Method: How to See Things in Free Indirect Discourse
By what right do we speak of ‘Deleuzian philosophy’? If, encountering his monographs on other thinkers and artists we cannot help the sense that we are privy there to elements of Deleuze’s own philosophy, this is because ‘reading’ is Deleuze’s veritable philosophical method. Taking its cue from Badiou, this chapter will analyse Deleuze’s frequent use of ‘free indirect discourse’, a mode of speech as it were ‘in between’ the direct and indirect discourses, very seldom found in philosophical writing. Far more prevalent in literature, this discourse has traditionally been employed in order to write as if from inside the minds of the characters; in much the same way, through free indirect discourse Deleuze attains the underlying question compelling an author to think; and it is in the critique of this question that Deleuze sets forth his own philosophy.