Desert Islands: and Other Texts, 1953--1974 (Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents) [Paperback]

Gilles Deleuze (Author), David Lapoujade (Editor), Mike Taormina (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1584350180 | ISBN-13: 978-1584350187 | Publication Date: January 9, 2004

"One day, perhaps, this century will be Deleuzian," Michel Foucault once wrote. This book anthologizes 40 texts and interviews written over 20 years by renowned French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who died in 1995. The early texts, from 1953-1966 (on Rousseau, Kafka, Jarry, etc.), belong to literary criticism and announce Deleuze's last book, Critique and Clinic (1993). But philosophy clearly predominates in the rest of the book, with sharp appraisals of the thinkers he always felt indebted to: Spinoza, Bergson. More surprising is his acknowledgement of Jean-Paul Sartre as his master. "The new themes, a certain new style, a new aggressive and polemical way of raising questions," he wrote, "come from Sartre." But the figure of Nietzsche remains by far the most seminal, and the presence throughout of his friends and close collaborators, Felix Guattari and Michel Foucault. The book stops shortly after the publication of Anti-Oedipus, and presents a kind of genealogy of Deleuze's thought as well as his attempt to leave philosophy and connect it to the outside -- but, he cautions, as a philosopher.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII, Vincennes/Saint Denis. He published 25 books, including five in collaboration with Felix Guattari.

Product Details

• Paperback: 326 pages
• Publisher: Semiotext(e) (January 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584350180
• ISBN-13: 978-1584350187
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #437,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deleuze's Early Genius, August 19, 2005

By 

Thomas Meli (NY, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Desert Islands: and Other Texts, 1953--1974 (Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents) (Paperback)

It is always fascinating to see the development of a philosopher's thought. By the age of 28 Deleuze had already formulated the main ideas of what he would develop in Difference and Repetition, his most rigorous work. No understanding of Deleuze can truly take place without this work, since it is here for the first time that you see Deleuze most clearly articulating his ideas since they are also the time when he created them. The interviews are especially insightful and include an incredible short encounter between him and Merleau-Ponty.

Deleuze had an enormous amount of influences and drew on many things that he only mentions in his later works. You can see some of those influences in full form here. I wish Deleuze had permitted his works earlier than age 28 to be published, but most likely he was not clear in his style or concepts. But this is the earliest we have, and it is with the same rigor and genius that he writes and speaks in this work. Absolutely essential to any study of Deleuze.

The other two most important books by Deleuze:
1) Difference and Repetition (the masterwork)
2) The Logic of Sense