Forwarded message:
>From zamierow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Sun Feb 20 19:48:39 1994
From: zamierow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Mark Zamierowski)
Subject: Rhizome questions
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 94 20:44:27 EST
Okay, I'll try this again. With any luck, my mailer won't stall and
boot me out again.
What follows is a bunch of questions brought to mind for me from the
first couple of pages of "Rhizome." I'm just being banal by beginning
at the beginning here; I'm not suggsting that a line-by-line analysis
is either a preferrable or a necessary means of proceeding. Clearly,
given the way D&G write, the movements/lines produced at the outset of
a work will be multiplied/extended/reprised/etc'd as the work is
produced; hence, a deliberate approach will involve us in tangles of
interpretation that are alleged at variance with D&G's arguments
against interpretosis. Nevertheless, since people may not have found
the time to read through all of "Rhizome," I don't think it will hurt
to see what kind of fun can be had with the first few pages.
D&G write (emphasis added): AS IN ALL THINGS, in a book there are
lines of articulation or segmentarity, strata and territiories; but
also lines of flight, movements of deterritorialization and
destratification. Comparative rates of flow on these lines produce
phenomena of relative slowness and viscosity, or, on the contrary, of
acceleration and rupture.
MZ scratches head: That "as in all things" invariably makes me stumble
as I read. Such a universal claim, I suppose, can only make one
suspicious. However, what that phrase forces upon me is a recognition
of how abstract a level of description D&G are working at. That
abstraction seems both a key component of their work and style (how
many times later on will they claim that certain linguists or
philosophers are not abstract enough?) as well as an efficient cause
of many of the critiques levelled against them (I'm thinking here
particularly of the confusion in literary circles of "minority" and
"minoritarian" literature). While their abstraction makes their work
seemingly widely applicable and exciting, it also causes problems at
the level of application. We will be enjoined to QUANTIFY WRITING. But
how? How do we differentiate the "variously formed matters, and very
different dates and speeds" which books are made of?
D&G (crude paraphrase): AS ASSEMBLAGE--the book is made in-between the
strata (on one side) which capture it by way of an organism-effect: on
the side of the strata, the book-assemblage is on the order of a
signifying totality or attributable act/object of a subject; on the
other side, the book-assemblage is continually open to the
dissipative, chaotic activity of the BwO: on the side of the BwO, the
book-assemblage is so much coagulated matter which must be acted upon
in order that pure intensities and asignifying particles may
pass/circulate/flow.
Questions: How do we read this in-between-ness of the book-assemblage?
Is the book-assemblage in some sense the exterior relation of the
strata and the BwO? Or is it something produced by/within that
relation? Or is it that the book-assemblage constructs the (an?)
exterior relation of the strata and the BwO by way of its own
in-between-ness, by passing transversally between them like a
two-sided surface? Is it worthwhile to think in terms of the strata
as preceding (at least temporally) the book-assemblage and the BwO as
not preceding but being constructed by the book-assemblage?
D&G (paraphrased one last time): Literature is an assemblage;
literature is not itself an organism or signifying totality, but a
literary machine which MUST be plugged into other machines (war
machines, love machines, bureaucracy machines, etc.) IN ORDER TO WORK.
It has nothing to do with ideology. There is no ideology and never has
been.
Questions: What is the [anideological] work of the literary machine? Can
it be said to have something like an identifiable/assignible/iterable
task? Or is the plugging into other machines and thereby effecting new
sequences of flows and breaks of measurable quanta the only work that
needs be considered? And can we say that while there never may have
been anything like ideology, there certainly has been no shortage of
ideology machines?
As you can see, my interests are primarily literary. But that's my
problem. And these questions are first and foremeost discussion
starters: tinker with them or discard them as you like. If you're
uneasy about posting to the list, please send me e-mail.
And speaking of e-mail, can someone send me Michael Current's address?
I've lost it (which is why I didn't send these questions to him
first). Unless I've really missed the boat here, I got a deadly
e-hug coming.
MZ
--
Mark Zamierowski _.,-~'`^`'~*-,._ zamierow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------
>From zamierow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Sun Feb 20 19:48:39 1994
From: zamierow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Mark Zamierowski)
Subject: Rhizome questions
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 94 20:44:27 EST
Okay, I'll try this again. With any luck, my mailer won't stall and
boot me out again.
What follows is a bunch of questions brought to mind for me from the
first couple of pages of "Rhizome." I'm just being banal by beginning
at the beginning here; I'm not suggsting that a line-by-line analysis
is either a preferrable or a necessary means of proceeding. Clearly,
given the way D&G write, the movements/lines produced at the outset of
a work will be multiplied/extended/reprised/etc'd as the work is
produced; hence, a deliberate approach will involve us in tangles of
interpretation that are alleged at variance with D&G's arguments
against interpretosis. Nevertheless, since people may not have found
the time to read through all of "Rhizome," I don't think it will hurt
to see what kind of fun can be had with the first few pages.
D&G write (emphasis added): AS IN ALL THINGS, in a book there are
lines of articulation or segmentarity, strata and territiories; but
also lines of flight, movements of deterritorialization and
destratification. Comparative rates of flow on these lines produce
phenomena of relative slowness and viscosity, or, on the contrary, of
acceleration and rupture.
MZ scratches head: That "as in all things" invariably makes me stumble
as I read. Such a universal claim, I suppose, can only make one
suspicious. However, what that phrase forces upon me is a recognition
of how abstract a level of description D&G are working at. That
abstraction seems both a key component of their work and style (how
many times later on will they claim that certain linguists or
philosophers are not abstract enough?) as well as an efficient cause
of many of the critiques levelled against them (I'm thinking here
particularly of the confusion in literary circles of "minority" and
"minoritarian" literature). While their abstraction makes their work
seemingly widely applicable and exciting, it also causes problems at
the level of application. We will be enjoined to QUANTIFY WRITING. But
how? How do we differentiate the "variously formed matters, and very
different dates and speeds" which books are made of?
D&G (crude paraphrase): AS ASSEMBLAGE--the book is made in-between the
strata (on one side) which capture it by way of an organism-effect: on
the side of the strata, the book-assemblage is on the order of a
signifying totality or attributable act/object of a subject; on the
other side, the book-assemblage is continually open to the
dissipative, chaotic activity of the BwO: on the side of the BwO, the
book-assemblage is so much coagulated matter which must be acted upon
in order that pure intensities and asignifying particles may
pass/circulate/flow.
Questions: How do we read this in-between-ness of the book-assemblage?
Is the book-assemblage in some sense the exterior relation of the
strata and the BwO? Or is it something produced by/within that
relation? Or is it that the book-assemblage constructs the (an?)
exterior relation of the strata and the BwO by way of its own
in-between-ness, by passing transversally between them like a
two-sided surface? Is it worthwhile to think in terms of the strata
as preceding (at least temporally) the book-assemblage and the BwO as
not preceding but being constructed by the book-assemblage?
D&G (paraphrased one last time): Literature is an assemblage;
literature is not itself an organism or signifying totality, but a
literary machine which MUST be plugged into other machines (war
machines, love machines, bureaucracy machines, etc.) IN ORDER TO WORK.
It has nothing to do with ideology. There is no ideology and never has
been.
Questions: What is the [anideological] work of the literary machine? Can
it be said to have something like an identifiable/assignible/iterable
task? Or is the plugging into other machines and thereby effecting new
sequences of flows and breaks of measurable quanta the only work that
needs be considered? And can we say that while there never may have
been anything like ideology, there certainly has been no shortage of
ideology machines?
As you can see, my interests are primarily literary. But that's my
problem. And these questions are first and foremeost discussion
starters: tinker with them or discard them as you like. If you're
uneasy about posting to the list, please send me e-mail.
And speaking of e-mail, can someone send me Michael Current's address?
I've lost it (which is why I didn't send these questions to him
first). Unless I've really missed the boat here, I got a deadly
e-hug coming.
MZ
--
Mark Zamierowski _.,-~'`^`'~*-,._ zamierow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------