Guo Xi: 山水手卷
Characters can only exist, and the author can only create them, because they do not perceive but have passed into the landscape and are themselves part of the compound of sensations. Ahab really does have perceptions of the sea, but only because he has entered into a relationship with Moby Dick that makes him a becoming-whale and forms a compound of sensations that no longer needs anyone: ocean. It is Mrs. Dalloway who perceives the town – but because she has passed into the town like “a knife through everything” and becomes imperceptible herself. Affects are precisely these nonhuman becomings of man, just as percepts – including the town – are nonhuman landscapes of nature. –Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari. What is Philosophy? p169.
