inserts the Deleuze-Guattari conceptual relationship into his own nar-
rative and reflections on Guattari. In the rest of Part I (chapters 3, 4 and
5), Bifo addresses different facets of the psycho-political dynamics on a
global scale, about which Guattari blazed a trail in his different writings.
Then, in Part II, especially in chapters 7 (on the rhizomatic machine),
8 (on Anti-Oedipus), and 9 (on Kafkaand A Thousand Plateaus), Bifo
explores different conceptual details that arose in the Deleuze-Guattari
collaboration. But we believe it is important to keep in mind the opening
chapter’s comprehensive view of youth and maturity, integration and
dissolution, hope and tension.
Bifo’s approach stands in sharp contrast to a more recent publication,
the working notes from the Anti-Oedipuscollaboration, The Anti-Oedipus
Papers. In Stéphane Nadaud’s excellent introduction, humorously but
quite appropriately entitled ‘Love Story between an Orchid and a Wasp’,
he reflects on how the two-who-would-be-a-crowd (that is, Deleuze and
Guattari) leave traces of each other in the drafts, notes and journal entries
that constitute the volume. One pertinent question about this collabora-
tion is: ‘Is this what the collective aspect of enunciation amounts to,
identifying something of Deleuze in Guattari and something of Guattari
in Deleuze? Is it that simple?’ (Guattari, The Anti-Oedipus Papers, 12). The
common assumption about this collaboration had been that ‘Guattari
needed Deleuze in order to write. All the more so as Guattari made no
bone [sic] about the fact that he certainly did’ (12). Nadaud understands
their collaboration somewhat differently from Bifo since Nadaud places it
under the aegis of the concept of assemblage. For each of the writers gen-
erated texts that he sent to the other between their meetings, so The Anti-
Oedipus Papersconsists of letters by Guattari, notes on his readings,
theoretical writing, and even his personal journal entries, all transmitted
to Deleuze, with Fanny Deleuze serving quite crucially as frequent inter-
mediary and also as editor, judging from many personal notes from
Guattari to her. The assemblage, of course, did include Deleuze’s contri-
butions as well, since he evidently read closely everything and annotated
much of what Guattari transmitted.
One gets a sense in The Anti-Oedipus Papersthat after the two writers
jammed and riffed, as it were, between one another, it fell to Deleuze
to finalize the text and manuscript of Anti-Oedipus, at the risk of losing
his identity in the process, according to Guattari, who understood by
the end how much the process cost Deleuze. In preparing his own
‘final’ versions to deliver to Deleuze, Guattari consulted many special-
ists, for example for Chapter 3 of Anti-Oedipus, or availed the text of
his own expertise in psychoanalysis, especially the perspectives onxiv Preface9780230_221192_01_prexvi.pdf 10/3/08 11:31 AM Page xiv