The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

[sawyl]

I've spent the last day or two wallowing in the coruscating ideas and scintillating wordplay of The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela Carter. Here, while they're fresh in mind, are a few thoughts.

Desiderio is an old man with a successful political career behind him. But at the start of the Great War he was just a junior civil servant in an unnamed Latin American state; a man with native genes who rose in rank thanks to his ability to help his minister with the crossword. Now, at the end of his life, he has been persuaded to describe the events that turned him into a war hero.

The war began with a few trivial incidents, doors gradually changing colour or pineapples tasting of strawberries, that sort of thing. But it isn't until the audience are transformed into peacocks halfway through a performance of The Magic Flute that true hostilities commence. The government, lead by the Minister of Determination, seek to counter attack using combinations of radar and lasers. Under siege from the strange phantasms of Doctor Hoffman, the city starts to crumble. Eventually, the Minister agrees to a request for a parley, bringing Desiderio with him to record the conversation. Confronted with the Doctor's beautiful, androgynous ambassador, they behave clumsily and fail to negotiate a truce. The Minister realises that if he is to make any progress, he needs to send Desiderio on secret mission to hunt down Dr Hoffman.

Travelling alone, Desiderio visits a seaside town, ostensibly to investigate the disappearance of the mayor. In reality, he is to investigate the owner of a carnival peep show, who is believed to be a former associate of the Doctor. After an initial success at the peep show, things start to go wrong when Desiderio accidentally manages to have sex with the mad, sleepwalking daughter of the vanished mayor. When the Determination Police become aware of this, Desiderio attempts to run and is shot in the shoulder.

Rescued by a group of river-bound indigenous indians, Desiderio takes refuge on a barge, gradually learning the language. He earns his keep by attempting, with the help of a copy of Gulliver's Travels, to teach the head of the family to read. After a few months of this, and after helping another barge owner with a tricky legal situation, Desiderio finds himself engaged to Aoi, the eleven year-old daughter of his host. As if a relationship with a Lolita-like bride-to-be was not complicated enough, he also spends part of his time having sex with the grandmother of his affianced. When he learns the exact details of his forthcoming nuptials, he decides — quite literally — to jump ship.

On dry land, he catches up with the peep show proprietor. No longer antagonistic, the proprietor explains that he has had a change of orders and is now to escort Desiderio to the Doctor, safe and sound. One the journey, the old man starts to reveal some of the secrets behind the Doctor's ideas and Desiderio starts to become friendly with some of the other members of the traveling carnival.

When a natural disaster befalls the circus, Desiderio encounters a libertine Lithuanian Count and his bandaged, syphilitic servant, Lafleur. After a catastrophic encounter in a bizarre brothel, The House of Anonymity, the Count and his two servants flee on a sailing ship. On arrival at their destination, the Count is cast down by his nemesis and Desiderio is reunited with Albertina — his one true love, the mysterious ambassador, the daughter of Dr Hoffman.

Escaping from the chaos of the Count's demise, Albertina and Desiderio find themselves cast into Nebulous Time, a region where, thanks to the effects of Dr Hoffman's machines, everything has become changeable. There they encounter a group of extremely religious centaurs who, caught up in their faith, rape Albertina. As the months pass and Albertina gradually recovers, it becomes clear that no help will be forthcoming from the Doctor's helicopter patrols and that the centaurs are coming up with a way to incorporate humans into their ontology. Things come to a head during one of the religious holidays, allowing Albertina and Desiderio to escape with the aid of the Doctor's troops.

With Albertina restored to her position as Generalissimo Hoffman, the pair are whisked away to her father's castle. Once there, Desiderio talks to the Doctor about his ideas, walks among the generators and, finally, realises that he has to choose between his desire for Albertina and his desire for a rational ordered world. In the end, as he mentions in his preface, he opts for rationality and kills his beloved.

So, what to conclude? The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman is a powerful novel of ideas which seems, at times, to be bursting out of the confines of its picaresque structure. In some ways, it's a difficult novel. The language is, as might be expected, densely packed but with a strong eye for detail and metaphor. The ideas are tricky — especially in the scenes between Albertina and the two principle opponents, the Minister and Doctor — and some bits take a while to grasp.

On the other hand, the plot pulls events along at a rapid pace, with the disturbing — a fiancee with a doll made out of a fish? A rape conducted by a troupe of acrobats able to disassemble themselves into limbs and eyeballs? — sitting alongside the pathetic. Desiderio is a good antagonist, initially apathetic, he grows into himself as, with each of his adventures, he learns more about himself and his love for Albertina grows. Albertina herself is a wonderfully variable character, sometimes seen through a filter of Desiderio's desires and at other times seen clearly in her guise as his primary antagonist — the Doctor himself, as with the Minster, is largely absent from the main narrative. In fact, it is precisely the difference between Desiderio and Albertina that makes him valuable to the Doctor.