The infernal desire machines of Dr Hoffman

Postmodern novels all share one major preoccupation namely ontology: the nature of being. 'What is a world? What kind of worlds are there? What happens when different kind of worlds are placed in confrontation, or when boundaries between world are violated.' Brian McHale, Postmodern fiction p10



The infernal desire machines of Dr Hoffman by Angela Carter is such a novel.

Doctor Hoffman is an evil, sadistic scientist akin to Doctor Faustus. 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. - Wiki

Dr Hoffman might be an allegory to Marcuse, the 1960's philosopher or the surrealists. We may see in Dr Hoffman the nightmarish synthesis of repressive desublination and the society of the spectacle.
Susan Rubin Suleiman - Risking who one is: Encounters with Art & Literature p133

Doctor Hoffman’s illusion inducing machines create the same effect as today’s newspapers, magazines, websites, and television broadcasts. The mass media 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. - Wiki

Questions about technology can not be divorced from questions about ideology and values. - Carter p135

Fate of surrealist imagination

"The laws of our desire are dice without leisure." Robert Desnos

Surrealism advocates this idea of ceaseless motion. The nomad & vegabond is the hero, the fixed subject its worst dream.

What is the fate of Surrealist imagination in the sociey of the spectacle?
At best "la révolution Surréaliste" becomes a private passion, not a means to change the world.
Protagonist Desiderio, the public smiling man with a hero's statue in the town square, dreams every night of his lost Albertina, and writes his delirious memoirs in dedication to her. Meanwhile, life goes on as usual, dominated by the Minister's (Desiderio's boss) computers and clocks that all run on time. p136