“Relaxations for the Impotent”: Ben Hecht’s Fantazius Mallare and the contradictions of American smut – Public Domain Review

Perhaps one of the reasons Fantazius Mallare failed was that it did not seem to deliver on its transgressive mission. Among the few who agreed to review the book was D. H. Lawrence, himself no stranger to courting controversy and running afoul of censorship laws. But Lawrence found the novel to be utterly lacking. “I’m sorry”, he wrote, “it didn’t thrill me a bit, neither the pictures nor the text. It all seems to me so would-be. . . . And really, Fantasius, with his head full of copulation and committing mental fornication and sodomy every minute, is just as much a bore as any other tedious modern individual with a dominant idea.” Dismissive of the whole enterprise, Lawrence offered an improved subtitle for the book: “Relaxations for the Impotent”.