French Literature Reviews - 2026

Abstract Machines. Samuel Beckett and Philosophy after Deleuze and Guattari.
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics

Review in Acta Fabula: An Abstract Machine Named Beckett, by Katerina Kanelli.

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Garin DOWD

Abstract Machines. Samuel Beckett and Philosophy after Deleuze and Guattari.

Rodopi
Coll. "Faux titres" No. 295
Amsterdam/New York, NY, 2007
Isbn: 978-90-420-2206-5
319 pp.

Publisher's Description:

What can philosophy bring to the reading of Beckett? Combining intertextual analysis with a ‘schizoanalytic genealogy’ derived from the authors of L’Anti-Œdipe, Garin Dowd’s Abstract Machines: Samuel Beckett and Philosophy after Deleuze and Guattari offers an innovative response to this much debated question. The author focuses on zones of encounter and thresholds of engagement between Beckett’s writing and a range of philosophers (among them Spinoza, Leibniz and Kant) and philosophical concepts. Beckett’s writing impacts in a variety of ways on Deleuze and Guattari’s thought, and, in particular, resonates with Deleuze’s contributions to the history of philosophy (in books such as Le Pli: Leibniz et le baroque), and his ‘critical and clinical’ approach to literature. Furthermore, the books co-written with Guattari, concerned as they are with the ‘molecularization’ of the discipline of philosophy in the name of ‘thinking otherwise’, reveal themselves in a new light when explored in conjunction with Beckett’s œuvre. With its arresting perspectives on a wide range of Beckett’s works, Abstract Machines will appeal to academics and postgraduate students interested in the philosophical aspects of his writing. Its engagement with alternative contributions to the question of Beckett and philosophy, including that of Alain Badiou, renders it a timely and provocative intervention in contemporary debates on the relationship between literature and philosophy, both within the field of Beckett studies and beyond.

Garin Dowd is Reader in Critical and Cultural Theory in the Faculty of the Arts at Thames Valley University, London.

Contents:

Note on references
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Shadow Hospitality: Beckett and Philosophy after Deleuze & Guattari
2. Beckett’s Abstract Machines: from Murphy to The Lost Ones
3. From Monadology to Nomadology: Leibniz, Deleuze, Beckett
4. Matter, Judgement and Immanence in How It Is
5. “Vasts apart”: Deleuze, Phenomenology and Worstward Ho
6. Beckett’s ‘Dislocations’
Conclusion: “the insurrection of molecules”
Works Cited
Index

The volume engages with longstanding critical discussions concerning the intersection of literature and philosophical inquiry, positioning Samuel Beckett's texts alongside key figures in the history of philosophy such as Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant. By bringing intertextual analysis into dialogue with concepts derived from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, the study examines thresholds of engagement between prose works like Murphy and The Lost Ones and broader traditions of speculative thought. This approach situates scholarship within wider contemporary debates regarding the relationship between creative writing and critical theory, touching upon alternative readings proposed by commentators such as Alain Badiou.

Readers interested in the intersections of modern literature and continental philosophy may find this exploration of Beckett's writing and its critical reception relevant. The discussion extends to specific theoretical frameworks, including Deleuze’s critical and clinical method and the collaborative concepts developed in works like L’Anti-Œdipe, tracing how literary texts might resonate with or impact philosophical systems. The investigation encompasses various facets of Beckett's œuvre, addressing questions of immanence, judgment, and the organization of matter across multiple texts while remaining anchored in the specific conceptual vocabularies outlined by the author.