“Relaxations for the Impotent”: Ben Hecht’s Fantazius Mallare and the Contradictions of American Smut

By Colin Dickey

J.-K. Huysmans pastiche? Formative influence on Allen Ginsberg’s Howl? Ben Hecht’s Fantazius Mallare (1922) is at turns obtuse, grotesque, and moralizing — and sought to provoke the obscenity trial of the century. Only it didn’t, quietly vanishing instead. Colin Dickey rereads this failed satire, finding a transcendent rhythm pulsing beneath the novel’s indulgent prose. more