’ipocrisia del mondo.

• Il libro fu pubblicato nel 1990, in un periodo in cui la società (io sicuramente) stava ancora elaborando il lutto per la perdita di icone come Freddie Mercury, strappate troppo presto dalla stessa malattia. In questo contesto, l’opera di Guibert diventa non solo una testimonianza personale, ma un riflesso della tragedia collettiva di un'intera generazione.

• Testimonianza del dramma dell’AIDS, incredibile riflessione sulla condizione umana, sull’amicizia, sul dolore e sul tradimento. Un’opera che porta a riflettere sul senso della vita e della morte, con una carica emotiva che colpisce.

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je pense que l'artificialité assumée de l'autofiction n'accroche pas ma sensibilité : entre la fiction et l'autobiographie, on se trouve à un point médian où y a un manque d'authenticité pour mes goûts de lectrice, et c'est totalement subjectif. J'ai l'impression de lire le "moins bon" des deux mondes, et de pas être rassasiée : pourquoi choisir des noms différents pour des personnages qui ont vraiment existé, qu'est ce qui est finalement de la matière vraie, et qu'est ce qui est additionnée ? Et donc je n'arrive pas à rentrer dans le pacte de lecture, et je sais aussi que je me prends beaucoup trop la tête !
J'ai donc pas accroché aux deux premiers tiers : l'écriture tortueuse et ampoulée (les phrases sur 5 pages sont pas très bien maîtrisées je trouve), le name dropping, les anecdotes inutiles... puis l'histoire prend enfin un tour digne d'intérêt avec l'entrée en scène de cet "ami qui ne lui a pas sauvé la vie". J'ai adoré les réflexions sur la finitude absolue de l'homme, actée par le maladie, les égarements de toute une génération décimée, percluse d'angoisses et d'espoir... mais la forme a gâché pour une bonne partie l'émotion qui aurait pu poindre, c'est une question de goût, tout simplement !

[Cecilia Barron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful

It read like a book in 2 parts: first, finding out about AIDS and watching it destroy his friend (the poorly disguised Foucault). Second, getting very angry at his other friend who dangled an imaginary vaccine over his head.

The first part was certainly stronger. The second one, as the afterword noted, became much more a depiction of events and frustrations rather than the poetic, devastating sadness the first 100 pages contained. But it feels unfair to demand sadness from him, as anger, though harder to translate well, was certainly appropriate. Anyways read!

[Federica ~ Excusetheink · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucido, spietato e senza peli sulla lingua. Sorprendente di averlo conosciuto tramite un gruppo Telegram ma non stupita che i suoi testi siano difficili da reperire in italiano (e neppure tutti). Ordinati altri tre a poche pagine dalla fine, assolutamente da riscoprire

[Carlos Eduardo Sarubbi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Livro pesado!!! Acompanhamos o autor vivendo o flagelo da Aids nos anos 80 na França. O livro é muito dolorido e a menção (ou mimetização) a Thomas Bernhard me fisgou totalmente!

[Alex]

Imagine journal-esque autofic but it actually has something valuable and urgent to communicate

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Raúl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hacer de la vida propia una ficción, convertir el momento en que alguien debe aceptar la muerte en un relato. Hervé Guibert habla con una pluma entintada de dolor, con palabras duras, con la muerte a punto de florecer, con lo que es de forma más descarnada la literatura, el reconocimiento del morir. Una novela que se sigue en las dos que cuentan el proceso de la enfermedad, el SIDA, en el cuerpo del narrador, hasta el último momento.

[Pollopicu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't understand why this book got such rave reviews. I guess the reason i didn't like it much is because I've read much better AIDS memoirs, and compared to those this book fell flat. At the end you don't even know what happened to him unless you google it.

If you want to read great AIDS memoir, read Borrowed Time, Or the bio of Greg Louganis, or Freddie and Me, about Freddie Mercury.

[ra · Rating 4 out of 5]

fate is real because i just happened to pick the last copy of this book up while wandering through a bookstore looking for a specific dostoevsky novel. and while this book is itself an agonising and impressive feat of what wayne koestenbaum calls "body-smeared literature", the reason i say fate is real is in the afterword by edmund white, a portion of which reads: "A sustained infamy, this novel [referring to an earlier one of Guibert's works] has only one parallel in English today, Dennis Cooper's narratives about murdering boys, Frisk and Closer."

anyway aside from that, it's insane to me that the foucault portion of this is why this is so famous because it's genuinely the most tedious (and honestly kind of annoying, maybe because it's the most autofictional) part of this whole book which is a likely thing for it to be but the second part of this, once freed of that, is much more compelling

[Dragos C Butuzea · Rating 3 out of 5]

trupul betegit de boală ca centru al lumii

v-ați gândit vreodată cum ar fi să vă treziți cu sida (nu, nu cu personajul lui slavici, ci cu boala)? ei bine, un asemenea gând nu poate dura nici cât un pârț, căci îi facem vânt repede, cu frică de moarte. ei bine, hervé guibert, intelectual francez de elită, ziarist, fotograf și scriitor, chiar s-a trezit, pe la treizeci și ceva de ani, cu sida. pe la finalul anilor '80. și ce-a făcut?

am auzit de el datorită unui alt autor, al cărui roman m-a uimit prin senzualitatea sa, acest ultim autor scriind o carte despre numitul guibert, despre romanul căruia voi vorbi în continuare.

orice-ai face, nu salivezi după cartea asta. prietenului care nu mi-a salvat viața. cel mult te poți amuza de grimasele și anecdotele filozofului michel foucault în ultimele luni, înaintea morții sale (tot de sida), foucault căruia autorul - pare-se - i-a fost și amant. însă te poți amuza morbid. te mai poți amuza de poveștile cu actrița isabelle adjani isterizată după celebritate - actriță de care mă-ndrăgostisem în adolescență stropindu-i posterele afișate din revista cinema. sau te mai poți amuza (otrăvitor de amar) de goana după analizele de sânge și după medicamente miraculoase.

însă în mod sigur vei rămâne prost - cum am rămas eu - remarcând cât de moi suntem, ce cârpă, la-ndemâna bolii și a betegirilor, este trupul din care suntem făcuți.

lumea romanului lui hervé guibert este una a corpului, un corp care, deși bolnav, este tot al său, ba chiar acuma îl simte cu adevărat al său, ba chiar acum începe să-l iubească. este ca o metamorfoză inversă, în care fluturele își pierde aripile și devine vierme, târâtor și beteag, dar al dracului de prezent. și asupra acestui vierme, sufletul - dacă există așa ceva - va trebui să se aplece, va trebui să-i acorde atenție, va trebui să-i studieze geografia, să-i învețe râurile și întunecimile. când zbura, se bucura de vânt și de zbor și-l uitase.

sunt foarte atent la manifestările progresului pe care îl face virusul, mi se pare că-i cunosc harta colonizărilor, asalturilor și retragerilor, îmi închipui că știu locul în care mocnește și locul unde atacă, apoi că simt zonele încă neatinse, dar această luptă din interiorul meu, care organic este foarte reală, analizele științifice o dovedesc, nu înseamnă deocamdată nimic, ai răbdare, băiete, față de suferințele cu siguranță fictive care mă subminau. (pag. 29)

sida ca paradigmă și ca eliberare de ignoranță

Descopeream ceva suav și uluitor în atrocitatea [sidei], cu certitudinea că e o boală inexorabilă dar nu fulgerătoare, o maladie în trepte, o scară foarte lungă ce duce cu siguranță la moarte, dar fiecare treaptă a ei prezintă o ucenicie fără pereche, o boală care îți dă timp să mori și care-i dă morții timp să trăiască, timp să descoperi timpul și să descoperi în sfârșit viața, într-un fel era o invenție modernă genială pe care ne-o transmiseseră maimuțele verzi din Africa. Iar nenorocirea, odată ce te-ai cufundat în ea, era mult mai suportabilă decât presentimentul ei, mult mai puțin crudă în definitiv decât s-ar fi crezut. Dacă viața n-ar fi decât presentimentul morții, torturându-ne fără răgaz cu incertitudinea scadenței, sida, fixând un termen sigur vieții noastre..., făcea din noi niște oameni pe deplin conștienți de viața lor, ne elibera de ignoranța noastră. (p.113)

dincolo de interesul documentar - apariția sida în sânul comunităților homosexuale din occident și începuturile tratării paliative a acesteia (este apărută în 1990) - cartea te taie prin ascuțimea ei psihologică. scriitoare ca hortensia papadat bengescu, după o carte ca asta, ți se va părea o cucoană obosită, zgândărindu-și un furuncul ca să vadă cum e cu durerea. guibert se mobilizează nu atât să lupte contra bolii, dar mai ales să fructifice timpul rămas, să ia aminte la el însuși și să scrie, să scrie, să scrie cărți. nu-l interesează stilul, ci însemnările explozive, intime, care să taie ca cuțitul. și, după moarte, chiar îi vor apărea trei romane. care-i va educa pe franțuji cu privire la sida.

dacă mircea eliade propunea într-un articol să ne facem proiectele ca și cum am fi în ultimul an de viață - și o făcea alintându-se, ca exercițiu de voință - hervé guibert n-a avut luxul ăsta. cu moartea arzându-i la cur, a dat o lecție de care puțini semeni suntem în stare - deschideți dracu' ochii și prețuiți fiecare blestemată de clipă! profitați de ce aveți, că io nu mai am! și, atâta cât am, iată, mă chinui cu trupul ologit de boală să-mi cânt cântecul de lebădă, în loc să mă vait și să-nchid în neputințe și invidii. Sida a fost pentru mine o paradigmă în propriul meu proiect al cunoașterii de sine și enunțării inexprimabilului. (p.154)

un roman cu perspectivă unică asupra vieții și asupra propriei persoane - scris de un om inteligent, condamnat la suferință și moarte, la 36 de ani. o perspectivă destul de rară în lumea noastră superficială postmodernă, preocupată de bănet și de putere. o perspectivă a dracului de adevărată. care pe mine m-a cam tremurat la mațe.

Există un stadiu al nenorocirii, chiar dacă ești ateu, când nu mai poți decât să te rogi sau să-ți pui capăt zilelor. (p.134)

[hanna (lily) · Rating 5 out of 5]

terminei tem uns dias e esqueci de colocar aqui!!! mas gostei tanto tanto dele, acho que foi a leitura de ficção sobre a aids que mais me tocou, porque o livro não fala só de tristeza, desespero e medo da morte, mas fala sobre a família, amizade e amor, no contexto da doença.

[Iryna Chernyshova]

Цю книгу довго шукала, бо читала іншу, про фотографію. Шо ж, вона сумна, бо це автофікшн про людину зі СНІДом під час, коли ще не навчилися блокувати це все.

[Nellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"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."

"I saw myself at that moment in a mirror, and thought I looked extraordinarily handsome, when for months I’d been seeing nothing more in my reflection than a skeleton. I’d just discovered something: in the end, I would’ve had to get used to this cadaverous face that the mirror invariably shows me, as though it already belongs no longer to me but to my corpse, and I would’ve had to succeed, as the height or the renunciation of narcissism, in loving it."

[Richard Gal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading a raw, gut-wrenching account of someone living with AIDS is never easy. When you know you’re about to die, when you understand the world won’t save you, and when you’re in constant pain and discomfort—that’s when writing becomes a form of staying alive.

I struggled at times to keep reading, not because of the writing, but because I already knew how it would end. That knowledge weighed heavily. And yet, through all the cracks, there’s a faint beam of hope in Hervé’s eyes. Seeing it, while knowing the truth, made it all the more heartbreaking.

This book will forever stay with me. For anyone who’s lived through this, or still is: I see you