The books studied in this chapter vary from a collection of short stories (Mauve le vierge), a stage play (Vole mon dragon), two books without generic subtitle (Les Gangsters/Fou de Vincent), a novel (L'Incognito), and lastly a text between short story and novel (La chair fraîche). We can already see that between 1988 and 1990 Guibert uses a whole variety of genres. I shall therefore try to evaluate them with respect to the project of the voices of the self by concentrating on the identity of the narrator and on the narrative voices, and since the chapter is called ‘Towards the roman faux’, I shall also concentrate on the relationship between truth and falsehood.

MAUVE LE VIERGE/VOLE MON DRAGON

Published in 1988, Mauve le vierge bears the generic subtitle ‘nouvelles’ (‘short stories’). It was the first time a book of Guibert's bore the appellation ‘short stories’. But the question arises what generic differences there are between these short stories and the stories in Les Aventures singulières, especially when some of them like ‘Le désir d'imitation’ (‘The Desire to Imitate’) are called ‘nouvelles’ (‘short stories’) by Guibert. The only difference in my view between Les Aventures singulières and Mauve le vierge is that there is a thread running through Les Aventures singulières, the singularity of the adventures, whereas there is none in Mauve le vierge, which allows Guibert to juxtapose more freely short stories with different subjects in the same volume. So we will not be seeing in Mauve le vierge a fresh chapter in the enterprise of the voices of the self, but a chapter partially written already, especially since, although the book was actually published in 1988, everything indicates that some of the ten short stories were written several years before.

Why lay such stress on the dating of the short stories? Because this information is of capital importance for my study. Instead of being confronted with a move by Guibert to compose short stories after writing and publishing three novels, then an ‘autobiographie de jeunesse’ (‘youthful autobiography’) which, as we have seen, is more like what I have dubbed a roman faux, eveything indicates that we are faced with a collection of short stories, some of which predate the writing of the novels.