"Deleuze:" "You have selected a format as an ABC primer, you have indicated to me some themes, and in this, I do not know exactly what the questions will be, so that I have only been able to think a bit beforehand about the themes" "For me, answering a question without having thought about it a bit is something inconceivable." "What saves me in this is the particular condition:" "should any of this be at all useful, all of it will be used only after my death." "So, you understand, I feel myself being reduced to the state of a pure archive for Pierre-André Boutang, to a sheet of paper," "so that lifts my spirits and comforts me immensely, and nearly in the state of pure spirit, I speak after my death, and we know well that a pure spirit if you've made tables turn." "But we know as well that a pure spirit is not someone who gives answers that are either very profound or very intelligent." "They can be cursory." "So anything goes in this, let's begin, A-B-C, whatever you want." "So anything goes in this, let's begin, A-B-C, whatever you want." "Parnet:" "We begin with and "A" is "Animal."" "We can cite, as if it were you saying it, a quote from W.C. Fields:" ""A man who doesn't like animals or children can't be all bad."" "We'll leave aside the children for the moment, but domestic animals," "I know that you don't care for them much." "And in this, you don't even accept the distinction made by Baudelaire and Cocteau-cats are not any better than dogs for you." "On the other hand, throughout your work, there is a bestiary that is quite repugnant;" "that is, besides deers that are noble animals, you talk copiously of ticks, of fleas, of a certain number of repugnant little animals of this kind." "What I want to add is that animals have been very useful in your writings, starting with Anti-Oedipus, through a concept that has become quite important, the concept of "becoming-animal"" "So I would like to know a bit more clearly what is your relationship to animals." "Deleuze:" "What you said there about my relation with domestic animals... it's not really domestic, or tamed, or wild animals that concern me," "or cats or dogs" "The problem, rather, is with animals that are both familiar and familial." "Familiar or familial animals, tamed and domesticated, I don't care for them, whereas domesticated animals that are not familiar and familial, I like them fine because I am quite sensitive to something in these animals." "What happened to me is what happens in lots of families, there is neither dog nor cat, and then one of our children," "Fanny's and mine, came home with a tiny cat, no bigger than his little hand, that he found out in the country somewhere, in a basket or somewhere, and from that fatal moment onward, I have always had a cat around the house." "What do I find unpleasant in these animals- although that certainly was no major ordeal-l can handle it." "What do I find unpleasant?" "I don't like things that rub against me and a cat spends its time rubbing up against you." "I don't like that, and with dogs, it's altogether different:" "what I fundamentally reproach them for is always barking." "A bark really seems to me the stupidest cry..." "There are animal cries in nature, a variety of cries, and barking is truly the shame of the animal kingdom." "Whereas I can stand much better (on the condition that it not be for too long a time) the howling at the moon, a dog howling at the moon..." "Parnet: at death..." "Deleuze:" "At death, who knows?" "I can stand this better than barking." "And since I learned quite recently that cats and dogs were cheating the Social Security system, my antipathy has increased even more." "What I mean is..." "What I am going to say is completely idiotic because people who really like cats and dogs obviously do have a relationship with them that is not human." "For example, you see that children do not have a human relationship with a cat, but rather an infantile relationship with animals." "What is really important is for people to have an animal relationship with an animal." "So what does it mean to have an animal relationship with the animal?" "It doesn't consist of talking to it..." "but in any case," "I cant stand the human relationship with the animal." "I know what I am saying because I live on a rather deserted street where people walk their dogs, and what I hear from my window is quite frightening, the way that people talk to their animals." "Even psychoanalysis notices this!" "Psychoanalysis is so fixated on familiar or familial animals, on animals of the family, that any animal, in a dream, for example," "is interpreted by psychoanalysis as being an image of the father, mother, or child, that is, an animal as a family member." "I find that odious, I can't stand it, and you only have to think of two paintings by the Douanier Rousseau, the dog in the cart who is truly the grandfather, the grandfather in a pure state," "and the war horse is a veritable beast." "So the question is, what kind of relationship do you have with an animal?" "If you have a human relationship with an animal" "But again, generally people who like animals don't have a human relationship with animals, they have an animal relationship with the animal, and that's quite beautiful." "Even hunters-and I don't like hunters- but even hunters have an astonishing relationship with the animal..." "And you asked me also Well, other animals, it's true that I am fascinated by animals like spiders, ticks, ﬂeas" "They are as important as dogs and cats." "And there are relationships with animals there, someone who has ticks, who has fleas, what does that mean?" "These are relationships with some very active animals." "So what fascinates me in animals?" "Because really, my hatred for certain animals is nourished by my fascination with many other animals." "If I try to take stock vaguely of this, what is it that impresses me in an animal?" "The first thing that impresses me is the fact that every animal has a world, and it's curious because there are a lot of humans, a lot of people who do not have a world." "They live the life of everybody, that is, of just any one and any thing." "Animals, they have worlds." "What is an animal world?" "It's sometimes extraordinarily limited, and that's what moves me." "Finally, animals react to very few things..." "Cut me off if you see that" "Deleuze:" "Yes, so, in this story of the first characteristic of the animal, it's really the existence of specific, special animal worlds." "Perhaps it is sometimes the poverty of these worlds, the reduced character of these worlds, that impresses me so much." "For example, we were talking earlier about an animal like the tick." "The tick responds, reacts to three things, three stimuli, period, that's it, in a natural world that is immense, three stimuli, that's it:" "that is, it tends toward the extremity of a tree branch, it's attracted by light, it can wait on top of this branch, it can wait for years without eating, without anything, in a completely amorphous state." "It waits for a ruminant, an herbivore, an animal to pass under its branch, it lets itself fall... it's a kind of olfactory stimulus..." "the tick smells, it smells the animal that passes under its branch, that's the second stimulus:" "light first, then odor." "Then, when it falls onto the back of the poor animal, it goes looking for the region that is the least covered with hair..." "So, there's a tactile stimulus, and it digs in under the skin." "For everything else, if one can say this, for everything else, it does not give a damn..." "That is, in a nature teeming [with life], it extracts, selects three things." "Parnet:" "And is that your life's dream?" "That's what attracts you to animals?" "Deleuze:" "That's what constitutes a world, that's what constitutes a world." "Parnet:" "Hence, your animal-writing relationship, that is, the writer, for you, is also someone who has a world... it's more compl-Yes, I don't know, because there are other aspects:" "it is not enough to have a world to be an animal." "What fascinates me completely are territorial matters." "With Felix [Guattari], we really created a concept, nearly a philosophical concept, with the idea of territory." "Animals with territory-OK, there are animals without territory, fine- but animals with territory, it's amazing because constituting a territory is, for me, nearly the birth of art." "How an animal marks its territory, everyone knows, everyone always invokes stories of anal glands, of urine, of... with which it marks the borders of its territory." "But it's a lot more than that: what intervenes in marking a territory is also a series of postures, for example, lowering oneself/lifting oneself up;" "a series of colors, baboons, for example, the color of buttocks of baboons that they display at the border of territories..." "Color, song, posture: these are the three determinants of art:" "I mean, color and lines-animal postures are sometimes veritable lines- color, line, song-that's art in its pure state." "And so, I tell myself that when they leave their territory or return to their territory, it's in the domain of property and ownership." "It's very curious that it is in the domain of property and ownership, that is," ""my properties," in the manner of Beckett or Michaux." ""my proper-ties, in the manner" of Beckett or Michaux." "Territory constitutes the properties of the animal, and leaving the territory, they risk it, and there are animals that recognize their partner, they recognize them in the territory, but not outside the territory." "Parnet:" "Which one?" "Deleuze:" "That's what I call a marvel..." "I don't recall which bird, you have to believe me on this..." "So, with Félix-l am leaving the animal subject," "I pass on to a philosophical question because we can mix all kinds of things in the Abécédaire." "I tell myself: philosophers sometimes get criticized for creating barbaric words." "But, put yourself in my place:" "for certain reasons," "I am interested in reflecting on this notion of territory, and I tell myself, territory is defined in relation to a movement by which one leaves the territory." "So, to address this, I need a word that is apparently "barbaric."" "Henceforth, with Félix, we constructed a concept that" "I like a lot, the concept of "deterritorialization."" "We've been told that it's a hard word to pronounce, and then asked what it means, what its use is..." "So this is a beautiful case of a philosophical concept that can only be designated by a word that does not yet exist, even if we later discover that there are equivalents in other languages." "For example, I happened to notice that in Melville, there appears all the time "outlandish"- I pronounce poorly," "you can correct it yourself-but "outlandish" is precisely the equivalent of "the deterritorialized," word for word." "So, I tell myself that for philosophy- before returning to animals- for philosophy, it is quite striking:" "it is sometimes necessary to invent a barbaric word to account for a notion with innovative pretensions:" "the notion with innovative pretensions is that there is no territory, without a vector of exiting the territory;" "there is no exiting the territory, that is, deterritorialization, without at the same time an effort of reterritorializing oneself elsewhere, on something else." "All this functions with animals, and that's what fascinates me." "What is fascinating generally is the whole domain of signs." "Animals emit signs, they ceaselessly emit signs, they produce signs." "That is, in the double sense, they react to signs- for example, a spider, everything that touches its web, it reacts to anything, reacts to signs- and they produce signs" "for example, the famous sign, is that a wolf sign, a wolf track or something else?" "I admire enormously people who know how to recognize [tracks], for example, hunters-real hunters, not hunt club hunters, but real hunters who can recognize the animal that has passed by." "At that point, they are animal, they have with the animal an animal relationship." "That's what I mean by having an animal relationship with an animal." "Parnet:" "And this emission of signs, this reception of signs, is there a connection with writing and the writer, and the animal?" "Deleuze:" "Of course." "If someone were to ask me what it means to be an animal," "I would answer: it's being on the lookout." "It's a being fundamentally on the lookout." "Parnet:" "Like the writer?" "Deleuze:" "The writer, well, yes, on the lookout, the philosopher, on the lookout, obviously, we are on the lookout." "For me, you see, the ears of the animal: it does nothing without being on the lookout, it's never relaxed, an animal. it's eating, [yet] has to be on the lookout" "to see if something is happening behind its back, on either side, etc." "It's terrible, this existence "aux aguets."" "So you make the connection with the writer, what is the relation between the animal and the writer...?" "Parnet: you made it before I did..." "Deleuze:" "That's true..." "One almost has to say that, at the limit..." "A writer, what is it?" "He writes, he writes "for" readers, of course, but what does "for" mean?" "It means toward them," "A writer..." "He writes toward his readers, in a way, he writes "for" readers." "But one has to say that the writer writes also for non-readers, that is, not intended for them, but "in their place."" "So "for" means two things: intended for them and in their place." "Artaud wrote pages that nearly everyone knows," ""I write for the illiterate, I write for idiots."" "Faulkner writes for idiots." "That doesn't mean so that idiots would read, that the illiterate would read, it means "in the place of" the illiterate." "I mean," "I write "in the place of" barbarians, I write "in the place of" animals." "And what does that mean?" "Why does one dare say something like that," "I write in the place of idiots, the illiterate, animals?" "Because that is what one does, literally, when one writes." "When one writes, one is not pursuing some private little affair." "They really are stupid fools;" "really, it's the abomination of literary mediocrity, in every era, but particularly quite recently, that makes people believe that to create a novel, for example, it suffices to have some little private affair, some little personal affair" "one's grandmother who died of cancer, or someone's personal love affair- and there you go, you can write a novel based on this." "It's shameful to think things like that." "Writing is not anyone's private affair, but rather it means throwing oneself into a universal affair, be it a novel or philosophy." "Now what does that mean?" "Parnet:" "So this 'writing for," that is, "intended for" or "in the place of,"" "it's a bit like what you said in A Thousand Plateaus about" "[Lord] Chandos by Hofmannstahl, in the very beautiful phrase:" ""the writer is a sorcerer because he sees the animal as the only population before which he is responsible."" "Deleuze:" "That's it, absolutely right." "And for a very simple reason," "I think it's quite simple... it's not at all a literary declaration what you just read from Hofmannsthal, it's something else." "Writing means necessarily pushing language-and pushing syntax, since language is syntax- up to a certain limit," "a limit that can be expressed in several ways: it can be just as well the limit that separates language from silence, or the limit that separates language from music, or the limit that separates language from something that would be," "what?" "Let's say, the wailing, the painful wailing..." "Parnet:" "But not the barking, surely!" "Deleuze:" "Oh, no, not barking, although who knows?" "There might be a writer who is capable..." "The painful wailing?" "Well, everyone says, why yes, it's Kafka, it's Metamorphosis, the manager who cries out, "Did you hear?" "It sounds like an animal,"" "the painful wailing of Gregor." "Or else the mass of mice, one writes for the mass of mice, the mass of rats that are dying because, contrary to what is said, it's not men who know how to die, but animals," "and when men die, they die like animals." "Here we return to cats, and I have a lot of respect..." "Among the many cats that lived here, there was that little cat who died rather quickly, that is, I saw what a lot of people have seen as well, how an animal seeks a corner to die in..." "There is a territory for death as well, a search for a territory of death, where one can die." "We saw the little cat slide itself right into a tight corner, an angle, as if it were the good spot for it to die in." "So, in a sense, if the writer is indeed one who pushes language to the limit, the limit that separates language from animality, that separates language from the cry, that separates language from song, then one has to say, yes, the writer is responsible to animals who die," "that is, he answers to animals who die, to write, literally, not "for"'-again," "I don't write "for" my dog or for my cat- but writing "in the place of" animals who die, etc., carrying language to this limit." "There is no literature that does not carry language and syntax to this limit that separates man from animal..." "One has to be on this limit..." "That's what I think..." "Even when one does philosophy, that's the case..." "One is on the limit that separates thought from non-thought." "You always have to be at the limit that separates you from animality, but precisely in such a way that you are no longer separated from it." "There is an inhumanity proper to the human body, and to the human mind, there are animal relations with the animal..." "And if we were finished with that would be nice..." "Parnet:" "OK, then, we will pass on to" ""B" is a little bit special, it's on drinking." "OK, so you used to drink, and then stopped drinking, and I would like to know what it was for you to drink when you used to drink..." "Was it for pleasure?" "Deleuze:" "Yeah, I drank a lot..." "I drank a lot..." "So I stopped, but I drank a lot..." "What was it?" "That's not difficult, at least I think not..." "You should question other people who drank a lot, you should question alcoholics." "I believe that drinking is a matter of quantity." "For that reason, there is no equivalent with food, even if there are people who eat copiously- eating always disgusted me, so that's not relevant in my case." "But drinking..." "I understand well that one doesn't drink just anything, that each drinker has a favorite drink, but it's because in that framework that one has to grasp the quantity." "What does this question of quantity mean?" "People make fun of addicts and alcoholics because they never stop saying, "Oh you know, I am in control," "I can stop drinking whenever I want." People make fun of them because they don't understand what drinkers mean." "I have some very clear memories of this," "I think everyone who drank understands this." "When you drink, what you want to reach is the last drink." "Literally, drinking means doing everything in order to reach the final drink." "That's what is interesting." "Parnet:" "At the limit?" "Deleuze:" "Well, what the limit is, is very complicated, let me tell you..." "In other words, an alcoholic is someone who never ceases to stop drinking," "I mean, who never stops having arrived at the last drink." "So what does that mean?" "It's like the expression by [Charles] Péguy that is so beautiful," ""lt's not the final water lily that repeats the first, it's the first water lily that repeats all the others and the final one."" "The first drink, it repeats the last one, it's the last one that counts." "So what does that mean, the last drink, for an alcoholic?" "He gets up in the morning, if he's a morning alcoholic- there are all the kinds that you might want -if he's a morning alcoholic, he is entirely pointed toward the moment when he will reach" "the last drink. it's not the first, the second, the third that interests him... it's a lot more..." "He's clever, full of guile, an alcoholic..." "The last glass means this: he evaluates..." "there is an evaluation." "He evaluates what he can hold, without collapsing... he evaluates..." "It varies considerably with each person." "So he evaluates the last drink, and all the others are going to be his way of passing, of reaching the last glass." "And what does "the last" mean?" "That means that he cannot stand to drink one more glass that particular day." "It's the last one that will allow him to begin drinking the next day... because if he goes all the way to the last drink, on the contrary, that goes beyond his capacity, it's the last in his power." "If he goes beyond the last one in his power in order to reach the last one beyond his power, then he collapses, then he's screwed, he has to go to the hospital, or he has to change his habits," "he has to change assemblages." "So that when he says," ""the last drink," it's not the last one, it's the next-to-last one." "He is searching for the next-to-last one." "In other words, there is a term to say the next-to-last, it's penultimate..." "He does not seek the last drink, he seeks the penultimate one." "Parnet:" "Never the ultimate..." "Deleuze:" "Not the ultimate, because the ultimate would place him outside his arrangement." "The penultimate is the last one... before beginning again the next day." "So I can say that the alcoholic is someone who says, and who never stops saying" "You hear it in the cafés, those groups of alcoholics are so joyful, one never gets tired of listening to them- So the alcoholic is someone who never stops saying, "OK, it's the last one," and the last one varies from" "one person to another, but the last one is the next-to-last one." "Parnet:" "And he's also the one who says, "I'm stopping tomorrow."" "Deleuze: "Stopping tomorrow"?" "No, he never says" ""I'm stopping tomorrow." He says, "I'm stopping today, to be able to start over again tomorrow."" "Parnet:" "And since drinking means not stopping... means stopping drinking constantly, then how does one stop drinking completely, because you stopped drinking completely...?" "Deleuze: it's too dangerous, if one goes too quickly." "Michaux has said everything on that topic." "In my opinion, drug problems and alcohol problems are not that separate." "Michaux said everything on that topic..." "A moment comes when it is too dangerous." "Here again, there is this ridge... when I was talking about this ridge between language and silence, or language and animality." "This ridge is a thin division." "One can very well drink or take drugs..." "One can always do whatever one wants if it doesn't prevent you from working." "If it's a stimulus..." "it's even normal to offer something of one's body as a sacrifice." "There is a whole sacrificial attitude in these activities, drinking, taking drugs, one offers one's body as a sacrifice..." "Why?" "No doubt because there is something entirely too strong that one could not stand without alcohol." "It's not a question of being able to stand alcohol..." "That's perhaps what one believes, what one needs to believe, what one believes oneself to see, to feel, to think, with the result that one has the need in order to stand it," "in order to master it, one needs assistance, from alcohol, drugs, etc." "Deleuze:" "So the question of limits, it's quite simple..." "Drinking, taking drugs, these are almost supposed to make possible" "something that is too strong, even if one has to pay for it afterwards, that's well known." "But it's connected to working, working." "And it's obvious that when everything is reversed and drinking prevents one from working, when taking a drug becomes a way of not working, that's the absolute danger, it no longer has any interest." "And at the same time, it's more and more obvious that although we used to think drinking was necessary, that taking drugs was necessary, they are not necessary..." "Perhaps one has to have gone through that experience to realize that everything one thought one did thanks to drugs or thanks to alcohol, one could do without them." "You see, I admire a lot the way that Michaux considers all this..." "He stops all this, and I see the advantage because I stopped drinking for reasons related to breathing, for health reasons." "It is obvious that one has to stop or do without it." "The only tiny justification possible would be if they did help one to work, even if one has to pay for it physically afterwards." "But the more one continues, the more one realizes that it doesn't help ones work." "Parnet:" "Michaux must have drunk quite a lot and taken a lot of drugs in order to get to the point of doing without in such a state as he did..." "And on the other hand, you said that when you drink, it must not prevent you from working, but that you perceive something that drinking helps you to support, and this "something" is not life..." "so that raises the question about the writers you prefer..." "Deleuze:" "Yes, it is life..." "Parnet:" "It is life?" "Deleuze: it's something too strong in life." "It's not necessarily something that is terrifying, just something that is too strong, it's something too powerful in life." "Some people believe a bit idiotically that drinking puts you on the level of this too-powerful-something." "If you take the whole lineage of the Americans, the great American writers..." "Parnet:" "From Fitzgerald to Lowry..." "Deleuze:" "Fitzgerald, the one I admire the most is Thomas Wolfe... all that is a series of alcoholics, at the same time, that's what allows them..." "no doubt, helps them to perceive this something- too-huge..." "Parnet:" "Yes, but it's also because they themselves had perceived something powerful in life that not everyone could perceive, they felt something powerful in life..." "Deleuze:" "That's right, obviously... it's not alcohol that is going to make you feel..." "Parnet: the power of life for them that they alone could perceive." "Deleuze:" "I completely agree I completely agree" "Parnet: and the same for Lowry..." "Deleuze:" "I completely agree Certainly..." "They created their works, and what alcohol was for them, well, they took a risk, they took a chance on it because they thought, right or wrong, that alcohol would help them with it." "I had the feeling that alcohol helped me create concepts... it's strange... philosophical concepts, yes, that it helped me, and then it wasn't helping me any more, it was getting dangerous for me," "I no longer wanted to work." "At that point, you just have to give it up, that's all..." "Parnet:" "That's more like an American tradition, because we don't know of many French writers who have this penchant for alcohol, and still it's kind of hard to..." "There is something that belongs to their writing..." "Deleuze:" "Well, yes, yes, but French writers, it's not the same vision of writing..." "I don't know..." "If I have been influenced so much by the Americans, it's because of this question of vision." "They are "seers"..." "If one believes that philosophy, writing, is a question, in a very modest fashion, a question of "seeing" something..." "seeing something that others don't see, then it's not exactly the French conception of literature." "Although there are a lot of alcoholics in France..." "Parnet:" "But the alcoholics in France, they stop writing, at least we don't know of any..." "But we don't know of any philosophers either who devote..." "Deleuze:" "Verlaine lived on a street right nearby here, rue Nollet..." "Parnet:" "Ah yes, with the exception of Rimbaud and Verlaine..." "Deleuze:" "It moves me." "When I take the street and I think that it undoubtedly must have been the route that Verlaine took to go to a cafe to drink his absinthe..." "Apparently he lived in a pitiful apartment..." "Parnet:" "Well yes, poets and alcohol..." "Deleuze:" "One of Frances greatest poets who used to shuffle down that street..." "it's marvelous..." "Yes, yes..." "Parnet"." "At the Bar des Arms..." "Deleuze:" "No doubt!" "Parnet:" "Yes, among poets, we know that there were more alcoholics" "OK, well, we have finished with alcohol..." "Deleuze:" "Yep, we've finished My, we're speeding along..." "Deleuze:" "Yep, we've finished My, we're speeding along..." "Parnet: .. so we pass on to and "C" is vast..." "Deleuze:" "What is it?" "Parnet: "C as in Culture."" "Deleuze:" "Sure, why not?" "Parnet:" "OK, you are someone who describes himself as not "cultivated."" "That is, you say that you read, you go to movies, you observe things to gain particular knowledge, something that you need" "for a particular, ongoing project that you are in the process of developing." "But, at the same time, you are someone who, every Saturday, goes out to an art exhibit, goes out to a movie, in the broad cultural domain..." "One gets the impression that you have a kind of practice, an effort towards culture, that you systematize, and that you have a cultural practice, that is, you go out," "you make an effort at a systematic cultural practice, you aim at developing yourself culturally." "And yet, I repeat, you claim that you are not at all "cultivated,"" "so how do you explain this little paradox?" "..." "You're not "cultivated?"" "Deleuze:" "No, because..." "I would say that, in fact..." "When I tell you that," "I don't see myself, really, I don't experience myself as an intellectual or experience myself as "cultivated" for a simple reason:" "when I see someone "cultivated," I am terrified, and not necessarily with admiration, although admiring them from certain perspectives, from others, not at all." "But I am just terrified of a "cultivated person,"" "and this is quite obvious to "cultivated people."" "it's a kind of knowledge, a frightening body of knowledge on everything..." "One sees that a lot with intellectuals, they know everything." "Well, maybe not, but they are informed about everything- they know the history of Italy during the Renaissance, they know the geography of the North Pole, they know... the whole list, they know everything, can talk about anything... it's abominable." "So, when I say that I am neither "cultivated," nor an intellectual," "I mean something quite simple, that I have no "reserve knowledge,"" "At least, there's no problem, at my death, there's no point in looking for what I have left to publish..." "Nothing, nothing, because" "I have no reserves, I have no provisions, no provisional knowledge." "And everything that I learn, I learn for a particular task, and once it's done," "I immediately forget it, so that if ten years later, I have to" "and this gives me great joy- if I have to get involved with something close to or directly within the same subject," "I would have to start again from zero, except in certain very rare cases, for example Spinoza, who is in my heart whom I don't forget." "It's my heart and not my mind." "Otherwise..." "So why don't I admire this "frightening knowledge," these people who talk..." "Parnet:" "Is this knowledge a kind of erudition, or just an opinion on every subject?" "Deleuze:" "No, it's not erudition." "They know... they know how to talk." "First, they've traveled a lot, traveled in geography, in history, but they know how to talk about everything." "I've heard them on t.v., it's frightening..." "I have heard... well, since I am full of admiration for him," "I can even say it, people like Eco, Umberto Eco... it's amazing..." "There you go, it's like pushing on a button, and he knows all of it as well." "I cant say that I envy that entirely, I'm just frightened by it, but I don't envy it at all." "To a certain extent, I ask:" "what does culture consist of?" "And I tell myself that it consists a lot of talking." "I can't keep myself..." "Especially since I have stopped teaching, since I have retired," "I realize that talking is a bit dirty, a bit dirty, whereas writing is clean." "Writing is clean and talking is dirty." "It's dirty because it means being seductive." "I could never stand attending colloquia ever since I was in school, still quite young," "I could never stand colloquia." "I don't travel much, and why not?" "Intellectuals..." "I would gladly travel sometime if..." "Well, actually I wouldn't travel, my health prevents it, but intellectuals travelling is a joke." "They don't travel, they move about in order to go talk..." "They go from one place where they talk in order to go to another place where they are going to talk even during meals, they talk with the local intellectuals." "They never stop talking, and I can't stand talking, talking, talking," "I can't stand it." "So, in my opinion, since culture is closely linked to speaking, in this sense, I hate culture, I cannot stand it." "Parnet:" "Well, we will come back to the separation between writing itself and dirty speech because, nonetheless, you are a very great professor and..." "Deleuze:" "Well, that's different..." "Parnet: and we will come back to it because the letter "P" is about your work as professor, and then we will be able to discuss "seduction"..." "Parnet:" "I still want to come back to this subject that you kind of avoided, to this effort, discipline even, that you impose on yourself-even if, in fact, you don't need to-to see, well, for example, in the last two weeks," "the [Sigmar] Polke exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art." "You go out rather frequently, not to say on a weekly basis, to see a major film or to see art exhibits." "So, you say that you are not erudite, not "cultivated,"" "you have no admiration for "cultivated people," like you just said, so what does this practice, all this effort, correspond to for you?" "Is it a form of pleasure?" "Deleuze:" "I think..." "Yes, certainly, it's a form of pleasure, although not always." "But I see this as part of my investment in being "on the lookout." I don't believe in culture, to some extent, but rather I believe in encounters." "But these encounters don't occur with people." "People always think that it's with people that encounters occur, which is why it's awful..." "Now, in this, that belongs to the domain of culture, intellectuals meeting one another, this disgusting practice of conferences, this infamy." "So encounters, it's not between people that they happen, but with things..." "So I encounter a..." "painting, yes, or a piece of music," "that's how I understand an encounter." "When people want to add an encounter with themselves, with people, well, that doesn't work at all..." "That's not an encounter, and that's why encounters are so utterly, utterly disappointing." "Encounters with people are always catastrophic." "So, as you said, when I go out on Saturdays and Sundays, to the movies, etc., I'm not certain to have an encounter..." "I go out, I am "on the lookout" for encounters, wondering if there might be material for an encounter, in a film, in a painting, so it's great." "I'll give an example because, for me, whenever one does something, it is also a question of moving on from it, simultaneously staying in it and getting out of it." "So, staying in philosophy also means how to get out of philosophy." "But, getting out of philosophy doesn't mean doing something else." "One has to get out while remaining within... it's not doing something else, not writing a novel." "First off, I wouldn't be able to in any event, but even if I could, it would be completely useless." "I want to get out of philosophy by means of philosophy." "That's what interests me..." "Parnet:" "That is...'.7" "Deleuze:" "Here is an example." "Since all this will be after my death, I can speak without modesty." "I just wrote a book on a great philosopher called Leibniz in which" "I insisted on the notion that seemed important in his work, but that is very important for me, the notion of "the fold."" "So, I consider that it's a book of philosophy, on this bizarre little notion of the fold." "What happens to me after that?" "I received a lot of letters, as always..." "There are letters that are insignificant even if they are charming and affectionate and move me deeply," "They are letters that talk about what I have done... letters from intellectuals who liked or didn't like the book..." "And then I receive two other letters that make me rub my eyes in disbelief." "Letters from people who tell me, "Your story of folds, that's us!" and" "I realize that it's from people who belong to an association that has 400 members in France currently, perhaps they now have more, an association of paper folders." "They have a journal, and they send me the journal, and they say, "We agree completely, what you are doing is what we do." So, I tell myself, that's quite something!" "Then I received another kind of letter, and they speak in exactly the same way, saying: "The fold is us!"" "I find this marvelous, all the more so because it reminded me of a story in Plato, since great philosophers do not write in abstractions," "but are great writers and authors of very concrete things." "So, in Plato, there is a story that delights me, and it's no doubt linked to the beginning of philosophy, maybe we will come back to it..." "Plato's theme is..." "He gives a definition, for example, what is a politician?" "A politician is the pastor of men." "And with that definition, lots of people arrive to say: "Hey, you can see, we are politicians!" For example, the shepherd arrives, says "I dress people, so I am the true pastor of men";" "the butcher arrives, "I feed people, so I am the true pastor of men."" "So these rivals arrive, and I feel like I have been through this a bit:" "here come the paper folders who say, we are the fold!" "And the others who wrote and who sent me exactly the same thing, it's really great, they were surfers who, it would seem, have no relation whatsoever with the paper folders." "And the surfers say," ""We understand, we agree completely because what do we do?" "We never stop inserting ourselves into the folds of nature." "For us, nature is an aggregate of mobile folds, and we insert ourselves into the fold of the wave, live in the fold of the wave, that's what our task is." "Living in the fold of the wave." And, in fact, they talk about this quite admirably." "These people are quite..." "They think about what they do, not just surfing, but think about what they do, and maybe we will talk about it one day if we reach sports, at "T as in Tennis"" "Parnet:" "So these belong to the "encounter" category, these encounters with surfers, with paper folders?" "Deleuze:" "Yes, these are encounters." "When I say" ""get out of philosophy through philosophy,"" "this happened to me all the time..." "I encountered the paper folders..." "I don't have to go see them." "No doubt, we'd be disappointed," "I'd be disappointed, and they certainly would be even more disappointed, so no need to see them." "I had an encounter with the surf, with the paper folders, literally," "I went beyond philosophy by means of philosophy." "That's what an encounter is." "So, I think, when I go out to an exhibit," "I am "on the lookout," searching for a painting that might touch me, that might affect me. [Same] when I go to the movies..." "I don't go to the theater because theater is too long, too disciplined, it's too... it's too... it does not seem to be an art that... except in certain cases, except with Bob Wilson and Carmelo Bene," "I don't feel that theater is very much in touch with our era, except for these extreme cases." "But to remain there for four hours in an uncomfortable seat, I can't do it any more for health reasons, so that wipes theater out entirely for me." "But at a painting exhibit or at the movies, I always have the impression that in the best circumstances, I risk having an encounter with an idea..." "Parnet:" "Yes, but there is no..." "I mean, films only for entertainment do not exist at all?" "Deleuze:" "Well, they are not culture..." "Parnet:" "They may not be culture, but there is no entertainment..." "Deleuze:" "Well, entertainment..." "Parnet: that is, everything is situated within your work?" "For the future..." "Deleuze:" "No, it's not work, it's just that I am "on the lookout" for something that might "happen," asking myself, does that disturb me?" "Those [kinds of films]... they amuse me a lot, they are very funny." "Parnet:" "Well, it's not Eddie Murphy who is going to disturb you!" "Deleuze: it's not...?" "Parnet:" "Eddie Murphy, he's a director..." "no, an American comedian and actor whose recent films are enormously successful with the public." "Deleuze:" "I don't know him." "Parnet:" "No, I mean, you never watch... no, you only watch Benny Hill on television..." "Deleuze:" "Yes, well, I find Benny Hill interesting, that interests me." "Well, it's certainly nothing that is necessarily really good or new, but there are reasons why it interests me." "Parnet:" "But when you go out, it's for an encounter." "Deleuze:" "When I go out if there is no idea to draw from it, if I don't say," ""Yes, he had an idea"..." "What do great filmmakers do?" "This is valid for filmmakers too." "What strikes me in the beauty of, for example, a great filmmaker like Minnelli, or like Losey, what affects me if not that they are overwhelmed by ideas, an idea..." "Parnet:" "You're starting in on my [letter] "I"!" "Stop right away!" "Deleuze:" "OK, let's stop on that, but that's what an encounter is for me, one has encounters with things and not with people..." "Parnet:" "Do you have a lot of encounters, to talk about a particular cultural period like right now?" "Deleuze:" "Well, yes, I just told you, with paper folders, with surfers..." "What could you ask for that's more beautiful?" "Parnet:" "But..." "Deleuze:" "But these are not encounters with intellectuals," "I don't have any encounters with intellectuals..." "Parnet:" "But do you..." "Deleuze: or if I have an encounter with an intellectual, it's for other reasons, like" "I like him so I have a meeting with him, for what he is doing, for his ongoing work, his charm, all that..." "One has an encounter with those kinds of elements, with the charm of people, with the work of people, but not with people in themselves." "I don't have anything to do with people, nothing at all." "Parnet:" "Perhaps they rub up against you like cats." "Deleuze:" "Well yes, it could be like that, their rubbing or their barking!" "it's awful!" "Parnet:" "Lets think about culturally rich and culturally poor periods." "So what about now, do you think it's a period that's not too rich, because I often see you get very annoyed watching television, watching the literary shows that we won't name, although when this interview is shown," "the names will have changed." "Do you find this to be a rich period or a particularly poor period that we are living through?" "Deleuze:" "Yes, it's poor, it's poor, but at the same time, it's not at all distressing." "Parnet:" "You find it funny?" "Deleuze:" "Yes, I find it funny." "I tell myself, at my age, this is not the first time that impoverished periods have occurred." "I tell myself, what have I lived through since" "I was old enough to be somewhat enthusiastic?" "I lived through the Liberation and the aftermath." "It was among the richest periods one could imagine, when we were discovering or rediscovering everything..." "The Liberation..." "The war had taken place and that was no piece of cake..." "We were discovering everything, the American novel, Kafka, the domain of research..." "There was Sartre..." "You cannot imagine what it was like," "I mean intellectually, what we were discovering or rediscovering in painting, etc." "One has to understand..." "There was the huge polemic, "Must we burn Kafka?". .." "It's unimaginable and seems a bit infantile today, but it was a very stimulating, creative atmosphere." "And I lived through the period before May '68 that was an extremely rich period all the way to shortly after May '68." "And in the meantime, if there were impoverished periods, that's quite normal, but it's not the fact of poverty that i find disturbing, but rather the insolence or impudence of people who inhabit the impoverished periods." "They are much more wicked than the inspired people who come to life during rich periods." "Parnet:" "Inspired or just well-meaning?" "Because you referred to the Kafka polemic at the time of the Liberation, and there was that Alexander whats-his-name who was very happy with the fact that he had never read Kafka, and he said it while laughing..." "Deleuze:" "Well, yes, he was very happy..." "The stupider they are, the happier they are, since..." "Like those who think, and we come back to this, that literature is now a tiny little private affair..." "If one thinks that, then there's no need to read Kafka, no need to read very much, since if one has a pretty little pen, one is naturally Kafka's equal..." "There's no work involved there, no work at all..." "I mean, how can I explain myself?" "Let's take something more serious on this than those young fools." "I recently went to the Cosmos to see a film..." "Parnet:" "Parajanov?" "Deleuze:" "No, but Parajanov, that was admirable..." "A very moving Russian film that was made about thirty years ago, but that has only been released very recently." "Parnet"." "The Comissar'?" "Deleuze:" "The Commissar." "In this, I found something that was very moving..." "The film was very, very good, couldn't have been better... perfect." "But we noticed with a kind of terror, or a kind of compassion, that it was a film like the ones the Russians used to make before the war..." "Parnet:" "In the time of Eisenstein..." "Deleuze: in the time of Eisenstein, of Dovzhenko." "Everything was there, parallel editing notably, parallel editing that was sublime, etc." "It was as if nothing had happened since the war, as if nothing had happened in cinema." "And I told myself, it's inevitable, the film is good, sure, but it was very strange too, for that reason, and if it was not that good, it was for that reason." "It was literally by someone who had been so isolated in his work that he created a film the way films were made 20 years ago..." "It wasn't all that bad, only that it was quite good, quite amazing for twenty years earlier." "Everything that happened in the meantime, he never knew about it," "I mean, since he had grown up in a desert. it's awful..." "Crossing a desert is nothing much, working in, passing through a desert period is not bad." "What is awful is being born in this desert, and growing up in it..." "That's frightful," "I imagine..." "One must have an impression of solitude..." "Parnet:" "Like for young people who are 18-year's old now, for example?" "Deleuze:" "Right, especially when you understand that when things..." "This is what happens in impoverished periods." "When things disappear, no one notices it for a simple reason:" "when something disappears, no one misses it." "The Stalinian period caused Russian literature to disappear, and the Russians didn't notice, I mean, the majority of Russians, they just didn't notice, a literature that had been a turbulent literature throughout the nineteenth century, it just disappeared." "I know that now people say there are the dissidents, etc., but on the level of a people, the Russian people, their literature disappeared, their painting disappeared, and nobody noticed." "Today, to account for what is happening today, obviously there are new young people who certainly have genius." "Let us suppose, I don't like the expression, but let us suppose that there are new Becketts, the new Becketts of today..." "Parnet:" "I thought you were going to say the "New Philosophers"..." "Deleuze:" "Yes, well..." "But the new Becketts of today..." "Let us assume that they don't get published-after all," "Beckett almost did not get published" "it's obvious nothing would be missed." "By definition, a great author or a genius is someone who brings forth something new." "If this innovation does not appear, then that bothers no one, no one misses it since no one has the slightest idea about it." "If Proust... if Kafka had never been published, no one could say that Kafka would be missed..." "If someone had burned all of Kafka's writings, no one could say, "Ah, we really miss that!" since no one would have any idea of what had disappeared." "If the new Becketts of today are kept from publishing by the current system of publishing, one cannot say, "Oh, we really miss that!"" "I heard a declaration, the most impudent declaration I have ever heard" "I don't dare say to whom it was attributed in some newspaper since these kinds of things are never certain- someone in the publishing field who dared to say: "You know, today, we no longer risk making mistakes" "like Gallimard did when he initially refused to publish Proust since we have the means today. ." "Parnet:" "The headhunters..." "Deleuze:" "You'd think you were dreaming," ""but with the means we have today to locate and recognize new Prousts and new Becketts." That's like saying they have some sort of Geiger counter and that the new Beckett-that is, someone who is completely unimaginable" "since we don't know what kind of innovation he would bring- he would emit some kind of sound if..." "Parnet: if you passed it over his head..." "Deleuze: if you passed it in his path." "So, what defines the crisis today, with all these idiocies?" "The crisis today I attribute to three things-but it will pass," "I still remain quite optimistic- this is what defines a desert period:" "First, that journalists have conquered the book form." "Journalists have always written [books], and I find it quite good that journalists write, but when journalists used to undertake a book, they used to believe that they were moving into a different form of writing," "not the same thing as writing their newspaper articles." "Parnet:" "One can recall that for a long time, there were writers who were also journalists..." "Mallarme, they could do journalism, but the reverse didn't occur..." "Deleuze:" "Now, it's the reverse..." "The journalist as journalist has conquered the book form, that is, he finds it quite normal to write, just like that, a book that would be nothing more than a newspaper article." "And that's not good at all." "The second reason is that a generalized idea has spread that anyone can write since writing has become the tiny little affair of the individual, with family archives, either written archives or archives... in one's head." "Everybody has had a love story, everybody has had a grandmother who was ill, a mother who was dying in awful conditions." "They tell themselves, ok, I can write a novel about it. it's not at all a novel, I mean, really not at all." "So..." "Parnet:" "The third reason?" "Deleuze:" "The third reason is that, you understand, the real customers have changed." "One realizes..." "Of course, people are still there, still well informed, but the customers have changed." "I mean, who are the television customers?" "It's not the people listening, but rather the advertisers, they are the real customers." "The listeners have what the advertisers want." "Parnet:" "The television viewers..." "Deleuze:" "Yes, the television viewers."