Just a thought on first approaching "Rhizome" and D&G:
I first read Deleuze as an undergrad in a school (rhymes with "Jail")
known for its post-structuralism. I was interested in Derrida, more so in
Foucault, but I still sound the round of theory and pretentious over-heady
classroom discussions frustrating. I took D&G at their word, and
"listened" to ATP like a record. I had already read D,'s Nietzsche book,
and some of Anti-Oedipus, but what really "worked" when I read ATP was my
cavalier attitude. I read it like Pynchon: for the jokes, for the parts
that sounded like acid trips. I read it like science fiction: the jargon
wasn't intellectual, but imaginative and futuristic, like the "monster
slang" of hyperdimensional math or the Illuminatus trilogy or Sam Delaney.
And I skimmed it like a magazine--"shit, I don't get this linguistics
stufff, [scan, scan, scan], a=ha! Melville, this I can follow."
D&G's structure and style (the form that is a content that is neither) is
off-puuting at first, but if you just go with it (like a trip) than it
becomes very friendly. You realize that you already know these things, and
then the gnarled parts (those cross-cuttings and decentered nests of the
rhizome) begin to breathe. Not that the text EVER becomes clear--it is
like a fractal: you get one partial dimension, but this then forces you to
look closer, at thoroughly tangled chaos; you modulate your speed into
another qualitative dimension ("It's the same! It's totally different!"),
another grok, another nest of complexity that seems simpler and simpler
the deeper you go.
Just don't read it like "theory" or "philosophy," with the attitude of
suspicious critique at the forefront. I remember one of the few classes I
attended where D&G were read (the marvelous Nomadology), and some fellow
objected to D&G's comparison of chess (a striated, "State" game of
strategies based on hierarchical fixed essences) vs the "Oriental" model
of Go (smooth spaces, where power is excercised on a totally immanent
plane, a game of breaks and flows) He immediately attacked them for being
Orientalist. He was very angry, and the poor prof--who was a hardcore
leftist, no lack of PC credentials here--didn't know what to say.
. Maybe the guy hadn't played GO,
but if
you understood both games, than this example was one of those "Images of
thought" that D&G so masterfully deploy. These images are not
representations--they are "regimes of signs" that themselves deploy the
virtual qualities that D&G are pointing to. That's another clue to reading
D&G: follow these Images of thought--the rhizome, smooth and striated,
body without organs, nomadic mettalurgy, etc. Don't worry about what they
mean. What do they say to you? Let them dissolve and then let them return
with a difference, not a dialectical return, but the return of
Mandelbrot's shape, the reiteration of the ever-deepeneing,
ever-flattening fractal.
Come on in, the water's fine!
[__]~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ \ / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[__]
[] Erik Davis (oo) Cernunnos sez (cribbing the Fall): The only []
[] erikd@xxxxxxxxx __ thing real is waking and rubbing your eyes. []
[__]==================== ww ==============================================[__]
------------------
I first read Deleuze as an undergrad in a school (rhymes with "Jail")
known for its post-structuralism. I was interested in Derrida, more so in
Foucault, but I still sound the round of theory and pretentious over-heady
classroom discussions frustrating. I took D&G at their word, and
"listened" to ATP like a record. I had already read D,'s Nietzsche book,
and some of Anti-Oedipus, but what really "worked" when I read ATP was my
cavalier attitude. I read it like Pynchon: for the jokes, for the parts
that sounded like acid trips. I read it like science fiction: the jargon
wasn't intellectual, but imaginative and futuristic, like the "monster
slang" of hyperdimensional math or the Illuminatus trilogy or Sam Delaney.
And I skimmed it like a magazine--"shit, I don't get this linguistics
stufff, [scan, scan, scan], a=ha! Melville, this I can follow."
D&G's structure and style (the form that is a content that is neither) is
off-puuting at first, but if you just go with it (like a trip) than it
becomes very friendly. You realize that you already know these things, and
then the gnarled parts (those cross-cuttings and decentered nests of the
rhizome) begin to breathe. Not that the text EVER becomes clear--it is
like a fractal: you get one partial dimension, but this then forces you to
look closer, at thoroughly tangled chaos; you modulate your speed into
another qualitative dimension ("It's the same! It's totally different!"),
another grok, another nest of complexity that seems simpler and simpler
the deeper you go.
Just don't read it like "theory" or "philosophy," with the attitude of
suspicious critique at the forefront. I remember one of the few classes I
attended where D&G were read (the marvelous Nomadology), and some fellow
objected to D&G's comparison of chess (a striated, "State" game of
strategies based on hierarchical fixed essences) vs the "Oriental" model
of Go (smooth spaces, where power is excercised on a totally immanent
plane, a game of breaks and flows) He immediately attacked them for being
Orientalist. He was very angry, and the poor prof--who was a hardcore
leftist, no lack of PC credentials here--didn't know what to say.
. Maybe the guy hadn't played GO,
but if
you understood both games, than this example was one of those "Images of
thought" that D&G so masterfully deploy. These images are not
representations--they are "regimes of signs" that themselves deploy the
virtual qualities that D&G are pointing to. That's another clue to reading
D&G: follow these Images of thought--the rhizome, smooth and striated,
body without organs, nomadic mettalurgy, etc. Don't worry about what they
mean. What do they say to you? Let them dissolve and then let them return
with a difference, not a dialectical return, but the return of
Mandelbrot's shape, the reiteration of the ever-deepeneing,
ever-flattening fractal.
Come on in, the water's fine!
[__]~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ \ / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[__]
[] Erik Davis (oo) Cernunnos sez (cribbing the Fall): The only []
[] erikd@xxxxxxxxx __ thing real is waking and rubbing your eyes. []
[__]==================== ww ==============================================[__]
------------------