Customer Reviews

The Deleuze Connections

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Before reading this articulate and concise book that covers the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, I had only a rather vague conception of the central ideas inherent in the work of Deleuze. Although I thought I understood many of the implicit ideas communicated in works such as 'Anti-Oedipus', 'What is Philosophy?', and 'A Thousand Plateaus', I still acknowledged my mental discomfort that seemed only to increase exponentially after each successive book I read in the corpus of Deleuze. That is, Deleuze's thought is not as tractable as most philosophers, whose works are easily comprehended and accessible once compared to the tradition of thinkers whose intellectual footsteps they have followed. Deleuze is in no way traditional, save for his unremitting reflection on the past ideas of philosophers. Thus, acquiring an insight of Deleuze's methodology is necessary for a genuinely inquiring philosopher, for his method is not readily apparent, and moreover often seems impenetrable. 'The Deleuze Connections' provides a lucid and comprehensive analysis of Deleuze's fairly idiosyncratic method. The highlight of Rajchman's exposition is the chapter entitled 'Multiplicity', in which he delicately unveils the rather unconventional logic that Deleuze often applies when theorizing. As a PhD candidate in Philosophy, I found Rajchman's 'The Deleuze Connections' to be absolutely essential for understanding the often cited, yet scarcely explained philosophy of Gilles Deleuze.

When writing a critical introduction to a philosopher's work--especially work that advances a system of thought that avoids systemization and courts confusion--one is faced with a choice: either one attempts to court the admiration of one's colleagues by being anti- or non-reductive in her account, pitching the introduction to the initiated and actively avoiding what is looked upon as unfaithful simplification, or one shuffs-off the "reductionist" charge and writes an introduction that is meant for the truly uninitiated. Rajchman's book attempts to avoid this choice, and consequently, the book is a muddled: At times clear "connections" are made between Deleuze's thought and common standards of clarity, but more often than not the book presumes a knowledge of philosophical ideas that even a philosophy student (such as myself) finds difficult. Rajchman assumes the reader is familar with Frege, Turing, and Russell. He assumes a passing knowledge of Quine (in particular *The Ways of Paradox*, although this is never expressed), and more than a passing knowledge of cinema studies. While elegantly organized, Rajchman's book too often courts the admiration of philosophers at the expense of the non-philosopher; flights of clarity are enjoyed only to come to a screeching halt with some obscure reference to the art of Man Ray. Finally, although Deleuze's "experimentalism" and "pragmatism" has much in common with the views of Richard Rorty, Rajchman too easily dismisses Rorty as "mired" in rhetoric. Had he a better grasp of the history of rhetoric, sentences like the following would not be necessary: "One might then say there is a sense in which the image of thought, and of what thought is called on to combat, is prior to "argument" in a philosophy, such that one might analyze styles of argument in relation to the orientations they receive trhough such images" (guess what Rorty does?!). Overall, a quick read of how Rachman makes sense of Deleuze, but not necessarily one that will make sense to you.

It's true that this book is missing the kind of rich examples that make Deleuze such a pleasure to read, but Rajchman is doing something else here. Unlike those who carefully police "what deleuze means," and pounce on "mis-interpretations" of his work, Rajchman opens up Deleuze rather than closing him off. This is a little book--to be read over a week on the subway--that expands our idea of what Deleuze can mean, rather than attempting to nail down what he DOES mean. I would respectfully disagree with the reader who suggests Massumi's book as an intro instead. BM's best work--and it's truly lovely--is his brief intro to "1000 Plateaus." His "Users Guide" is, alas, a mess. It falls into the same trap that the (formerly light-hearted) Delanda seems to have ensnared himself in. Why can't we take Deleuze as lightly as Deleuze took himself? Delanda used to drive the getaway car for Joe Coleman; what happened?

I found this "introduction" to be incredibly unhelpful, for many of the reasons stated previously, but particularly the fact that as one scans just about any page in the book, you find each literally packed with references to other difficult works, literary, cinematic, mathematical, philisophical. One nearly needs an encylopedic understanding of every trend in western thought for the last 500 years to grasp what the author is putting across. For example, I've just randomly opened the book to page 64 and there is reference to Frege, Foucault, Lewis Carroll, and Saussure, and this page contains a SINGLE PARAGRAPH!

I am not a philosophy student, but rather an autodidact trying to study poststructuralist trends in relation to certain strains of libertarian Marxist thought. I'm pretty well read and yet I wasn't really able to parse out much that was helpful from this little book, it was like listening to some narcissistic professor bludgeoning undergrads with the breadth of his knowledge. Ugh, can I have my $20 back?

There will always be a need for good readings of Deleuze, but not for one that glosses his philosophy with as many commonplaces, cliches, and indifferent remarks as this text. The key to explaining Deleuze, like the key to Deleuze's philosophy itself, remains in the examples, which are utterly lacking here. Readers can, and should, do better than this.

Screw this chump, read Brian Massumi's book instead (Capitalism & Scizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari). Massumi translated 1000plateaus and is so much more than a preeminent French translator: He is a righteous theorist himself and seems to be just about the only person who understands Deleuze's thought well enough to treat it in this capacity.

I cannot overemphasize what a despicable, disappointing, and reductive book this is. It was a waste of my money and time.