Anti-Oedipus

Capitalism and Schizophrenia

By: Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Michel Foucault - preface, Mark Seem - translator, Robert Hurley - translator, Helen R. Lane - translator

Narrated by: Jon Orsini

An "introduction to the nonfascist life" (Michel Foucault, from the Preface)

When it first appeared in France, Anti-Oedipus was hailed as a masterpiece by some and "a work of heretical madness" by others. In it, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari set forth the following theory: Western society's innate herd instinct has allowed the government, the media, and even the principles of economics to take advantage of each person's unwillingness to be cut off from the group. What's more, those who suffer from mental disorders may not be insane, but could be individuals in the purest sense, because they are by nature isolated from society. More than twenty-five years after its original publication, Anti-Oedipus still stands as a controversial contribution to a much-needed dialogue on the nature of free thinking.

©1983 The University of Minnesota (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Renders palpable the metaphor of the unconscious as a worker, and does it in a brilliant, appropriately nutty way."—The New Republic

can't believe it's here

First timers will want a print, and then the audio to mull over. This and the sequel can be studied like a Bible. Can't wait for Plateaus to drop!

chlorophyll, anyone?

gee! thxx for the advice, D&G! Anti-Oedipus is genuinly a masterpiece. it reads like a manic epiphany, acid trip or a very subtle psychoanalysis of Nietzsche himself. equally empowering + devestating, esoteric + hilarious, and yet, this might be it; the frolicking science ;’D

Excellent production of a seminal work.

I am really impressed by the narrator's ability to cope with what can be really wonky language. I did feel they understood the assignment. I've read the title a few times before but like to take in media in more than way to flesh out perspectives and I'm happy with the production of this translation.

Please make Thousand Plateaus as well!

Very nicely done. The reading is consistent. Listening to it at .8 X speed allows me to focus and practice with language. Finally have been able to digest & comprehend this masterpiece. I was unable to complete it through reading alone. I’ve now nearly finished it. It’s full of gems of ideas. A treasure.

Please make a Thousand Plateaus

This book is outdated in the Delezuean corpus, but a great listen regardless. The narrator was amazing, too.

that this audio exists @ all!!!

anti-oedipus is an extremely funny book, and would be more than worth it for the jokes alone. in addition to comedic value, there is pugnacious, wonderfully satirical critique throught. its like Dōgen and John Trudell walked into a bar where some fascist dickhead is lecturing from a soapbox, and this text is their whispered dialogue

Not read in usual way,but Praxis that works on you

This is a rare and unusual book.. and not a book at all, but a Rhizome, a mind-weed. In the very telling, it lives and demonstrates the points contained within. As such, it can seem a scatterbrained madness... really, it IS madness, and proudly so.

I can see that audible has this Recommended in the "Other Books About Politics" / "If you listened to ___, you may enjoy.." sections, so if you have found this book by listening to some "regular" book on politics, especially American politics.. let me warn you. This is not that kind of book. Not at all.

This is the kind of book that wants you to have read at least a little bit of Freud, Marx, and/or Nietzsche, have understood it, and probably agreed with a lot of it, if not found some problems with what you read. If you are the kind of person for whom Marx is a dirty word, keep walking. This is not for you. If you are the kind of person who thought, Freud, that guy who thinks I want to get dirty with my mom? Gross! Then it is probably also not for you.. but for different reasons. Yes, D+G perform an epic takedown of Freud, but their work is also much, much weirder than that, and probably also "grosser." Also, if that is as far as you got with Freud, this wasn't written for you. Just trying to save someone a credit if they don't know what they are in for with this classic, seminal work of theory.

If you are still with me, and are perhaps intrigued rather than scared or turned-off, then great. This is a rare and unparalleled work and there is really nothing else quite like it. It holds up a schizophrenic mind not as a mentality that is broken or wrong, but as perhaps a model better than Freud's neurotic talking of his childhood on the couch. It praises a schizophrenic on a morning walk with sunbeams shooting out his anus. It invents an entire vocabulary of terms that are inpenetrable and obscure even for literary theory, such as Desiring Machines, Schizoanalysis, lines of flight, desiring production, the plane of consistency, territoriality and deterritorialization. This is a gleeful text, in a way that dry theory tomes almost never are, and in many respects is more like a strange piece of performance art than an essay.

If you still want to attempt this strange and beautiful text, let me say this. I am impressed with the recording. The narrator dove in with gusto into a work that would have suffered from a dry or monotone reading - he seems to be having fun with the reading, which I think is the right tone. Also, I hope somehow that Penguin or the current right holders continue and do the Part 2 volume A Thousand Plateaus, because it is wonderful and if anything even better at communicating D+G's overall point. However, i have only ever seen a Penguin print edition of Anti Oedipus, so maybe that is not in the cards. However, I urge a reader/listener of this volume to seek out the Introduction to the second volume A Thousand Plateaus, which is entitled "Introduction: The Rhizome," and has at times been published separately as its own essay. That piece will give this book a lot of context, and in some ways is a mission statement for both books. It will make clear that Anti Oedipus, as well as A Thousand Plateaus, is in many ways a Performance and example of their idea of a "Rhizome Book," so by reading that introduction first you can see as you listen to this a little bit of what they were going for with the strangeness of all this. It is all deliberate, and in many ways, this is a text you need to "let work on you" before you "understand it" (so dont worry if you dont "get" it).

This is a very special book and I wanted it to have an honest and complete review, so here it is. If you go for it.... enjoy.

Mostly confusing

Moost of this book did not make sense, even though there were some insightful things said. It might be because of the time that when this was published this was highly relevant or groundbreaking but I don't think it holds up.

Art perhaps, but not philosophy

This work is impenetrable, assuming there is something to be understood within it at all. I couldn't describe it as science or philosophy, but maybe art--and not art that resonates with me.