Seventh Series of Esoteric Words

In this chapter, Deleuze applies what we have learned about serialization and the point of relative displacement to Lewis Carroll explicitly. He says that throughout Carroll's work there are words that function in the same way as the MacGuffin or purloined letter discussed in the last chapter: "In principle, it is the empty square, the empty shelf, the blank word." (44) These are words like Phlizz, Snark, Azzigoom Pudding, etc. These words are a "switch" between two or more series, a means of passage. (47) These words, especially the portmanteau words, may seem synthetic, but they are in fact often disjunctive; they can be broken down, deconstructed, re-ordered, and reconnoitered. (46) They may appear born from nothing, but in fact, they have an inherent archaeology, a genealogy.