It began on a sickbed, of all places. In search of a philosopher he hardly knew, a restless psychotherapist named Félix Guattari drove three hours south from Paris into the cattle country of Limousin during the summer of 1969. He discovered Gilles Deleuze recuperating from surgery, propped up and having trouble breathing because he was missing a lung. In those situations, most people would greet each other and walk away. These two began a dialogue that continued for the next twenty-two years.
It’s difficult not to question what they perceived in one another that afternoon. The pairing didn’t make sense on paper. Deleuze was the meticulous scholar, comfortable in his position at the University of Lyon, wary of large gatherings, and satisfied with his books. After a boisterous break with Jacques Lacan, Guattari was the opposite kind of creature—jittery and gregarious—balancing a clinical practice at the unorthodox La Borde clinic with a hectic schedule of activist meetings and splinter-group politics. He was stuck, too. The kind of writer’s block that depresses a man who thinks. He hoped Deleuze could save him.
| Bio Data & Key Information | Details |
|---|---|
| Names | Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari |
| Nationality | French |
| Deleuze Born | 18 January 1925, Paris, France |
| Guattari Born | 30 March 1930, Villeneuve-les-Sablons, France |
| Deleuze Died | 4 November 1995, Paris |
| Guattari Died | 29 August 1992, La Borde Clinic |
| Professions | Philosopher (Deleuze); Psychoanalyst, activist (Guattari) |
| First Met | Summer of 1969, Limousin, France |
| Years of Collaboration | 1969 – 1991 |
| Major Works | Anti-Oedipus (1972), A Thousand Plateaus (1980), Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (1975), What Is Philosophy? (1991) |
| Movement | Post-structuralism, postmodernism |
| Key Concepts | Rhizome, schizoanalysis, war machine, desiring-machines, assemblage |
| Guattari’s Workplace | La Borde psychiatric clinic, Loire Valley |
| Notable Praise | Foucault called Anti-Oedipus “a book of ethics” |
One of the most bizarre collaborations in twentieth-century thought ensued. Anti-Oedipus, their first big book, came out like a tiny explosion in 1972. It targeted Freud, Lacan, and the entire psychoanalytic apparatus that they believed had reduced human desire to a neat little family drama. It was the first book of ethics written in France in a long time, according to Foucault’s preface. Although not everyone agreed with that strong claim, the book sold, debated, and provoked in ways that academic philosophy seldom does.
Then came A Thousand Plateaus in 1980, which was more of a sprawl than a book. War machines that exist outside the state until the state absorbs them, rhizomes in place of trees, nomads in place of citizens. Readers either threw it across the room or loved it. Reading it now gives me the impression that the writers were more concerned with being helpful than with being understood; they wanted to give you tools rather than conclusions.
I believe that their mutual mistrust of the individual self was what truly united them. Both men had witnessed the curling of collective energy into hierarchy in various contexts. Guattari had witnessed the Russian Revolution’s spirit solidify into Stalinist bureaucracy within the French Communist Party.
Every committee he joined exhibited the same pattern: leadership drifting toward control and collaboration drifting toward leadership. Working from a more philosophical perspective, Deleuze was drawing comparable conclusions from Nietzsche, Hume, and Spinoza. In the middle, they came together.
Some of the criticism has been fair, but others have not been kind. The metaphors are restless to the point of evasion, and the work may come across as macho. Timothy Laurie has noted their propensity to associate politics with masculinity and reproduction with femininity, a blind spot that hasn’t held up over time. Some philosophers are still offended by their anti-Hegelianism. Additionally, the current trend of citing them in cultural studies seminars has given rise to its own parodies, which frequently lack the joy and mischief that characterized the originals.
Nevertheless, the partnership endures in some way. Perhaps it’s the unlikeliness itself—two men who most likely shouldn’t have agreed on anything managing to write as if they had a single, bizarre, restless mind. Three years after Guattari, in 1995, Deleuze passed away. Their books continue to be reprinted. Arguments continue to recur.
