Às Avessas

Um ensaio deleuziano pelas mãos de Huysmans

Abstract

This paper discusses the lack of quoting and reference to the work of the French novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans in the work of Gilles Deleuze. We point out that many of Deleuzian theories are thoroughly present in Huysmans’ masterpiece, the novel Against Nature (À Rebours), seeming to be central concepts to the author’s thought, such as machinic agency, deterritorialization, rhizome and ‘becoming’ (becoming an animal, becoming a woman and other more complex variants). Our analysis also takes into account other philosophical concepts which may have highly influenced Deleuze’s work, as they can be inferred from his texts, especially Leibniz's monadology. We, then, expect to have shown that there are abundant affinities between Deleuze’s thoughts and Huysmans’ work, which makes it unfortunate that there are no references to such an important novelist in Deleuze’s philosophical theories.