Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Youthful Writings
- 2 Photographic Writing
- 3 Towards the Novel
- 4 Image and Text
- 5 The ‘Novel’
- 6 ‘Autobiography’
- 7 Towards the Roman Faux
- 8 The Roman Faux
- 9 Thanatographical Writing
- 10 The Fictitious, the Fake or the Delirious
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Notes to Chapter One
- Notes to Chapter Two
- Notes to Chapter Three
- Notes to Chapter Four
- Notes to Chapter Five
- Notes to Chapter Six
- Notes to Chapter Seven
- Notes to Chapter Eight
- Notes to Chapter Nine
- Notes to Chapter Ten
- Notes to Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index of Names
- Index of Notes
8 - The Roman Faux
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Youthful Writings
- 2 Photographic Writing
- 3 Towards the Novel
- 4 Image and Text
- 5 The ‘Novel’
- 6 ‘Autobiography’
- 7 Towards the Roman Faux
- 8 The Roman Faux
- 9 Thanatographical Writing
- 10 The Fictitious, the Fake or the Delirious
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Notes to Chapter One
- Notes to Chapter Two
- Notes to Chapter Three
- Notes to Chapter Four
- Notes to Chapter Five
- Notes to Chapter Six
- Notes to Chapter Seven
- Notes to Chapter Eight
- Notes to Chapter Nine
- Notes to Chapter Ten
- Notes to Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index of Names
- Index of Notes
Summary
When À l'ami qui ne m'a pas sauvé la vie appeared in 1990, a scandal erupted in the press, a sort of trial by media, pointing the accusatory finger at Hervé Guibert and at his publisher because it was thought that behind some of the characters real people could be recognised, in particular Michel Foucault under the guise of ‘Muzil’. L'Événement du jeudi set the tone with a special report entitled ‘La littérature a–t–elle tous les droits?’ (‘Can literature do just as it pleases?’) with the suggestive subheading: ‘Hervé Guibert raconte l'agonie de Michel Foucault’ (‘Hervé Guibert's account of Michel Foucault's deathagony’). On the next page the summary heading reads: ‘Michel Foucault est mort en 1984, officiellement du cancer, en vérité du sida. Dans un livre d'un réalisme parfois insoutenable, Hervé Guibert raconte les derniers jours du philosophe. En a–t–il le droit? Était–ce àGallimard, éditeur du philosophe, de publier ce livre? Débat’ (‘Michel Foucault died in 1984, officially of cancer but in fact of AIDS. In a book of frequently unbearable realism, Hervé Guibert gives an account of the philosopher's last days. Does he have the right to do so? Was Gallimard, the philosopher's publisher, entitled to publish this book? We debate the issues’).
On 16 March 1990 Guibert was one of the guests on ‘Apostrophes’, the book programme hosted on French television by Bernard Pivot. There too the accent was placed on the revelations about Foucault (‘Est–ce que vous aviez le droit de raconter l'agonie et la mort de Michel Foucault, qui était votre ami?’ ‘Did you have the right to give an account of the last moments and the death of Michel Foucault, who was your friend?’) This media exposure of Guibert's book and his appearance on television had the effect of catapulting his book into the best–seller lists, thereby confirming Régis Debray's analyses in his study Le Pouvoir intellectuel en France. From then on, Guibert was and remained firmly in the public eye until his death. Indeed, it is from this point onwards that the majority of people started to know of him and of his work.
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- Hervé GuibertVoices of the Self, pp. 191 - 206Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1999