Inside out Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus Papers Daniel W. Smith Félix Guattari met Gilles Deleuze in Paris shortly after written between 1969 and 1972, addressed to Deleuze, the events of May 1968, through a mutual friend. Over and they constitute the basis for much of the material the next twenty-five years, he would co-author five in Anti-Oedipus (a few of the papers were written after books with Deleuze, including, most famously, the the publication of Anti-Oedipus in March of 1972, and two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia – Anti- anticipate A Thousand Plateaus). The manuscripts Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1981). Their were never meant to be published in their own right, collaboration, a kind of French version of Marx and and no doubt some will question their significance, Engels, sparked enormous interest and curiosity: what much as the value of Nietzscheʼs vast Nachlass has had led them to undertake their joint labour? How been disputed. Authors are indeed assessed by their exactly did they work and write together? In 1972, fruits, not their roots. Yet there is new and informative Guattari had not yet written a book of his own; his material here, at least for readers with the patience to first book, Psychoanalysis and Transversality, would toil through Guattariʼs jottings. The papers, as one be published shortly after Anti-Oedipus, with an intro- might expect, vary widely in style, content and tone, ductory essay by Deleuze. Deleuze, by contrast, was ranging from fairly developed theoretical proposals already a well-known figure in French philosophy to scattered notes on diverse topics to early chapter and the author of ten influential works, including the outlines for A Thousand Plateaus. Several texts are landmark Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962) and his little more than notes on books Guattari was reading, magnum opus Difference and Repetition (1968). The including Leroi-Gourhanʼs Milieu et techniques, Jean- nature of Guattariʼs influence on Deleuze, in particular, Toussaint Desantiʼs Les Idéalitiés mathématiques, as is still the object of debate. Was Guattari a bad influ- well as Deleuzeʼs own book on Spinoza, Expression- ence, transforming the good Deleuze-as-philosopher ism in Philosophy, which Guattari had evidently not (the solo Deleuze – dry and even dull, but rigorous read prior to their collaboration. The final section and scholarly) into the bad and crazy Deleuze-as- of the book includes entries from a 1971–72 journal desiring machine (the Deleuze of the D&G writing that Guattari was apparently encouraged to write at machine – irreverent and flamboyant, but philosophi- the suggestion of Deleuze and his wife Fanny. Not cally suspect)? Or was it Guattari who compelled an surprisingly, it includes the most personal and gossipy aloof or even ʻelitistʼ Deleuze to go beyond his natural passages of the volume, recording the ups and downs metaphysical tendencies and confront social and politi- of Guattariʼs relations with his girlfriends, patients cal issues directly? There remain, to this day, partisans and colleagues. on both sides of the issue. Kélina Gotman is to be commended for having The publication of Guattariʼs Anti-Oedipus Papers1 produced a fluid and readable translation, making these has opened up a new window on the Deleuze–Guattari texts easily accessible to English-speaking readers. The collaboration. Editor Stéphane Nadaud – who pro- volume, however, is not without its editorial quirks. vides a helpful introductory essay – has here gathered Strangely, Nadaud decided not to publish the papers in together the Guattari manuscripts that are archived their chronological order (though some texts are dated at the Institut Mémoires de lʼEdition Contemporaine by Guattari himself), but instead has organized the (IMEC) at the Abbaye dʼArdenne. The papers were texts around six thematic sections of his own choosing. * Félix Guattari, The Anti-Oedipus Papers, ed. Stéphane Nadaud, trans. Kélina Gotman, Semiotext(e), New York, 2006. 384 pp., £11.95 pb., 1 584 35031 8. Radical Philosophy 140 (November/December 2006) 35 Moreover, although Nadaud notes that almost all of Nous Deuxʼ, Libération, 12 September 1991). Deleuze Guattariʼs texts ʻwere annotated by Deleuzeʼ, the foot- would later confirm that he ʻmade a sort of move into notes only cite slightly more than twenty such annota- politics around May ʼ68, as I came into contact with tions, many of which say little more than ʻunderlined specific problems, through Guattari, though Foucault, by Deleuzeʼ. Obviously, Deleuzeʼs annotations were through Elie Sambarʼ (Deleuze, Negotiations [1995], more extensive than that: at one point, for example, p. 170. Elie Sambar was the editor of the Revue des Nadaud indicates that Guattariʼs text ʻis followed by études palestiniennes). Prior to his meeting Deleuze, two pages written by Deleuze on the infinitiveʼ. Yet Guattariʼs work had been dispersed primarily in four none of these more substantial responses by Deleuze is different areas: his involvement in leftist activism, included in the volume. Both decisions are regrettable his co-directorship of the La Borde Clinic (with Jean – Nadaud says he wanted to publish the texts in their Oury), his attendance at Jacques Lacanʼs seminars, ʻpureʼ form – since they make it difficult to follow and his psychotherapeutic work with schizophrenics. the development of Guattariʼs own thinking or to get For his part, he later explained, ʻI felt a need, not to a sense of the creative give-and-take that took place integrate, but to make some connections between these between him and Deleuze. A well-constructed index four ways I was living, I had some reference points would have made it easier for the reader to trace out … but I didnʼt have the logic I needed to make the various themes in these inevitably ad hoc texts. None- connectionsʼ (Negotiations, p. 15). theless, we should be grateful to Nadaud for having Deleuze and Guattari spoke freely about the working undertaken the editorial work required to make these method that they worked out between themselves, papers available in published form. Readers, depending or what they called their ʻwriting machineʼ. Initially on their interests, will find many paths to follow (and they wrote letters, then had face-to-face meetings, construct) through these texts; I will highlight a few and finally sent manuscripts back and forth, with of them. constant corrections and revisions. Their collaboration was a working relationship, not a social one: they Amis, pas copains were friends (amis), but not buddies (copains), and ʻIt is easier to follow the thread of a good authorʼ, continued to refer to each other with the formal vous wrote Leibniz in the preface to his great book on rather than the familiar tu. One of the revelations of Locke, the New Essays, ʻthan to do everything by The Anti-Oedipus Papers is the important role that oneʼs own efforts.ʼ Such might have been Deleuzeʼs Deleuzeʼs wife Fanny played in the writing process, motto as well. He famously found it difficult to write serving as both a go-between and an amanuensis, ʻin his own nameʼ, and his usual modus operandi was typing up Guattariʼs notes and funnelling the manu- to enter into a ʻbecomingʼ with the authors on whom scripts between the two authors. Guattari speaks often he was writing (Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche, of his affection for her – ʻIʼm supported by someone Bergson), creating a kind of zone of indetermination who types, corrects, readsʼ – but also of ʻher demand- between himself and them. His collaboration with ing natureʼ. Despite the definition of philosophy given Guattari seems to have functioned in exactly the same in What is Philosophy?, Guattari did not always seem manner, albeit, of course, with a living author. ʻAt the to conceive of his work as the production of concepts. beginning of our relation, it was Félix who sought me ʻHis ideas are like drawings, or even diagramsʼ rather outʼ, Deleuze recalled in a 1991 interview. ʻI didnʼt than concepts, Deleuze noted elsewhere. ʻFrom my know him.… My encounter with Félix took place perspective, Félix had these brainstorms, and I was around questions concerning psychoanalysis and the like a lightning rod. Whatever I grounded would unconscious. Félix brought me a kind of new field, he leap up again, changed, and then Félix would start made me discover a new domain, even if I had spoken againʼ (Deleuze, Two Regimes of Madness: Texts and of psychoanalysis beforehand.ʼ ʻIt was me who sought Interviews 1975–1995 [2006], p. 238). Brainstorms him outʼ, confirmed Guattari, ʻbut in a second period, harnessed by a lightning rod: such seemed to be the it was he who suggested we work together.… I had nature of the collaboration, with Deleuze functioning been very impressed by the reading of Difference as a conceptual apparatus of capture in relation to and Repetition and Logic of Sense.… He was struck Guattariʼs diagrammatic war-machine. In the end, it by my marked dissidence in relation to Lacanianism, was Deleuze who ʻfinalizedʼ the text of Anti-Oedipus, which was already dominant, and by my way of although they both conceived of the ultimate result approaching political and social problemsʼ (Robert of their work as a truly ʻcollective assemblage of Maggiori, ʻSecret de fabrication: Deleuze–Guattari, enunciationʼ. 36 What The Anti-Oedipus Papers confirm is the being thrust into a new and unwelcome public role, and degree to which their ʻwriting machineʼ functioned, the breaks his writing may introduce into his life. ʻBoth as they themselves liked to say, only on the condition books are finishedʼ, he writes in November 1971. of constantly breaking down. ʻFélix sees writing as a schizoid-flow drawing in all sort of thingsʼ (Negotia- Which fascinates and irritates me. I will have to account for them. I will have to say things, answer tions, p.