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Andy Weston

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Andy is Currently Reading

Andy Weston is currently reading

Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories from Around the World

by James Thomas

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Aug 21, 2026 01:10AM

Andy Weston is currently reading

The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

by Angela Carter

bookshelves: fantasy, american-literature, humour, favorites, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in January 2022

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Andy Weston said: " One of my all time favourites.. and this time round on audiobook..

Every morning, after prayers, the pirate leader removed his black loincloth which was his only garb and bent over the poop in front of the altar while each of his men filed past him in

One of my all time favourites.. and this time round on audiobook..

Every morning, after prayers, the pirate leader removed his black loincloth which was his only garb and bent over the poop in front of the altar while each of his men filed past him in devout silence, kissed his exposed arse and emitted a sharp bark of adulation while slapping his buttocks briefly with the flat of their blades.

Let me start by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this. But it is a much reviewed book, dissected by leading literary figures for its philosophy, and compared to Freud even. For me it was much simpler. Contrived though the plot maybe, certain paragraphs, and there are many, just stand out as being outstanding writing. There are many pleasures in reading it, but it is the humour that I particularly enjoyed.

The novel is narrated by Desiderio, who is looking back at his adventures from several years ago, when he single-handedly won a war his unspecified Latin-American country was involved in against the nefarious dictataor, Dr Hoffman. Hoffman's machines have, through holgrams or drug induced hallucinations, meant that the capital city is on its knees, practically defeated, and warped beyond anyone's wildest imagination.

Young Desiderio is implored by the King to undo the world's undoing, and sets out on a quest, to find and destroy Hoffman. What follows are his adventures.

Perhaps not surprising in a world where a character's wish can become real, eroticism is at the forefront. And with a realised fantasy, frequently its darker side emerges. It is clear in places that the work is influenced by De Sade and Pauline Réage's Story of O - two authors who many of us never admit to have read, though we have..
But it is to Carter's huge credit that her interpretation is so much more readable, so much better, with appropriate limits, sufficiently reigned in. It is after all an absurd, but beatiful, novel about sex, written by someone with not only an incredible imagination, but the ability to record it in such a magnificent way. ...more "

Aug 14, 2026 12:55AM · see review

Andy’s Quotes

“I think these movements and become them, here,
In this room's stillness, none of them about,
And relish them all-until I think of where
Thrashed by a crook, the cursive adder writes
Quick V's and Q's in the dust and rubs them out.

from "Movements”
― Norman MacCaig, Old maps and new: Selected poems

tags: nature, scottish-poetry

2 likes

“When you say “hill,”’ the Queen interrupted, ‘I could show you hills, in comparison with which you’d call that a valley.’

‘No, I shouldn’t,’ said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at last: ‘a hill CAN’T be a valley, you know. That would be nonsense –’

‘The Red Queen shook her head. ‘You may call it “nonsense” if you like,’ she said, ‘but I’VE heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!”
― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There

7 likes

“Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.”
― Edward Whymper, Scrambles Amongst the Alps

tags: climbing, mountaineering, mountains

99 likes

“His mouth open, he fell asleep, because a man always falls asleep in the end. One weeps, one shrieks, one rages, one despairs, and then one eats and sleeps as if nothing had happened.”
― Georges Simenon

12 likes

“White people were dangerous and snakes were dangerous and now the two were working together, each doing what the other told it to. She was sure she had seen a snake in a weeded ditch with the head of a white man. Right after she came out of the house on the way to Big Joe's, which she had immediately forgotten, she saw it, long and black and diamond-patterned in the ditch with a white man's head. It had blue eyes. The bluest eyes any white man ever had. She was sure she had seen it. She thought she had seen it. Maybe it was only a dream or a memory of another time. Whatever it was, she still saw it every time she closed her eyes, coiled there on the back of her eyelids, blue-eyed and dangerous.”
― Harry Crews, A Feast of Snakes

6 likes

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