Language Arts

I've been reading a really pretty good book called Tropic of Night, and I was quite enjoying it, until I came to a certain line in it. It's a man speaking about kissing his girlfriend, and he says:

"She really had an excellent mouth," he thought, "like a teacup full of hot eels."

Sorry, what? Eels? In her mouth? And a teacup? And the eels are hot because...they're like hot tea? In a cup? In her mouth?

It's shit like this that makes us editors look bad.