SOURCE: “Deleuze and the Three Powers of Literature and Philosophy: To Demystify, to Experiment, to Create,” in South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 96, No. 3, Summer, 1997, pp. 579-97.

In the following essay, Colombat finds a parallel between Deleuze's philosophy and Malcolm Lowry's novel Under the Volcano and considers what Deleuze perceives as the aim of literature and philosophy.

The “economy” of literature sometimes seems to me more powerful than that of other types of discourse: such as, for example, historical or philosophical discourse. Sometimes: it depends on singularities and contexts. Literature would be potentially more potent.

—Jacques Derrida, “This Strange Institution Called Literature”

Here's food for thought, had Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels; that's tingling enough for mortal man! to think's audacity. God only has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor...