Babyfucker

by Urs Allemann, Vanessa Place (afterword), Peter Smith (introduction)

A Beckettian character, who may or may not be trapped in a room with four baskets full of infants, focuses obsessively on a single sentence "I fuck babies." This virtuoso text by Swiss experimental writer Urs Allemann won the prestigious Ingeborg Bachmann Preis des Landes Karnten in 1991 and caused one of the biggest literary scandals in the post-1945 German-speaking world. Translated now for the first time in a new bilingual edition with an introduction by translator Peter Smith and an afterword by Vanessa Place, BABYFUCKER belongs in the canon of twentieth-century provocations that includes Bataille's The Story of the Eye, Delany's Hogg, and Cooper's Frisk. For BABYFUCKER is, as Dennis Cooper says: "a stunning, exquisite, perfect, and difficult little benchmark of a novel that makes literature that predates it seem deprived."

Fiction. Bilingual Edition. Translated from the German by Peter Smith.

Genres: Fiction, Horror, Literature, Contemporary, Dark, Novels, Sexuality

134 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Urs Allemann was a Swiss writer and journalist.

Reviews

[Plagued by Visions · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not about what you think it is based on the title. But it is. But it might not be.

It’s essentially made up of the feverish voluptuousness that fiction exists as, shapeless but rigid, blurry but sometimes seared in your mind with the definite contours and shape of reality.

The narrative style is the nature of fractured speech and recollection, the essence of thought as imperfect and clumsy.

It is all crowned by one of the most shocking and upsetting titles in literary history, and one that reminds us, however uneasily, however nauseatingly and offensively, that words hold a bodiless power over our minds that we sometimes cannot even comprehend.

[Dayna Ingram · Rating 2 out of 5]

The best thing about this book is explaining it to someone else. The conversation goes something like this:

A: "What are you reading?"
B: "It's called Babyfucker."
A (uneasy laughter): "Um, what?"
B: "It's about a guy who may or may not be surrounded by babies whom he occasionally fucks."
A: "....We can't be friends anymore."


But seriously, reading this book is like trying to remember your dreams from a week ago and analyze all the symbolism you may have just now imagined because you couldn't actually remember but tricked your brain into believing it was a memory. It's okay.

[Gohnar23 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books read & reviewed: 1️⃣0️⃣8️⃣🥖4️⃣0️⃣0️⃣


╔⏤⏤⏤╝❀╚⏤⏤⏤╗


5️⃣🌟, I fuck babies. Therefore maybe I am.
——————————————————————
➕➖0️⃣1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣5️⃣6️⃣7️⃣8️⃣9️⃣🔟✖️➗

I had quite the expectations for this since this is one of the most bottom of the bottom on the most disturbing books iceberg but ummm...THIS FUNNY AS HECK

🤣🤣🤣. Like NAHH THAT HAS LITERALLY OCCURRED IN THE BOOK, "I FUCK BABIES. THEREFORE MAYBE I AM"

——————————————————————

BRO DAT 😆😆😆I FEEL LIKE THIS NOVELLA IS A COLLABORATION BETWEEN A COMEDY WRITER, A POETRY WRITER, AND FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY BECAUSE GUYS LOOK AT THIS:

"Ask myself who’s talking. Ask the babies. Which one is talking. Which one asked the question.

I’m made of babies. They’re made of me. We should say we to each other.

We could start to sing. A cappella. In unison. Out of the creels. Baby choir. We fuck babies. Babies fuck us.

I’m babbling. We’re babbling. Babbling on. Until someone fucks the baby words back down our throats.

Grabbed myself. Grabbed ourselves."

——————————————————————

This even has one heated debate im ma mind,. DOES HE REALLY FUCK BABIES?!???????!!??? THIS IS LIKE ONE OF THOSE REALLY DEEP PHILOSOPHY BOOKS BUT IT'S HIDDEN IN A COMEDIC WAY BECAUSE WHO THE FUCK WRITES A BOOK ABOUT A BABYFUCKER WHEN WE DON'T EVEN HAVE A GUARANTEE THAT HE EVEN FUCKS BABIES IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Holy mole, thes book is so goofy and beautiful ❤️ ❤️ comedy and deep philosophy at its finest 🌝, it is so complex and really makes you think about the whole thing and i know somewhere this is a critique about politics, or literature as a whole or something, this could even be a psychological explanation for the occurrence of focus and attention because of this one sentence. "I fuck babies".

Does he really though or does he not? Is he so dedicated in having that identity? What even classify as 'babies'? Or what even classify as 'fuck'? Is Linda a baby? Is Paul a baby? I guess we'll never know 🤔

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

Date Read: Monday, March 17, 2025
Book Length: 12k words: The length of a normal ao3 fanfiction bro
Disturbingness scale: pop~pseudo~philosophy “I fuck babies" eme uwu ahh out of 1️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ potatoes 🥔: 2️⃣

My 22th read of splatterpunk march ✨

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*Pre-Read✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

ON THE BOTTOM TIER OF THE "MOST DISTURBING BOOKS OF ALL TIME" ICEBERG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Question. Where would I be if I were to raise up my eyelid. Would there be babies. Would there be creels. Would there be the garret. Would there be fucking. Would there be writing. Would there by money. Would there be work. Would there be a garden. Would there be a dog. Would I have been born. Would Linda be pregnant. Would everyone be from somewhere. Would there be books. Would there be newspapers. Would there be a Saturday. ... Would there be a Sunday. Would there be a walk. Would there be politics. ... If I raised up my eyelid would the other one behind it be lowered. The backup eyelid. The primordial eyelid...

"Sometimes entertain the thought that I'm crazy. A beautiful word. Suck it dry. Throw it away. Abandon that thought. Prefer to just keep saying my sentence. I fuck babies. I fuck babies. Inflate the sentence. Try to make it burst."

--Urs Allemann, Babyfucker (Trans. Peter Smith)

See the Babyfucker Blog Project over at http://lesfigues.blogspot.com/.

Elizabeth Hall's introductory essay is particularly good -- an excerpt:

"When I found Babyfucker—or rather when it found me—I was still actively grappling with the significance, perhaps even “meaning,” of the wild, roving ache I felt on a daily basis as a result of the dissolution of my family. Of course, during these months, I wrote next to nothing. (It was unfortunate that I was enrolled in an MFA program for creative writing.) As an avid reader, I was also horrified to discover that no book could hold my attention: they all felt so trivial. Every book, except Babyfucker. Since my pain was still too ripe, I could not dismiss it as “just a book” or “some pervert’s riff.” I was immediately intrigued by the beauty, the hypnotic elegance, of Allemann’s prose. It's true: the thing I found most interesting, initially, was not that Babyfucker served as a potent reminder of the “power of literature,” but rather, that “monstrosity can’t be beautified away by skillful prose pirouettes” (Allemann). That is—no amount of gloss or spin can sublate the horror of a monstrous act.""

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

U+F+O+L+A+N+G+U+A+G+E+Y+O

“Inflate the sentence. Try to make it burst.”
--Babyfucker, Urs Allemann

The Invisible Universe

Two recent inventions that merge the act of reading in printed and digital space provide an opening for interpreting Urs Allemann’s Babyfucker (Les Figues Press, 2010) through the framework of “quantum poetics,” which, in my use of the term, applies principles in theoretical physics to poetry and prose. The first invention I’ll mention is the digital pop-up book, a printed book read on a machine that makes the book’s typography move on the screen of a computer. The second is a printed book with barcodes on its pages that a reader scans with a smart phone to receive information about content provided by other readers. In both technologies the act of simultaneously reading in printed and digital environments seems to get us closer to the possibility of holographic books, or, better yet, books traded telepathically, which might make the book itself a reality, the reading of realities an art, and the reader the book. The question, then, is:

What will be writing us?

Through its relentless, hyperdimensional investigation of creativity and time, Babyfucker invents an alien technology for the sentence where the reader, like the book’s protagonist, is the narrative being read. At eye level (imagine being positioned on a land surface while viewing a horizon line straight ahead), narrativity is explored through the book’s thematic center and opening sentence, “I fuck babies,” and the reader’s response to itself as a new narrative reading the book:

Why is the monster read? And what does the monster read?

At molecular scales (under the ocean where gravity crushes matter and, less metaphorically, where wave functions of subatomic particles behave without causality, predicted through probabilities that rely on perception), the reader’s narrativity emerges from the idea of the sentence just as the book’s concept emerges from the idea of narrative:

When the monster speaks what listens?

At astronomical scales (where gravity disperses matter within the in/visible universe outside the atmosphere of a planetary body), Allemann demonstrates not only that the reader’s narrativity is as unsayable as the sentence, “I fuck babies,” which, of course, becomes said in Babyfucker, but also that narrativity functions at varying levels of accessibility like the dark matter and dark energy that is accelerating and expanding with higher-dimensional spacetime:

How is the monster not seen?

In his interview with Les Figues Press Editor Elizabeth Hall on the Tarpaulin Sky website, Allemann proposes that “reality is simply what is narrated” and that his protagonist’s sentence, “I fuck babies,” exists in a “timeless present.” If astronomical and molecular scales reconcile with scales at eye level—as theoretical physicists are attempting in string theory—we can understand Allemann’s alien technology as a time machine narrating the reality of the present:

In Babyfucker the machine is writing us.

The Visible Universe

When I became aware of Babyfucker I was happily intrigued and also repulsed. More intrigued than repulsed. Somewhat happy. After buying the book I immediately read it. I didn’t know anyone who had heard of the book. So I was excited to find out that a friend had just read it, too. She said she was using it “to learn German.” We connected our sunny copies by their lipstick spines, creating a conjoined body. What will be placed around the neck:

Garlic or talisman? Monster or knOt?

ElectroDynamic!

In quantum electrodynamics (QED), an agreement between quantum mechanics and relativity is achieved by describing interactions between light (photons) and matter (electrons), which can travel to and from anywhere in the universe and at any time. Like other quantum field theories of physical reality such as string theory, QED suggests that time and space can’t be defined by the Newtonian, Euclidian, and Aristotelian laws that conceived of time as though it were an arrow traveling through a distinct past, present, and future. Similarly, space is no longer conceived of as if its points could be connected by a web of straight lines that do not exist in the natural world.

If the sentence, “I fuck babies,” exists in a “timeless present,” if spacetime in physical reality is as conceptually and physically permissive as Babyfucker’s amorphous/morphing narrator, if the narrator and the somewhat abstract babies have “always been there,” if creation—the “inflated” sentence about to “burst” into existence—through imagination, conception, gestation, birth, and death is located outside our outdated arrows of time and grids of space in a transhuman ecology where conventional forms of power, sexuality, desire, morality, identity, and empathy have no meaning, if there is no other sentence but the sentence of invention, then the book, Babyfucker, stops being a book, or the book has always been there, or the book is never there there, or the book was never a book, or the reader is the book….

Which is to say that in its non-Euclidean Big Bang, Babyfucker “terraDeforms” (to use a freshly-coined phrase by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE) the medium’s limits from a planetary body that supports ordinary human life through water and breathable air into an extraterrestrial planet where the autonomic system can’t be relied on for breath, where the lungs are not lungs, where the water is something else, where gravity is too strong or too weak to support a reader/thinkership at eye level, where dark matter and dark energy are detected by the development of more responsive tools and organs, where the horizon line can be everywhere and nowhere all at once, where the delineation between scales of physical reality—subatomic, eye level, and astronomical—are dependent upon subject position, warping and being warped by this planet’s solar system of unidentified codes (UFO language) it creates to be inhabited.

To exist on this planet—if we can even get there and then—and we can, as photons (thinkers) and electrons (readers)—to exist on Babyfucker means we cannot live as we did, for this planet supports a novel genre of life. This is why the book might not only be a time machine but also a space machine in warp drive that travels the multiverse by changing space and time around it. Babyfucker lets us leave our planet, which is a book where we don’t “fuck babies,” where we persecute the alien sentence, where the spacetime machine writing us never learns to fly.

[Scumbag Park · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I didn’t actually enjoy this that much, I think it still had something important to say. I understand why it had to be written in this stream of consciousness format. I just think it could have said everything it needed to say in half the length.

Edit: You know, the more I think about it, the more I realise what a masterpiece this is.

Where to begin?

It’s obvious to me that the narrator probably isn’t actually a baby fucker. He doesn’t have an attic full of newborns that grow to his size and then shrink back down again. He doesn’t really have to deal with tidal waves of babies engulfing him, of his arms turning into babies, into the babies turning into him.

Some quotes that I think shed light on what is going on for him:

“Sometimes entertain the thought that I’m crazy. A beautiful word. Suck it dry. Throw it away. Abandon that thought. Prefer to just keep saying my sentence. I fuck babies. I fuck babies. Inflate the sentence. Try to make it burst.”

He’s trying to repress his insecurities about his mental state. I get the sense he wants to live a normal life, but can’t muster the courage to face his thoughts. So he keeps repeating “I fuck babies” to himself over and over again, so he doesn’t have to think. Why would he choose such a sentence? I have a feeling it has something to do with Linda.

There are two named characters that the narrator mentions: Linda and Paul. We aren’t told exactly who these people are, but there seems to be more of a sense of intimacy with Linda than with Paul, who is often thought of as a pest: “Paul. Never heard of him. No use for Paul.” The narrator says this at the end of the book, when he’s already mentioned Paul several times. It seems like sometimes the narrator has the courage to contemplate Paul, but at other times he can’t bring himself to. As before, his whole mental state is an exercise in evasion.

This is pure speculation but I have a feeling Linda is the narrator’s ex girlfriend or wife, and Paul is perhaps her new partner. The narrator writes of Linda putting letters through his door that cause him to scream. I think he may be screaming to distract himself from the content of the letters. If they’re real, that is. Towards the end he writes of the desire to impregnate Linda and make her belly burst.

Pure conjecture:

The narrator writes of once having had a washing machine, but he now lives in an attic. So, he once had a better standard of living than he does now. I’m guessing the whole narrative is part of his psychological degradation, which could have started before or after his moving into the garret. Perhaps Linda left him for Paul and he had to move into the Garret. Perhaps he’s also trying to escape his living conditions as well as his past. He can’t face the past, the present, or the future. So he makes up bizarre scenarios to keep him in the moment. But by doing so, by repeating this sentence over and over again, he loses his grip on reality and makes the situation much worse. This is really a story about a man who is unwilling to address his problems, so he has no other option but to escape into his mind. And if the only fantasies that work are the bizarre and unpleasant, then so be it.

I think the narrator’s mindset is best summed up in these quotes:


“Don’t see it. Don’t sense it. Don’t feel it. Just always say it.”

“Nothing to be done. Doesn’t seem to be possible to abandon our sentence. To abandon ourselves. We have to return from the babies into myself. Into my sentence. Don’t have any choice. Can’t even be crazy. Can’t even claim that someone like me is crazy. Not allowed to say it. I’m not crazy. I fuck babies. That’s my sentence.”

“Forgot. It was a beautiful word.”

I think we all know what it’s like to try and distract ourselves from our problems. We do it with television, alcohol, sometimes even saying things to ourselves. Perhaps we should stop doing that before we can’t stop. If we don’t face our problems, we lose our grip on reality because we need to make up all these lies as to why we aren’t doing what we can. Then we’re fucked.

Edit: Another thing is his obsession with making things burst. Sentences. Babies. Linda. I think this ties in with the violent frustration that comes with avoiding one’s problems. He feels ineffectual in his life, and so this manifests as the violent impulse towards others. He likely feels a sense of shame and deals with it by making things burst in this head. Something bursting is it’s complete obliteration. So, not only does Alleman illustrate the narrator’s inability to communicate effectively with himself, he also illustrates how this cowardice affects his perception of others. I think perhaps the narrator chose such a reprehensible sentence because he knew it was reprehensible and could further lower his opinion of himself if he used it over and over again to the point where it consumed his identity. The narrator seems to be a masochist in this way. He’s caught in a self-created loop.

Why babies? Perhaps he and Linda were going to have a baby but didn’t. Maybe it died. Maybe Paul is raising it. Maybe it was only talked about but never conceived. Anyway, it could be a symbol of what could have been for him and Linda. Maybe he thinks that if the baby were born he’d have a normal life, so that’s why it dominates this thoughts so much. But why would he choose to repeatedly think “that” sentence? Maybe he’s trying to use the last of his manhood to destroy the symbol of what could have been. To end his torture. By inflicting it on others.

Final Edit: Reading this was like watching Requiem for a Dream- loved the message, hated the execution, but understand that it had to be uncomfortable and unenjoyable to really get the message across. Still, it was a bit of a slog, so despite its genius, it gets three stars.

[Robb Todd]

This must be read in one sitting, nonstop, and, if you have the courage, read it in public. (Thanks for the bright yellow cover, oh yes.) The book is a journey inside a deranged mind where nothing is certain, especially the constant refrain of the book's first sentence.

[Harold · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fuck babies.

Never have I read a book that focuses on one sentence, THE one sentence, a lone, solitary sentence, that says so much. That is so full of meaning. That has so much to unpack, to process. Reading this book, the mind races, trying to find the meaning, a meaning; what does he mean, what does IT mean? It means something, it means a lot of things. This is that, but maybe that is this, or maybe it’s that other, the other. Surely, it means something. It means everything. Or many things. Or maybe just that one thing. THAT thing.

Self-knowledge.

Or it means nothing (but does it?).

I fuck babies.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

read my interview with author urs allemann on the tarpaulin sky blog.

"It wasn't an idea. It was an image. An image in my head. A vexing image. An image that was just suddenly there. Without reminding me of anyone or anything. Without eliciting any feeling in me. That's what was vexing. A challenge. And then suddenly the sentence was there. As a response to the image? As an escape? As self-defense? I don't know. “I fuck babies.” And then there was the decision to attempt to extract something like a story from this terrible sentence."

[your morbid obsession Minerva🖤 · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 🌟
 
Baby who?!
 
Urs Allermann you crazy mf... I’m not even sure what to say. Apparently this book caused a whole scandal in the literary world when it just came out, and, you know, the title kind of hints at why. 
 
The story follows this weird character, who might or might not be doing something awful. Do other characters exist at all?  Does he do it, or does he not? Are we where we are, or are we not? What is this delusional story even about? Frankly, I’m not sure I understand; this book felt like walking around a gallery of abstract art or stumbling upon a foreign meal on the menu of your favorite restaurant. Absolutely mind-blowing. Crazy. Provocative. Odd. Manipulative. 
 
I’d say reading this would definitely give you a very interesting and intense experience. Beware, the topics here are completely unhinged. 
In conclusion, if you’re here for a morbid time, not a long time, I do recommend giving this a chance.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very strange and unique story, does the main character fuck babies or not?

This entire short book really messes with your mind, and almost doesn't make any sense, but I think that was the point from the author.

I had no issues with the content, but I just wasn't a fan of the random writing that seems to be going on. Maybe it went over my head? I don't know, haha. I'm usually pretty fair with my reviews and ratings but this one just didn't do it for me, sadly

2/5

This is only the second book I have given a 2 rating.

[Teodora · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was something.

It was funny here and there with the very weird sentences and the way the author choose to write this, but reading some reviews I feel like I missed something maybe? It was interesting and not at the same time maybe I should reread it in the future? Who knows...

I can't really say something about this book because it was weird. This book is reduced to WEIRD for me because I can't think about something else. When I think about this book all I come up with is weird and wtf.

If you have 2 to 3 hours in your day to spend on this please do. It is quite entertaining and will make you giggle a little for sure.

[Jon Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I'm compelled to give this book a 5/5 out of fear that some german teenager who reads too much philosophy is going to come into my house and beat me up. The story makes no sense but of course that's its point, there's something logical behind it I feel although it's constantly out of reach. It does a good job of not being good and I appreciate that. However, I personally would not write a book about fucking babies and for that reason in actuality I give it like a 3/5.

[juli ☾]

Germans are so weird 🥴

[Geoffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my mission to read as much taboo and transgressive fiction as I can, I stumbled upon this book and I have been avoiding it ever since. After seeing the length, I decided to get this one over with and just bite the bullet and read it. This book, to me, is about the reader being trapped in a deranged mind and trying to decipher a story from his stream of consciousness. Part of the twisted charm of this book is the simple cover and title, and as disgusting and transgressive as it is, people pick it up and read it all the same. Including me. What does that say about people? What does that say about me? This book in itself makes us question the nature of taboo and transgressive fiction and what stories can and should be told. Why do we tell stories like this? Why do we read them? It reinforces the power of words and how we can use and abuse them, how words are more than just words and they hold weight and can change the world in a tangible way. From the first sentence, it would be easy to mistake this book for a cheap attempt at shock through obscenity, but there’s something more here. The stream of consciousness and rambling narrative hides something beneath the obscenity and crass darkness. We follow a man who claims to fuck babies. At first it seems literal, until we slowly come to find that the man is deranged and may not exist in reality and sanity the way that people do. Is this literal? What is real and what is not? This book is not what you think it is… or is it? Are we inside the mind of a deranged man exorcising his guilty intrusive thoughts, or are we piecing together the psyche of a monstrous sexual predator? It almost doesn’t matter. I think this book functions as something more than what the narrative means. This is a reminder of the power of words and literature, how choosing your words carefully can create beautiful or monstrous things. Most of all, I think this book is a grim reminder that monstrous and horrific things cannot be decorated, glamorized, or beautified beyond what they truly are. Great and terrible things are still terrible. The foreword and afterword are necessary to read and understand this story, and I appreciate how it bookended the strange experience of reading this book. While this was an interesting look into an obscene mind, I admit I don’t think most readers would appreciate what this novel is trying to do, and that’s okay too.

Elizabeth Hall interviewed the author and I found his words to be intriguing:

“It wasn’t an idea. It was an image. An image in my head. A vexing image. An image that was just suddenly there. Without reminding me of anyone or anything. Without eliciting any feeling in me. That’s what was vexing. A challenge. And then suddenly the sentence was there. As a response to the image? As an escape? As self-defense? I don’t know. “I fuck babies.” And then there was the decision to attempt to extract something like a story from this terrible sentence.”

[S.J. Reisner · Rating 4 out of 5]

The afterword suggests the one fucking all the babies is God. If you are of the belief that you are your own God, then this story is a perfect metaphor for how we create our own realities - shit and all. And how some people intentionally sabotage and fuck themselves and everything they create. This story could also realistically be describing drug addiction or any kind of unhealthy addiction. Fascinating in how it makes you think. A bit pricey for a novella, but then I believe in supporting writers.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just another book about a guy struggling for existance in the world of his guilty thoughts.

[Jared Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Either I feel something. Or I sense something. Either I write something. Or I fuck something.

Always liked to cut wasps in half.

[brahski microsoft · Rating 5 out of 5]

The more I think about this book, the more I really like what it's doing. Very grateful for the introduction and afterword; they definitely enhanced my reading experience!!

[Joey O’Rourke · Rating 3 out of 5]

my head hurts.

[The Final Song ❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oneiric

[Joan Mabansag · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like im just too stupid to understand this ig lmao uhhhh but yeah; he fucks babies.

[Jakubek · Rating 3 out of 5]

One thing to appreciate about this book is despite what appears to be a cheap, express-lane means of garnering attention via obscenity, Allemann's attempting to achieve something more than mere potty mouth. As others are quick to point out, this book is manifestly Beckett-inspired. So in one area Allemann's go at a Beckettian character is what pushes the book beyond mere obscenity, and in another these Beckettian elements are too obvious (and shoddy) to prove a logical successor to The Trilogy (i.e., Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnameable). It feels like Beckett done badly.

What I enjoyed most about The Trilogy was the gradual privation of the body. Molloy and Moran are very much grounded in a feasible environment, though both become oriented to disability in some capacity (viz. Molloy's crutches and Moran's yearning to be totally disabled, immobile). In Malone Dies, Malone almost embodies Moran's thoughts, writing recumbent in a hospital bed, only able to see around the room and out his window. (What I will grant Allemann now before I criticize him for it is there's a physically sexual element to Malone which feels odd, but ultimately makes more sense than Linda and Paul in Babyfucker). Finally we encounter The Unnameable whose corporeality is hard to parse, and who by all accounts appears to exist solely through his words. There's a logic to this sequence of characters, and we learn the buck stops with The Unnameable.

What I find clumsy about Babyfucker is Allemann seems to want his narrator to be Molloy, Malone and The Unnameable, without the transition from corporeality to pure language. The Babyfucker will be entrenched in his bed, surrounded by four creels of infants to his north, south, east and west, then submersing himself in a vat of milk? Or maybe not, because it isn't altogether clear whether he's entertaining fantasies or legitimately moving, navigating a physical dimension. He wants to fuck Linda but he doesn't, and Paul is just sort of there one moment and gone the next...

"Wonder sometimes if all the babies get just a single bottle from me or if each baby gets its own bottle from me. ... O it hasn't escaped me that I'm beginning to babble. One bottle for me and my babies is more than enough."

Like here: why is he wondering what it is he's even doing? He declares, "I fuck babies," almost as a mantra, and the book creates an environment so elaborate that there doesn't appear to be a fictive veneer to peel back, as Beckett does when he lets on that Molloy and Malone are the fictional creations of the Unnameable. There's no wink to imply another plane of existence beyond or beneath Babyfucker. But there are these moments where Babyfucker will describe some elaborate details about Linda, Paul, his garret, the babies, etc., then chalk it up to babbling. So is it talk or is it real? A potentially rich plot idea if I actually had a clue concerning an answer.

In the afterword to my edition, there's a piece of drive-by literary criticism, with rapid-fire psychoanalysis thrown in for good measure. (E.g., "There is maybe a Paul. Paul may be with Linda, though this does not seem necessary. Paul may be a saint, may be a Beatle, may be, with wife Linda, may be one of Wings. Though a beetle with wings may be Benjamin's Angel of History. But which history? There are as many to choose from as there are fuckable babies." I'm getting whiplash rereading it.) The (nameless) critic writes, "Like Man, the Babyfucker's sentence is the ongoing judgment and commission of his crime. Like a real moral compass, his point is his abject pointlessness: abject martyrdom." They then conclude, "The Babyfucker becomes a baby, maybe. God becomes man, maybe. We are God's babies. Oh come on. The Babyfucker is God. (Our love is here to stay.) God suffers. God fucks babies. That is God's sentence. He has no other." Tabling the prodigious leap from the contents of this book to radical theology, there is a notable relationship between Babyfucker and his babies that touches on identity.

"I'm babbling. We're babbling. Babbling on. Until someone fucks the baby words back down our throats. Grabbed myself. Grabbed ourselves. But Paul. If we if I am made of babies. But Linda. Nothing to be done. Doesn't seem to be possible to abandon our sentence. To abandon ourselves. We have to return from the babies into myself. Into my sentence. Don't have any choice. Can't even be crazy. Can't even claim that someone like me is crazy. Not allowed to say it. I'm not crazy. I fuck babies. That's my sentence."

There's manifest confusion in identity - I'm/We're; If we/If I - so the Babyfucker begins conflating himself with the babies. The Babyfucker is the sole narrator, the only subject we're introduced to. The babies are reduced to objects for Babyfucker to instantiate his sentence. Their subjectivity is a recurring source of confusion for Babyfucker (e.g., he wonders if they feel him fuck them, if they're aware of what's done to them in their morphine-induced sleep). Not to mention, "fuck" is an emotionless verb (in most sexual contexts); it's the blunt and terse word for sex, as opposed to phrases that connote some richer relationship between two subjects (e.g., make love). There's no ostensible fetish in the Babyfucker's actions, no pleasure in his pederasty; he performs his sentence as a means of making it real and identifying himself in the world. The nameless critic does point one useful item of note: "sentence" can be read as a sort of pun, where "I fuck babies" is both a syntactic sentence and a judgment or condemnation. It's worth recalling The Unnameable's allusion to an Other which condemns him to speak until he says the right thing. But again, Allemann's book lacks this depth and detail. We're dropped into a Beckettian world but the dimensions remain bleary, the perspective unfocused. What purpose does this sentence really serve? The Unnameable explicitly tells us he lives as long as he speaks, and he speaks because he must. Who Linda and Paul are remain lost on me. If they are akin to The Unnameable's unseen Other, the richness in Beckett's making them invisible (and the theological resonance inherent in that) does not carry over for Alleman because they do odd, benign human things, like write letters and look up each other's skirt. Linda and Paul seem only to exist to provide an adult sexuality to Babyfucker's adamant pedophilia.

If I can triangulate this book's big statement, it's some adherence to identity and what defines that. Babyfucker will bloom around his sentence, but those petals wither and fall with every exhausted "Oh come on," with every acknowledgment of babble. We babble on and on until we fundamentally question what the point of it all is, until our spade is turned and we're forced to return our most basic sentence ("I fuck babies, therefore maybe I am"). "Doesn't seem possible to abandon our sentence. To abandon ourselves." To abandon our most basic identity is near (if not) impossible. This story is inherently absurd. The narrator accepts he fucks babies like Gregor Samsa accepts he has become an insect. There are of course some moments of uncertainty or friction, like Babyfucker's inchoate objections ("But Paul...But Linda") or Gregor's unfamiliarity with his body, but both are thrown (sentenced) to a life they must accept; "Don't have any choice. Can't even be crazy." Babyfucker's life is not unlike the average human being: thrown into a life that one may question but must ultimately accept and navigate. To live in the 21st century is to be complicit (consciously or not) in some morally egregious system, maybe not holistically so but comprised of plagued contingencies. Why does the Babyfucker continue to fuck babies? Why do we continue to propagate suffering and bloodshed for the sake of comfort? The practical (read: asinine) answer to the first question could, of course, be: "Why not stop fucking babies? Duh." I think this misses part of the point entirely (like asking why Gregor doesn't fly away and live happily among his new bug pals). We don't know the reason, we just know our sentence, and even that is fraught with corollaries.

[DA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Words have power. That's what this book shows us what it's bright yellow cover and bold black title. Would you read this in public? I'm not certain I would.
The story itself is rambling trance like recitation of words that may or may not mean what they say. And that's the point, or is it?
I didn't find this to be as vulgar and disturbing as maybe I should have. There's the power words have again, one person visualizes depravity reading THE SENTENCE but another, like me, only sees the words and needs more evidence to accuse the narrator of such a heinous act.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seemed like disturbed ramblings of a perverted blind person who believes they aren't being held against their will but are now identifying with their captor and finds the abuse and abusing as a way of living. I thought this, poetic as it was, but pointless and disturbed... Until I read the very last paragraph of the afterword included in the English translated bilingual edition: My mouth hung open, light bulb went off in a flash bang. I re-read this paragraph (in particular the sentence before "our love is here to stay") again, then again. Dawning realisation that these words had been carved into a mocking grimace. Horrendous dawning of realisation. Well done. I won't read it again, but- hats off.

[hana · Rating 5 out of 5]

What exists, and what does not.

The lines are very very blurred, delirious and frantic, and offers a delicious look inside the mind of someone deranged.

Or is he deranged at all?

[Jean Deffense · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t think I have ever been this hypnotized by a book. Urs’ way of writing is just this chaotic flow of words that puts your mind in a trance state and your whole body feels it too. Absolutely fantastic piece of work.

[J.A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read this for a project recently and was re-invigorated by it. Beckett for sure, dabbling in Sade, with a breath of filth that seems much more modern, like Glenum or Cooper.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

'nuff said...

[Brian McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inflate the sentence. Try to make it burst.
Out of this world.