Another contestant for “weirdest book read in 2014”! (It seems that we have an awful lot of contestants for that prize). However, this one is also cool. In a slightly creepy kind of way.

The setting is some sort of Caribbean dystopia, where a City is under siege by one man, the eponymous Doctor Hoffman. He has some creepy machines, that change the laws of time and space and allows “mirages” to happen in the same realm as reality. Obviously, people go nuts under this situation and the city becomes unlivable. One man, Desiderio, sees a glass woman, who tells him she is Doctor Hoffman’s daughter, Albertina (obvious literary reference: Proust). He is later chosen to kill the Doctor. And then… a lot of crazy shit happens. It involves a boat-living, creepy child-marrying and cannibal tribe, a lot of automatons and weirder stuff.

Throughout the book, there are several instances when illusion and reality are merged together. We see that in the people who go crazy over Doctor Hoffman’s apparitions, and the river people

(Who seem like a decent bunch of people before Desiderio discovers that they plan to eat him)

. And that’s part of the themes of the book, how illusion can trick into thinking it is reality. And of course, this doubt remains even after the end of the book. It makes you question if you’re actually seeing reality or being tricked by Doctor Hoffman (or someone in their league).
Though there are some people who say that this book is an example of magical realism, I don’t agree with them. There’s very little realism here, and lots of magical stuff. I’d call this book straight fantasy. Desiderio’s world has little to nothing to do with ours. And this helps Carter bring up a lot of criticism without being openly preachy. So, Mrs. Carter gets a point there. Well done! Being Angela Carter, there’s lot of feminist commentary in this book (just think of Albertina’s character, she is merely a pawn in her father’s game), and there are point in which she seems to be criticizing porn industry (many of Doctor Hoffman’s visions are of erotic nature) and even modern conceptions of sexuality. There’s a lot of sex here, and it’s nearly always a bit disturbing, as if to call attention to how much we have made sex to be strange and alien, instead that of a part of life. There’s also criticism towards the media and so on. I really think we can go on for ages trying to see all of the things Carter criticizes here. She throws darts wherever she pleases, really.

I don’t think this is a book for everyone. It’s weird, disturbing and at some points, really dense. If you have no problem with all of these things, go ahead. You might enjoy it. If not, maybe go read something else instead. And if you want to begin reading Carter’s works, I think you should begin with Nights at the Circus or The Bloody Chamber.