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

by Gilles Deleuze (Author), Mike Taormina (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
"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.

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 Félix Guattari.

Product Details

• Paperback: 326 pages
• Publisher: Semiotext(e) (December 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584350180
• ISBN-13: 978-1584350187
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 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 (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #309,207 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great collection!, January 21, 2004

By	C. C Chrappa (us) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is a collection of short texts, book reviews, and interviews by and with Deleuze, many of which I've never seen in print before. There are some tremendously interesting pieces, for example, where Deleuze is presenting his ideas in Difference and Repetition to a group that includes Canguilhem and Jacques Merleau-Ponty (yes, Jacques), followed by a Q&A session in which Deleuze is grilled for clarification and pressed by objections. Furthermore, it is just nice to have all in one volume the early essays on Bergson ("The Conception of Difference in Bergson") and other central essays, like "How do we recognize structuralism," all of which are collected here. There are reviews of works by Lyotard and Hyppolite, essays on Nietzsche, Hume, Crime Novels, and Color in painting--- and finally, a string of interviews concerning Anti-Oedipus circa 1972.
There won't be any revelations for the Deleuze scholar here, as most of this material has seen print elsewhere and been commented upon extensively. But, it is nevertheless invaluable, I think, to have all of these pieces under one cover. And, for beginners, this might very well be as good a place to start as any, as you get Deleuze's earliest work progressing up to his work with Guattari, ordered chronologically by the editors.
Well done!!

7 of 8 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 (REAL NAME)

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