Reviews

El Anti Edipo: Capitalismo y Esquizofrenia by Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari

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cso's review against another edition

5.0

This was my major reading project of the year. I can determine two things for sure. First is that this book has been a great, enormous leap. Even with my not-so-little base of knowledge for this book, it was very hard (which is not surprising, it is notorious for that quality...). I did (have to) learn ALOT of things on the fly, which was a great experience. I can decisively call that this book have already influenced me a large deal.
Secondly, even after studying it very seriously, I can say for certain that I will have to read it again. I cannot say, even after all that time, even after reading it and about it many many times, even after I have written about it, I still can't say I feel comfortable talking about it. I do feel that many author I have read who have commented on Anti-Oedipus (and on D&G in general, or even just on Deleuze) don't really "grasp that book", to quote (and freely-translate) a phrase...

aglhrm's review against another edition

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challenging funny reflective fast-paced

5.0

javorstein's review against another edition

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5.0

Loved it. All over the place but grounded a particular anti-Freudian critique in materialism. Very detailed argument for the social production of subjectivity and the particular historical formations of the Oedipus complex being rooted in shifts in economic/power relations throughout history. Also does so in a way that presents a path forward; never once argues for unrestrained deterritorialization (not sure what book accelerationists were reading) but instead specifically connects it with reterritorialization and the construction of new constellations of reference that subvert dominant semiotic codes and open up new lines of flight. Creates a whole new framework for analysis and resistance. Not entirely sure on the nominally anti-Hegelian stuff (although that was more D&R/LoS); the Nietzschean affirmation metaphysics is a cool idea but philosophically I'm not super sure of it (again, more an N&P thing though). The anthropology felt questionable but it was being used more genealogically than historically; in any case, the development of the Oedipus complex through changing economic and power formations and the incest-taboo was a fascinating argument. Overall, great book, definitely a must-read. Interested in the possibility of a clinical schizoanalysis—one that, rather than being cloaked in the Oedipal theater of representation, works directly on the ground with the patient and engages in a direct, materialist analysis of their desiring-production, discovering the partial objects of their unconscious. In a perhaps Foucauldian light, D&G get "off the couch", so to speak, and go "out for a walk"—rather than positing the analyst as a transcendent interpreter, they posit the schizoanalyst as a mechanic, working with the analysand to destroy the molar representations that stratify and segment the unconscious, thereby making analysis a necessarily political task. Never do they glorify schizophrenia, only show the "schizophrenic process", of which the schizophrenic is only a moment, to be a revolutionary one. A fascinating thesis, and it's unfortunate that this schizoanalysis was never really expanded upon in any future clinical practice beyond, perhaps, La Borde. It would be interesting to see how schizoanalysis would work in practice.

andrewg1234's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

zo_lebrun's review against another edition

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I just fell off the map with it. It’s such a difficult book to read, and if you don’t read it super consistently you just forget what you’ve already read and then have to go back to the start again. I was recommended it from someone who is obviously much more invested in this branch of art theory than I am lol.

I could see myself picking it back up and restarting it at some point in the future? But for the time being there are many other books that are more interesting to me