The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela Carter

I finished this book a couple of weeks ago. Quick background: written in the 70's by Angela Carter, a famous British novelist whose other works include Wise Children. This is the first book of hers that I have read. I'd been wanting to read her for a while, as I kept seeing her mentioned in the literary magazines I read.

The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman is told by Desiderio, an old man looking back on the adventures of his youth, which he spent fighting against the fantastical unreality caused by evil Doctor Hoffman. These illusions kind of seeped into the real world and turned it upside down. People, objects and places that weren't real plagued the inhabitants of Desiderio's home city, somewhere in South America, wreaking absolute havoc and providing Doctor Hoffman with extraordinary power. At the same time Desiderio finds himself attracted to Doctor Hoffman's elusive daughter Albertina.

During his struggle to outwit the Doctor, Desiderio encounters a family of natives who take him in as one of their own, before revealing their sinister plans for him, a Lithuanian count with some weird sado-masochistic thing going on, and a clan of very religious centaurs who decide it would be a good idea to nail horse shoes to his feet.

The novel is very surrealist; lots of deep, meaningful stuff going on here. But I found it easy to immerse myself in the strangeness and fantasy through Carter's exceptional descriptions. She writes in a very lyrical way, rendering the magical landscapes she creates almost tangible. The simplistic storyline I've related here doesn't really do the story justice; it's as complex and varied as Jonathan Swift's Gullivers' Travels - quite a similar format, detailing an extraordinary journey through fantasy worlds.

Carter's style made my imagination run riot, but still allowed her to give little clues away at various points, which definitely helped to keep me hooked and broke up the vivid descriptions, which despite being beautiful may otherwise have overwhelmed the storyline. The beginning chapter in fact reveals the outcome of Desiderio and Albertina's affair, but I found these spoilers enthusing rather than irritating; they just made me want to keep reading.

The book is probably on the very edge of my intellectual understanding but I think perhaps its main theme is dominance over other (human?) beings. Doctor Hoffman, despite his disappointingly normal appearance as described at the end of the book, is something of a power hungry maniac; in every culture that Desiderio visits the women are the underdogs - either married off hideously young, forced to eat their first born children alive or tattooed from head to foot (or head to hoof?) because of course, women were created to suffer; the Count recounts in disgusting detail his enjoyment of torturing others; Desiderio's native tribe decide to assimilate his power of literacy by eating him; the story is punctuated by violent rapes; Albertina has her own plans for Desiderio that despite their being in love she refuses to reveal. It's a gory book full of suffering and pain, explored in all its many types, and revealing the underlying primitive violence of human nature and even supposedly civilised society. The novel shows how a desire to dominate can overtake us, even over the supposedly all-powerful emotion of love. It was definitely a book that made me think.

So, in short, highly delectable descriptive language that will have your tongue tingling as you read, but a fairly heavy going, complex, and thought-provoking read.

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Welcome to Literania, my blog about reading, books, and words.

My name is Flo, I'm a student and a total bookworm, although I like lots of other things too, namely food, sports, art, music, nature, you name it. I blog about gardening and sustainability at http://arfellian.blogspot.com. Please take a look!

I started this blog because I am reading more than ever before and I need a way to organise the books I've read, in my own mind really. So here I can review books, generally pontificate about literature and hopefully share my love of the written world with many people from all around the world. So please feel free to comment and to offer your thoughts, and to recommend other books!

Flo :)