Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari refer to the conditions of viral infection in A Thousand Plateaus as an example of how alliances of heterogeneous elements are effectuated. However, as popular descriptions of viral infection are so captivated by military metaphors which preach confrontation between the human self and the viral other, an alternative model of viral infection has to be formulated so that the creative involution facilitated by viral infection can be appreciated. Following Deleuzean lines, the present article argues that viral infection testifies to the circulation of affects within machinic assemblages instead of coming about as a result of unilateral imposition. There is even a certain motivation to viral infection on the part of the human body. It is also argued that rather than serving as the guarantee of a certain biological self by waging battles against foreign antigens, the immune system defines a territory which is engaged in an endless process of deterritorialization and reterritorialization.

This paper discusses how main characters in The Black Album go through and beyond practices of consumerism and Islam fundamentalism, finding their own identities among various ethical positions in late capitalism. Representations of different characters from the author illuminate the enormous impact of consumerism, which even fundamentalist believers are not immune from. On the other hand, Kureishi also indicates that, via the romantic ethic, individualism and liberalism articulated with consumerism, an individual is capable of evading extravagant desire and achieving spiritual development. The consumer society does not merely take root on commodities and their signs. Its management relies on the ethic inherent in the logic of capitalism. Colin Campbell has pointed out that the consumer society is guided by the dual logic of modernity, namely the logic of reason manifested in calculation and experiment, and the logic of dream originated from passion and aspiration. Working ethic and romantic ethic are resulted from this dual logic, and in turn maintain the operation of capitalism in the end of production and consumption. Yet, characters in this novel do not necessarily follow its ethical principles even if they are products of consumer captialism. Furthermore, to resist over-expansion of the romantic ethic and the ethnic exploitations long present in the Western consumer society, there is a fictional community, despite its breeding in Britain, insistent on Islamic fundamentalism to withstand fragmentation of the personal or communal identity. Examining characters with widely different ethic and cultural identity, Kureishi’s novel validates the balance between the working and romantic ethic in the consumer society, and explores the possibility of transcending self-indulgence and asceticism.