perpetual confusion

My vertigo has thankfully gone and my ear is better so I've been able to get back down to doing some serious work. Yesterday spent a very pleasant day writing about Nietzsche and Serres and today I'm preparing my section on Deleuze & Guattari.

I am, as usual, completely baffled. I first read 'Anti-Oedipus' last summer when I was studying in Prague. I spent much of my time there by myself as the girl who came with me had to go home. Every day I would go into the center of Prague and park myself in one of my usual coffee shops and read a little bit of Anti-Oedipus. Prague is a beautiful place to read philosophy, every twist of the labyrinthine streets leads you deeper into the playful baroquness of the city. My usual routine consisted of breakfast, a few hours in a coffee shop with AO, then a wander about the city trying to avoid the tourists, then a few more hours of AO, followed by dinner, then bed with Dostoevsky. I spent weeks being completely confused, wandering a city that is confused, understanding only a few words of the language so in my solitude all I thought about was desiring-machines, the BwO, the socius, schizos etc etc. That's not to say that I understood any of it, mostly I'd frown and scratch my head a bit, hours spend poring over a few pages to try and decipher their strange code, but I managed to produce some strange pictures and some nonsensical writings that fitted my mood.

I like to be confused, I like that D&G confuse me so much. And every so often something will become clear and I'll have a little chuckle. I tend to reward myself with a smoke at such occasions. I doubt that I'll ever really understand all of D&G but I'm going to enjoy myself trying.

Now I'm slipping AO into my dissertation and wondering if I really should. It's only constituting a small part of my thesis. I'm steering clear of schizoanalysis, and desiring-machines and the BwO and I'm using some of the third chapter to discuss the emergence of capitalism. Too late to turn back now though.

Onwards....

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