Deleuze and Guattari seem to have this nasty habit of introducing words they create or place new meaning on, but do not ever explain, or explain after the fact. He introduces assemblage, machines, and body without organs in the first five pages. I had to stop reading, read the anti-Oedipus, and then come back to have an idea of what machines and a body without organs are. Its impossible to comprehend their writing without know the meaning of these terms, yet they never adequately explain them. They do a good job at explaining rhizomes (as they are the focus of the work), but plateaus are just glazed over.

I feel that G&D short change the power and meaning of books. Just off the bat they give us this little guy, "The ideal for a book would be to lay everything on a plane of exteriority of this kind, on a single page, the same sheet". The whole chapter seems to belittle the ability of a book to explain the meaning of life and things. The book is the ultimate form of expression as it allows the author to directly explain his philosophy, beliefs and ideas. If the rhizome has no center and its connected to every other rhizome, then the book is the greatest of all rhizomes. And not just the American Novel, but all books and papers ever. They are all connected and intertwined to create the foundation of our knowledge and ideas. After it has been written, a book is the utter definition of the rhizome.