This is a very unusual book which is most beautifully written. Let me tell you some facts about it first. The copy you download free from Amazon is #832 of 2000 which were sold by subscription in 1922. They included 10 woodcuts which were beautiful and edgy. These woodcuts have not been included in the Amazon edition, for the same reason I think that the U.S. government banned this book in the same year. The dedication alone is amazing. It is insulting to almost every recognizable religious group, business tycoon, expert, glitterati, protester, do gooder, religious person,famous person, nun, frigid woman and literati. He evidently takes aim at people who don't know who he is, as well as his enemies. Then tells all of these people that he has so roundly insulted that he hopes that they never lay eyes on the wonderful phrases and gorgeous drawings in his book. The dedication was so politically incorrect, it would give a Liberal a heart attack and to all those to whom I recommended this book, I apologize if it offended in any way, shape or form. That was not my intention.

THE PLOT: The plot of the book on one level is very simple; it is the descent into madness of Fantazius Mallare. Of course, if you really look at the book, it is operating on many levels. It asks such questions such as: What is sanity? What is madness? How do they differ? Do they differ? Can one undo a fact by denying it with one's mind? Is man more than the chemistry set that drives him? Is sex all that drives man, deep down? Does the brain really rule? Is our next step in evolution to be Gods? Can we choose to turn madness on and off like a switch? Can we create whole world's in our minds with people populating them? What happens when these people we've created don't act like we've expected? His descent into madness begins immediately as he explains his disillusionment and ennui with the current world and man's egoism. He decides to leave behind the world and dive into the reality he creates in his brain instead. He has enough wherewithal when he's inside his head to be able to walk the streets of the town without getting lost, or running into people he says no longer exists and that he doesn't see. It's a fine trick if you can do it - avoiding one reality while seeing and interacting with a different one. This is not a plot that twists and turns, it more goes over one hill and back down, then around the corner then up a bigger dale, and then back down. At the top of each summit, you think the vista gives you a view of what's coming, but you'd be wrong. There are surprises here - especially to Mallare! You have to cogitate hard, but once you do, you'll find the plot gets at least an A .

THE CHARACTERIZATION : The characterization in this book is primarily about Mallare in all his flavors of madness. That had to be difficult to write. Is he human and fleshed out? Oh yes! Absolutely human and fully fleshed out. So human in fact that his journal seems to be a real journal - so real in fact it could be a part of a psychological study. Mallare could easily walk from the pages if this were the '20s and say something witty or obnoxious or politically incorrect. The other two characters Rita and Goliath are real, but Mallare thinks they are phantoms in his brain. Their characterization is not significant, as what we are dealing with is all types of Mallare's. In his madness, he is trying them on for size - a God, a weeper, a phallus on legs, a worshipper at woman's feet, a smug watcher, a creator, a destroyer, a thinker, an observer, Mallare always Mallare. For characterization this gets an A

THE PACING: The pacing in a book like this doesn't really matter. This is not an adventure novel or a thriller where pacing can make or break a novel, this is an intellectual examination of one man's descent into madness written like poetry. Even saying that, the book flew past. All 200 and some pages seemed like a novella, as I was glued to everything Mallare. Maybe it was the quality of te prose, the antics of Mallare, the tragic events unfolding - I know not. All I know is A for pacing.

THE ENDING: The ending is anticlimactic. We see Mallare at his worst, weeping, suffering, begging for a specific thing to happen - which won't. Has he truly descended at last or is this another hill he's going over? The author leaves it up to the reader, or to the second book The Kingdom of Evil. Due to the ambiguous quality of the ending, and the fact that it leaves you thinking about all types of unanswered questions, I give the ending an A.

THE UPSHOT: If you don't get offended by the dedication, when, if taken in the spirit with which it was written, is absolutely hilarious and you include the excised woodcuts what you have here is a work of art. I must get my hands on a hardcopy immediately. With prose like poetry whose cadence is like music, everyone in the known world should read this. Why it is not a classic is befuddling. I found an old copy of the Kingdom of Evil in an old bookstore in a corner on the clearance table for 78¢. What a buy that was - woodcuts and all. Without that, I would have no idea about Ben Hecht and his fabulous books. My recommendation to everyone is read them. Read them now! They are free at major bookstores. Oh, but skip the dedication in book one. ( )

Ben Hecht's character Fantazius Mallare is definitely a descendant of Huysmanns' decadent paragon Des Essientes. The omniscient third-person narration in this novel alternates with passages from Mallare's journal, so that Mallare's misconceptions and deepening delusions are set into ironic relief. At the same time, he spouts epigrammatic verities in the throes of his self-induced madness. Like Au Rebours, this story is one where decadence converges with asceticism.

First published (and banned) in 1922, the tale is written without reference to definite place. Mallare simply lives in "the town." There is a family of gypsies on its "outskirts." Its time is of an indefinite modernity, signaled by the references to hypnosis, and one incongruous mention of "Christian Scientists." It might well be an allegory, in which Mallare represents the development of the will to knowledge in our artificial and alienated society.

One of the best parts of the book is the preliminary "dedication," in which the author catalogs at great length his various enemies with their faults. The ending of the novel takes place in the form of a journal passage, and it was not clear to me what the "objective" state of affairs was supposed to be at that point.

The Wallace Smith illustrations seem to have an inconsistent relationship to the text, but they're terrific regardless. Their cadaverous figures in tortured poses all have a deliciously hieratic quality.