The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
Encyclopedia
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, published in the United States as The War of Dreams, is a 1972
novel
by Angela Carter
. This picaresque novel is heavily influenced by surrealism
, Romanticism
, critical theory
, and other branches of Continental philosophy
. Its style is an amalgam of magical realism and postmodern pastiche
. The novel has been called a theoretical fiction, as it clearly engages in some of the theoretical issues of its time, notably feminism
, mass media
and the counterculture
.
n country, the novel features Desiderio, a government minister in the main city, currently under attack by Doctor Hoffman's reality distorting machine
s. Desiderio embarks on a journey to find Hoffman's former physics
teacher, eventually bringing him to Hoffman's castle
. Rejecting a caged, but nevertheless eternal fulfillment, of his (sexual) desires in the form of Doctor Hoffman's sexually ambivalent daughter Albertina, he kills both the doctor and his lover-to-be, thereby restoring reality.
. Under the command of the Minister of Determination, Desiderio embarks on an undercover journey to find and assassinate Doctor Hoffman.
On his way to the first stop on his journey, Desiderio encounters Doctor Hoffman’s former physics professor who now works as blind peep-show proprietor. During the story, Desiderio visits the sexualized exhibits of the peep show a number of times to find that they bear uncanny resemblance to the events that occur within his own life. Upon reaching his first destination, the Mayor’s Office of town S., Desiderio finds that the Mayor has disappeared. Thereupon he visits the Mayor’s home where he has sex with the Mayor’s somnambulist
daughter, Mary Anne, while she remains unconscious. When Mary Anne turns up dead, dirty members of the Determination Police charge Desiderio, but he escapes. From there on, Desiderio finds himself involved in a number of wild adventures in which the novel features many graphic scenes of eroticism that include sexual taboos. On these adventures, Albertina secretly accompanies Desiderio.
Desiderio spends time living with the river people, Amerindian families that live on barges. He later joins a traveling carnival in which he becomes enthralled with the mind-boggling performance of the Acrobats of Desire. Following a tragic event, a Lithuania
n count, in flight from the wrath of a black pimp, takes Desiderio into his company. With the count, Desiderio narrowly escapes becoming the victim of cannibalism on the African coast before Albertina reveals herself and leads Desiderio through the landscape of Nebulous Time where a community of centaurs adopts the two. However, the couple’s lives become endangered yet again and they must flee to Hoffman’s castle, where Doctor Hoffman explains his plans to reduce the world into its most basic constituents with the help of Desiderio and Albertina. While Desiderio loves Albertina, he ultimately chooses reality over the fulfillment of desire when he kills both Doctor Hoffman and his daughter. As a result, Desiderio becomes the proclaimed hero of the Great War. Nevertheless, he continues to long for his dead lover.
frame narrative. Desiderio recounts the events of his past with several instances of second person. "...it was I who killed her. But you must not expect a love story or a murder story. expect a tale of picaresque adventure or even of heroic adventure..." (14). Carter ornamentally depicts many of Desiderio's events and defamiliarize
s the reader throughout the novel. In the introduction of the novel, Desiderio essentially gives away the ending and the climax. This formal choice repeats throughout the novel as Carter constantly references the outcome of actions and events that have not occurred in the text.
. The doctor is the antagonist and diabolical adversary of the novel. He masters physics and surpasses his teacher, the proprietor; he later uses this ability to create a new form of reality where nothing is bound by time or the normal rules of physics. With help from his colleague Mendoza, he discovers that “eroto-energy” can power his desire machines with omnipotent and everlasting energy. He uses his desire machines to fuel energy into his new reality.
Desiderio – The Narrator and protagonist of the novel. He is now an old man and recounts the events of his life to explain how he became a hero. He was sardonic in his youth and the complex images produced by the desire machines bored him; he could not surrender to the mirages. This attitude kept him alive. Desiderio, in Italian, literally means wish, longing, and desire. The heroine of his story, Albertina, haunts his dreams and constantly seduces him. Despite his love for Albertina, he eventually murders her. He is a government minister in an unspecified Latin country that works under the Minister. The Minister sends him on a journey to find and inconspicuously assassinate Dr. Hoffman, and destroy his machine.
Albertina – Dr. Hoffman’s daughter, who supports her father's actions and ideals. She is Desiderio’s soul mate and she is extremely, sexually appealing. She wants to use the energy from her and Desiderio’s love to propel the omnipotent desire machines, thus increasing her father's power.The name is most likely a reference to Proust's "Albertine", a female character that serves as an "other" , or mirror for the protagonist.
Minister – Works with Desiderio and essentially rules the city until Dr. Hoffman starts his campaign against human reason. The minister loves logic and admires statis. Despite his jealously of Dr. Hoffman’s power, the minister wants to stop the freak show that the Doctor has created. In order to restore society, he creates reality testing labs to discover Doctor Hoffman's secret methods.
The Count - The egotistic and vulgar traveller that takes Desiderio into his company. Consistent with his arrogance, he claims that "he only lived to negate the world," and he travels according to his erotic desires (123). Though generally undaunted, the Count reveals a fear of the black pimp who wishes to kill him. Albertina later tells Desiderio that her father considered the Count a threat to her father's plans.
throughout the novel. Despite the fact that all of her female characters are victimized, they do not lose their sexual desire. “Rather than desexualize and subsequently dehumanize her female characters, Carter creates women who are sexual even when their desires are seemingly undesirable from feminist perspectives.”
This “undesirable desire” portrays her female character as strong and unbreakable, supporting her feminist views.
requires Desiderio to wear a mask along with a ridiculous outfit. As Desiderio embarks on his journey, he is forced to find his true self while being bombarded by illusions and distractions.
constantly effects peoples thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. Throughout the novel, Carter asks the reader to define what is real versus what is an illusion. Hoffman’s machines keep “projecting representations
on the world.” In the modern world, “technology makes the reign of the images possible” (Suleiman 111) and Carter is wary of images for they can be mere illusions.
has described The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman as “the finest surrealist novel of the past 30 years. It perfectly captures the ideas and ideals of surrealist beauty.” In the New York Times, William Hjortsberg
recommended Carter’s novel, noting its attention to detail and maintaining that while reading “We soon forget that the terrain she observes with such care is the interior of her own imagination, for the world she describes becomes as real as any naturalist's report.” However, he criticized Carter’s wordiness and her overuse of abstraction
, simile
, and metaphor
s. While she was successful in her early career, this later novel failed to achieve commercial success.
1972 in literature
The year 1972 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Fiction:*Richard Adams - Watership Down*Jorge Amado - Teresa Batista Cansada da Guerra *Martin Amis - The Rachel Papers...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Angela Carter
Angela Carter
Angela Carter was an English novelist and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works...
. This picaresque novel is heavily influenced by surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, critical theory
Critical theory
Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
, and other branches of Continental philosophy
Continental philosophy
Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...
. Its style is an amalgam of magical realism and postmodern pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
. The novel has been called a theoretical fiction, as it clearly engages in some of the theoretical issues of its time, notably feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
and the counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
.
Plot introduction
Set in an unspecified Latin AmericaLatin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n country, the novel features Desiderio, a government minister in the main city, currently under attack by Doctor Hoffman's reality distorting machine
Machine
A machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system, a computing system, an electronic system, and a molecular machine. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work...
s. Desiderio embarks on a journey to find Hoffman's former physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
teacher, eventually bringing him to Hoffman's castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
. Rejecting a caged, but nevertheless eternal fulfillment, of his (sexual) desires in the form of Doctor Hoffman's sexually ambivalent daughter Albertina, he kills both the doctor and his lover-to-be, thereby restoring reality.
Plot summary
The novel presents the story from the perspective of Desiderio, a bureau member in the main city currently under the attack of Doctor Hoffman’s desire machines. With these machines, Doctor Hoffman expands the dimensions of time and space, allowing ever-changing mirages to inhabit the same dimension as the living. Desiderio, though indifferent to the haunting apparitions, finds himself visited nightly by a glass woman, the manifestation of Albertina, Hoffman’s daughter and Desiderio’s lover-to-be. Unlike Desiderio, many people go crazy in response to the apparitions, and the city, severed from communication with the outside world, becomes a place of rampant insanity and crime, thereby prompting a state of emergencyState of emergency
A state of emergency is a governmental declaration that may suspend some normal functions of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, alert citizens to change their normal behaviours, or order government agencies to implement emergency preparedness plans. It can also be used as a rationale...
. Under the command of the Minister of Determination, Desiderio embarks on an undercover journey to find and assassinate Doctor Hoffman.
On his way to the first stop on his journey, Desiderio encounters Doctor Hoffman’s former physics professor who now works as blind peep-show proprietor. During the story, Desiderio visits the sexualized exhibits of the peep show a number of times to find that they bear uncanny resemblance to the events that occur within his own life. Upon reaching his first destination, the Mayor’s Office of town S., Desiderio finds that the Mayor has disappeared. Thereupon he visits the Mayor’s home where he has sex with the Mayor’s somnambulist
Sleepwalking
Sleepwalking, also known as somnambulism, is a sleep disorder belonging to the parasomnia family. Sleepwalkers arise from the slow wave sleep stage in a state of low consciousness and perform activities that are usually performed during a state of full consciousness...
daughter, Mary Anne, while she remains unconscious. When Mary Anne turns up dead, dirty members of the Determination Police charge Desiderio, but he escapes. From there on, Desiderio finds himself involved in a number of wild adventures in which the novel features many graphic scenes of eroticism that include sexual taboos. On these adventures, Albertina secretly accompanies Desiderio.
Desiderio spends time living with the river people, Amerindian families that live on barges. He later joins a traveling carnival in which he becomes enthralled with the mind-boggling performance of the Acrobats of Desire. Following a tragic event, a Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
n count, in flight from the wrath of a black pimp, takes Desiderio into his company. With the count, Desiderio narrowly escapes becoming the victim of cannibalism on the African coast before Albertina reveals herself and leads Desiderio through the landscape of Nebulous Time where a community of centaurs adopts the two. However, the couple’s lives become endangered yet again and they must flee to Hoffman’s castle, where Doctor Hoffman explains his plans to reduce the world into its most basic constituents with the help of Desiderio and Albertina. While Desiderio loves Albertina, he ultimately chooses reality over the fulfillment of desire when he kills both Doctor Hoffman and his daughter. As a result, Desiderio becomes the proclaimed hero of the Great War. Nevertheless, he continues to long for his dead lover.
Structure
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman is a first personFirst-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
frame narrative. Desiderio recounts the events of his past with several instances of second person. "...it was I who killed her. But you must not expect a love story or a murder story. expect a tale of picaresque adventure or even of heroic adventure..." (14). Carter ornamentally depicts many of Desiderio's events and defamiliarize
Defamiliarization
Defamiliarization or ostranenie is the artistic technique of forcing the audience to see common things in an unfamiliar or strange way, in order to enhance perception of the familiar...
s the reader throughout the novel. In the introduction of the novel, Desiderio essentially gives away the ending and the climax. This formal choice repeats throughout the novel as Carter constantly references the outcome of actions and events that have not occurred in the text.
Characters
Doctor Hoffman – an evil, sadistic scientist akin to Doctor FaustusFaust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
. The doctor is the antagonist and diabolical adversary of the novel. He masters physics and surpasses his teacher, the proprietor; he later uses this ability to create a new form of reality where nothing is bound by time or the normal rules of physics. With help from his colleague Mendoza, he discovers that “eroto-energy” can power his desire machines with omnipotent and everlasting energy. He uses his desire machines to fuel energy into his new reality.
Desiderio – The Narrator and protagonist of the novel. He is now an old man and recounts the events of his life to explain how he became a hero. He was sardonic in his youth and the complex images produced by the desire machines bored him; he could not surrender to the mirages. This attitude kept him alive. Desiderio, in Italian, literally means wish, longing, and desire. The heroine of his story, Albertina, haunts his dreams and constantly seduces him. Despite his love for Albertina, he eventually murders her. He is a government minister in an unspecified Latin country that works under the Minister. The Minister sends him on a journey to find and inconspicuously assassinate Dr. Hoffman, and destroy his machine.
Albertina – Dr. Hoffman’s daughter, who supports her father's actions and ideals. She is Desiderio’s soul mate and she is extremely, sexually appealing. She wants to use the energy from her and Desiderio’s love to propel the omnipotent desire machines, thus increasing her father's power.The name is most likely a reference to Proust's "Albertine", a female character that serves as an "other" , or mirror for the protagonist.
Minister – Works with Desiderio and essentially rules the city until Dr. Hoffman starts his campaign against human reason. The minister loves logic and admires statis. Despite his jealously of Dr. Hoffman’s power, the minister wants to stop the freak show that the Doctor has created. In order to restore society, he creates reality testing labs to discover Doctor Hoffman's secret methods.
The Count - The egotistic and vulgar traveller that takes Desiderio into his company. Consistent with his arrogance, he claims that "he only lived to negate the world," and he travels according to his erotic desires (123). Though generally undaunted, the Count reveals a fear of the black pimp who wishes to kill him. Albertina later tells Desiderio that her father considered the Count a threat to her father's plans.
Feminism
Carter explores feminismFeminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
throughout the novel. Despite the fact that all of her female characters are victimized, they do not lose their sexual desire. “Rather than desexualize and subsequently dehumanize her female characters, Carter creates women who are sexual even when their desires are seemingly undesirable from feminist perspectives.”
This “undesirable desire” portrays her female character as strong and unbreakable, supporting her feminist views.
Nature
Nature’s omnipotence plays a large role halfway through the novel. Despite Doctor Hoffman’s powerful desire machines, nature’s wrath cannot be altered or prevented. “At first I thought the landslide must have been the Doctor’s work, but no logic of any kind, no matter how circuitous, could have justified that disaster” (120). This theme repeats in a later chapter when a wild storm destroys the Count’s ship, nearly killing everyone on board.Rationality versus Desire
Desiderio constantly struggles over logic and love. He is clearly attracted to and in love with Albertina; she, however, undermines his entire mission and stands for everything that he does not. She clearly supports her father's use of desire machines to distort reality and he must eventually make a tough decision. In the end, logic prevails, as Desiderio states within the first few pages. "My desire can never be objectified and who should know better than I? For it was I who killed her" (14).Finding True Identity
This theme appears throughout every one of Desiderio’s adventures. He goes from town to town exploring different cultures; each culture affects a different part of his identity. The river people wear masks and excessive make up while the House of AnonymityAnonymity
Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
requires Desiderio to wear a mask along with a ridiculous outfit. As Desiderio embarks on his journey, he is forced to find his true self while being bombarded by illusions and distractions.
The Media's Effect on Society
Doctor Hoffman’s illusion inducing machines create the same effect as today’s newspapers, magazines, websites, and television broadcasts. The mass mediaMass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
constantly effects peoples thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. Throughout the novel, Carter asks the reader to define what is real versus what is an illusion. Hoffman’s machines keep “projecting representations
Representations
Representations is an interdisciplinary journal in the humanities published quarterly by the University of California Press. The journals was established in 1983 and is the founding publication of the New Historicism movement of the 1980s. It covers topics including literary, historical, and...
on the world.” In the modern world, “technology makes the reign of the images possible” (Suleiman 111) and Carter is wary of images for they can be mere illusions.
Literary Significance and Reception
Jeff VanderMeerJeff VanderMeer
Jeffrey Scott VanderMeer is an American writer, editor and publisher.He is best known for his contributions to the New Weird and his stories about the city of Ambergris, in books like City of Saints and Madmen.-Biography:...
has described The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman as “the finest surrealist novel of the past 30 years. It perfectly captures the ideas and ideals of surrealist beauty.” In the New York Times, William Hjortsberg
William Hjortsberg
William "Gatz" Hjortsberg is a novelist and screenwriter best known for writing the screenplays of the movies Legend and Angel Heart....
recommended Carter’s novel, noting its attention to detail and maintaining that while reading “We soon forget that the terrain she observes with such care is the interior of her own imagination, for the world she describes becomes as real as any naturalist's report.” However, he criticized Carter’s wordiness and her overuse of abstraction
Abstraction
Abstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal concepts, first principles, or other methods....
, simile
Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, usually by employing the words "like", "as". Even though both similes and metaphors are forms of comparison, similes indirectly compare the two ideas and allow them to remain distinct in spite of their similarities, whereas...
, and metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
s. While she was successful in her early career, this later novel failed to achieve commercial success.