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Hervelino
On Hervé Guibert and the difficulty of writing and speaking about someone beloved and revered.
“Soon that was my nickname for Hervé, what with my habit of italianizing the names of my nearest and dearest … Hervelino: that didn't make me think so much of Hervé as of us both. The word might not seem like much but it was him and it was me, he took it for himself.”
Mathieu Lindon met the writer and photographer Hervé Guibert in 1978. The nickname Hervelino marked the start of their friendship, which was cemented a decade later by the years they both spent in Rome. Guibert was a pensionnaire at the Villa Médicis starting in 1987; Lindon became a fellow pensionnaire the next year, and the two would stay in Italy until 1990. These Roman years are at the heart of this autobiographie à deux that alternates between humor and melancholy. Guibert had just learned that he was HIV-positive and would die not long after returning to France and rising to fame with his searing masterpiece To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life—in which Lindon himself was a character.
Hervelino is a book about the difficulty of writing and speaking about someone beloved and revered. In recounting their time in Italy, Lindon contends with the impossibility of writing about Guibert: “To write about Rome is to skip over everything I don't dare to write because it's so hard to make sense of Hervé.” Hervelino is a story of a singular friendship, and of the books read and shared by the friend who was loved and lost. As it closes with each inscription Guibert wrote for his friend Mathieu and with Lindon's present-day commentary below it, what remains are shards and fragments of a friendship sealed by illness and death, enshrined by literature and love.
“Soon that was my nickname for Hervé, what with my habit of italianizing the names of my nearest and dearest … Hervelino: that didn't make me think so much of Hervé as of us both. The word might not seem like much but it was him and it was me, he took it for himself.”
Mathieu Lindon met the writer and photographer Hervé Guibert in 1978. The nickname Hervelino marked the start of their friendship, which was cemented a decade later by the years they both spent in Rome. Guibert was a pensionnaire at the Villa Médicis starting in 1987; Lindon became a fellow pensionnaire the next year, and the two would stay in Italy until 1990. These Roman years are at the heart of this autobiographie à deux that alternates between humor and melancholy. Guibert had just learned that he was HIV-positive and would die not long after returning to France and rising to fame with his searing masterpiece To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life—in which Lindon himself was a character.
Hervelino is a book about the difficulty of writing and speaking about someone beloved and revered. In recounting their time in Italy, Lindon contends with the impossibility of writing about Guibert: “To write about Rome is to skip over everything I don't dare to write because it's so hard to make sense of Hervé.” Hervelino is a story of a singular friendship, and of the books read and shared by the friend who was loved and lost. As it closes with each inscription Guibert wrote for his friend Mathieu and with Lindon's present-day commentary below it, what remains are shards and fragments of a friendship sealed by illness and death, enshrined by literature and love.
- GenresNonfictionFrance
160 pages, Paperback
Published October 25, 2022
7 people are currently reading
136 people want to read
About the author
Mathieu Lindon
34 books9 followersMathieu Lindon is the author of nineteen books and a staff writer for Liberacion. Learning What Love Means received the prestigious Prix Medici in France in 2011. It is the first of his works to appear in English.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 19, 2024
Um emotivo relato de uma amizade especial do autor, Mathieu Lindon, com Herve Guibert, um dos mais fascinantes escritores franceses dos anos 80, que escreveu intensas páginas sobre o HIV/Sida.
March 11, 2023
I'm enjoying this on cold, rainy winter nights, often soaking in a hot bath. Would I enjoy something so chatty and gossipy on a hot summer night? Maybe not.
January 18, 2025
One of the worst book ive read. Contrary to Hervé guibert who gives his name to the book, mathieu lindon, nepo baby of the litteray word has no urgence to write feel or live. Therefore in front of the tragedy of AIDS he's irrelevant. Lame.
December 1, 2023
Uma biografia nada linear. O autor traz trechos de acontecimentos da sua memória junto ao Herve e não fazem jus a uma ordem cronológico. Muito mais do que a vida do autor, são acontecimentos compartilhados entre escritor e perfilado, a maioria sobre a produção literária. Isso faz nos instigar para saber mais sobre o biografado em suas escritas.
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June 5, 2022Il faut bien reconnaitre que je ne sais pas de qui on parle. Je trouve que c'est courageux de se présenter très souvent sous des traits antipathiques pour rendre Hervé sympathique. J'aimerais bien passer des vacances à la villa medecis.
March 8, 2021
En évoquant ses années passées en Italie aux côtés d'Hervé Guibert, Matthieu Lindon livre une méditation sur l'amour et le deuil. Un récit émouvant.
December 4, 2021
Un petit livre sur l'amitié, Rome, aller au restaurant, écrire des livres, affronter la mort. Il m'a beaucoup plu et immensément émue.
February 27, 2024
A nice companion to To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life.
August 20, 2024
Just read Guibert himself instead
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May 17, 2025it spends way too much time spiraling in time to when it actually develops a narrative and therefore becomes interesting, the book is half over. i feel like there is so much here but the way lindon writes prevents anything from being spoken out loud.
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March 8, 2023Would have meant more to me if I'd been familiar with Lindon or Guibert's work since the book itself was only so-so.
February 10, 2023
beautiful friendship they loved each other so much, heartbreaking - hervelino -
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews