His work began in 1953 with Empiricism and Subjectivity, where he sketched his theory of the “multiple,” and continued in 1962 with Nietzsche and Philosophy, Kant’s Critical Philosophy in 1963, and Proust and Signs in 1964. One of the characteristics of Deleuze is his rereading of classic philosophers, so that he wrote about Bergson, Bacon, Spinoza, and Leibniz, but also about Kafka, Melville, and other writers (Essays Critical and Clinical). Deleuze’s vision is neither conformist nor explanatory: it is a flashlight that shows us something previously unseen, that tries to clarify a moment. It is difficult to grasp the work of Deleuze as a totality, since it encompasses cinema, literature, history, science, music, daily life, politics… Everything.
After the death of Michel Foucault from AIDS in 1984, that of Louis Althusser in 1990 after being confined to a psychiatric hospital for strangling his wife, and the suicide of the situationist Guy Debord, the death of Gilles Deleuze brings the Parisian school of philosophy to a tragic end, establishing a macabre statistic. The ideas nevertheless remain, resting on this definitive assertion by Michel Foucault: “One day, perhaps, the century will be Deleuzian.”
I read it twice.
I was surprised to realize how much I’d known about Deleuze at the time. I’d never been comfortable with abstract thought, and most likely I’d turned to Gustavo for help, but I can’t remember now. Nor can I explain how it was that it was published in the section Life Today, because the article isn’t exactly exciting from a journalistic point of view.
It was time to get moving, so I went back out on the street. Night was falling.
I walked aimlessly until I saw, on an upper floor, a sign that read “Bangkok Rare Books.” I went in without thinking. They had travel books from the beginning of the twentieth century and a literature section with editions of Graham Greene for $850. I passed my hand over the spines of The Power and the Glory, Heinemann, London, 1940, and The End of the Affair, Heinemann, London, 1951.
Except for the temples, I’d followed the prosecutor’s advice. My budget forbade me from buying any of this, or even sniffing it. But what a pleasure. I left old Graham Greene happily enough, and went down to look for a last drink before going back to the hotel.
7. INTER-NETA’S MONOLOGUES
Do you want to know, O mortal, what my most unmentionable desires are? Friend: those are precisely the ones you will never know, that’s why they are unmentionable, but I can tell you others, simple things, did you know that there are cities in this vast world through which, some days, I’d like to wander? I’m dying to do that! To be part of the crowd, even if only for a few hours or minutes, to lose myself in the streets and subway stations, attend their help centers, look for relief in their help lines for lonely people.
What are these cities?
I will talk to you about one among the many in my nocturnal constellation, because there are stars that shine with greater intensity. Let’s see, let’s see, what is that beautiful, coppery, not-quite-golden light on the right-hand side of my map? What’s the name of that star washed up close to the sea, at the beginning of a wide arm, like a baby’s inert limb?
It’s Bangkok.
The Asian capital of smiles. The capital of foot massage and other kinds, like the “body to body” (which may include a “happy ending,” just imagine), multiple relaxation, anti-depression, and anti-jet-lag massages. There are 36,874 registered massage parlors. The body is connected by nerve endings to the soles of the feet and from there you can control and remedy deficiencies and boost energy. A strange machine, the body! You can help it to be happy.
Bangkok resembles that old TV series, Fantasy Island: “Its possibilities are limited only by the imagination.” And so you ask yourself: imagine? imagine? But… What do you imagine? How do you imagine that place of pleasure and also of pain?
Bangkok is one of the most polluted cities in the world. Pedestrians breathe through masks that are sold at the cash registers of supermarkets. Some afternoons, the sky seems to be closer to our heads. The alleyways of Sampeng are difficult to walk down without a mask. Everything is on open display and the air is the same: fried crickets eaten with salt, monkeys’ brains floating in jars, stomachs of dried fish boiled in water (good for gastritis), sharks’ fins. Men drink snake’s blood to combat impotence (divine impotence, mother of drunk poets!). In Chatuchak Market live cobras sleep in baskets. Their blood can cost three dollars. If it’s a queen cobra it can reach a hundred, and if it’s an albino as much as five thousand. C’est plus cher, mon vieux! Once you’ve chosen your snake, the vendor takes it out of the basket, slashes its jugular with a knife, and collects the liquid in a glass. He mixes it with a spoonful of honey and a small glass of whiskey. The customer drinks it in one go.
Bangkok, in the Thai language — a tonal language with 48 vowel sounds and 41 consonants — means City of the Island, but it has a second name: City of the Angels (Krung Thep). Its traffic jams are famous throughout South-east Asia. In addition, it’s too hot and the waters of the Chao Phraya aren’t sufficient to cool it down. On the contrary: its dark color resembles that of stagnant lagoons and many of the canals that divide up the city are filled with black water. Is it conscience? Beneath every living city is a city of the dead, a necropolis, and in it its unconscious, its tormented opium dreams. No city can be realistic and maybe for that reason Bangkok moves in dreams. The proliferation of canals gives it another nickname: the Venice of the Orient. Here we need music, maybe something by Haydn.
Bangkok, the unique. Buddhism recommends a veiled indifference toward history, but the Thais are proud of never having been colonized. Neither the kingdom of Siam, with its former capital Ayutthaya, nor present-day Thailand ever fell into French, English, or Dutch hands. Unlike its neighbors. Laos, Cambodia, and the two Vietnams formed French Indochina. Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore were English. Maybe they smile because they feel proud, and it may be that all this is true (even though it sounds somewhat forced to me).
And now comes something marvelous, incredible! One of the strangest discoveries of humanity! A case that kept the eyes and attention of science focused on my beautiful kingdom of Thailand! By one of its lakes, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, an English doctor found a child with two heads. After careful observation he discovered that it wasn’t one, but two, two children with a single body. From them, that strange genetic anomaly took its name: Siamese twins.
With their oval eyes, dark skin, and low stature, the Thais are, in fact, very smiley. “Welcome to the land of smiles,” you read at the airport. The king is considered a god and his subjects lie down on the ground before him (they don’t kneel). The Royal Palace of Sanam Luang, with its brightly colored pagodas and stupas, is beautiful, as is the imposing 150-foot-long, gold-plated Reclining Buddha. He’s a smiling Buddha. Strange to see millions of people worshiping someone who smiles.