Angelic Echoes: Hervé Guibert and Company

Ian C. Nelson is librarian emeritus and former Assistant Director of
Libraries (Collection Management & Budget) University of Saskatchewan
Library and Dramaturge for the Festival de la Dramaturgie des Prairies.

Hervé Guibert (1955–1991) was photography critic for Le Monde from
1977 to 1985 but he is more noted for having created a resounding
literary scandal with the 1990 publication of his novel А l’ami qui
ne m’a pas sauvé la vie (To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life) in
which he appeared to betray his profoundly intimate relationship with
the philosopher and closeted gay icon, Michel Foucault. Guibert’s AIDS
trilogy is part of a complex body of self-revelatory work in which fact
mixes with fiction, a style Professor Sarkonak characterizes as
“fictionalized autobiography” or “autofiction.” The genre is
informed and nurtured, to be sure, by that peculiar and time-honored
French convention of writing and publishing fragmentary journals of
daily experience or reflections (pensées), systematized in their own
philosophical and semiological spheres by both Foucault and another
intergenerational intimate of Guibert, likewise an icon, Roland Barthes.


This is rich territory for academic sleuth work and analysis; witness
the rapidly growing list of academic articles, biographies, and symposia
on the subject of all three of these literati. Professor Sarkonak has
been an influential contributor to and organizer of Guibertian studies
in particular. With Angelic Echoes he places his significant seal on
them with a peculiar and personal dedication. His familiarity with the
Guibert oeuvre is encyclopedic; he is rigorous in discerning themes,
allusions, and influences (even to the point of ferreting out some
amazing numerological references and inversions). He embraces the
iconoclasm of his subject in challenging many current approaches to AIDS
literary theory and aesthetic criticism, including the proscription (of
Sontag, among others) of metaphor in the description of illness. Guibert
was “neither politically correct nor politically
involved”—characteristics that, together with his avowed narcissism,
exhibitionism, and self-reflexivity, provoked many.

Lively academic discussion of Guibert’s work, of the cryptic keys to
his autofictions, and of his own literary and photographic legacy will
certainly continue for some time to come. Professor Sarkonak’s book is
an important contribution to the debate and is highly recommended for
all academic collections.