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
5 - The ‘Novel’
- 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
The two books studied in this section are subtitled ‘novel’. Going by what has been said in the preceding four chapters, we can bet that a novel written by Guibert will deal with bodies and death and that it will be motivated by a sentiment of love. We can also wonder what role the image will play in this novel and what the relationship between truth and falsehood will be. It will also be interesting to see whether a ‘je’ (‘I’) narrator makes an appearance and, if so, under what identity(ies).
DES AVEUGLES
Des Aveugles was published by Gallimard in 1985. It tells the story of a sightless couple (Robert and Josette) who live in an institution, the calm of which will be disturbed the day the masseur ‘Taillegueur’ appears on the scene and becomes Josette's lover. The ‘récit d'épouvante’ (‘horror story’) announced on the back cover does not materialise; it could be said at a pinch that a roman noir is triggered from page 110 onwards, Josette having sworn to kill Robert if her coat is ruined. The murder plan will only be discussed on page 122 and Josette will quickly drop it once she finds out that Taillegueur has made love to a little boy (p. 128). It is Taillegueur who will die accidentally, trying to trap Robert, and Josette will be swallowed by the lagodon; the roman noir will have taken up only twenty pages or so. Love will lead to death.
If one refers to what is written on the back cover (‘la femme, le mari, l'amant’), one has however to wait until page 82, more than halfway through the novel, for the Taillegueur character to appear. It will not be the last time that the back cover forms part of the deception (one thinks in particular of Mes parents and L'Incognito). Guibert gives the discrepancy a logical explanation: ‘Je me souviens d'avoir beaucoup lutté contre l'arrivée de ce personnage […] Àun certain moment, l'histoire policière, l'histoire d'épouvante à laquelle j'avais d'abord pensé, et qui représente un des aspects du livre, a cessé, au fond, de m'intéresser’ (‘I remember having put up quite a struggle against the arrival of this character […] At a certain point the detective story, the horror story that I had thought of at first and that represents one aspect of the book, basically stopped interesting me’).
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- Information
- Hervé GuibertVoices of the Self, pp. 123 - 144Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1999