Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition by Henry Somers-Hall (review)

There seems to be tacit agreement in university circles that anyone undertaking postgraduate study in the humanities must eventually encounter Deleuze in some form or another. While Henry Somers-Hall’s ‘guide’ to Difference and Repetition seems to belong to the current Deleuze-wave, its publication can also be regarded as part of a trend by certain academic presses to produce new, engaging postgraduate-level guides on major critical thinkers. It remains to be seen whether such publications foster stronger links between research and teaching, or if they simply attest the increasingly prevalent view of the university as a service industry indulging students’ pathological fear of primary sources. My first question, therefore, is who exactly is this guide intended for, since why would one bother to read Difference and Repetition at all? Philosophical masterpiece it might be, but what would make a student pick up this text of their own volition? Anyone who has previously been seduced by Mille plateaux would surely eschew the use of commentaries in favour of their own (mis)reading of the rest of the canon. And those already suspicious of Deleuze’s merits would not necessarily be persuaded by Somers-Hall’s claim, in the Acknowledgements, that the guide was based on an MA course that he ran dedicated to Deleuze’s book. In this respect, more details of the specific problems encountered and of the discussions and critical engagements among his cohort during the course might have been useful in an effort to convince the reader of the value of the exercise. Further elaboration of this kind would also have helped to mitigate the sense of stigma attached to a ‘guide’, by emphasizing the importance of reading difficult texts collectively, which in the case of Deleuze is often necessary in order to counter the limitless propensity for narcissistic wallowing and cheap aping of his ‘style’ that comes from too much ‘alone-time’ with his texts. The most important and welcome point to note in assessing the volume is Somers-Hall’s insistence that his guide is no substitute for reading Deleuze’s text closely and critically alongside it. While he makes it clear that he has chosen to follow key threads in his commentary—for example, the idea of Deleuze as pure metaphysician—he also goes to some length to emphasize the intellectual legwork the reader must put in if he or she is to gain anything meaningful. At the same time, the guide helpfully fills in the critical and philosophical gaps in Deleuze’s references, providing clear, concise, carefully documented explanations of thinkers and their concepts. My main criticism is that, despite recognizing the difficult nature of Deleuze’s writing style and the importance of this style for philosophical enquiry, Somers-Hall seems to be working predominantly with the English translation, the assumption being that this is adequate to an understanding of the relationship between writing and thinking. Greater focus on the original French terms and rhetoric might have been useful in calling readers’ attention to the niceties of translation and the complexities of style and rhetoric in constructing a philosophical argument.