The kaleidoscopic novel, which can be considered Ball's hidden artistic credo, was written between 1914 and 1920, but was not published in book form until 1967. The magical-anarchic world full of boundless absurdist humour reflects the desperation and irrationality of the situation in which the community of immigrant artists in neutral Switzerland found itself during the First World War. The novel is also a poetic rendering of the genesis of the most radical artistic movement to date, Dadaism, and, with its almost carnivalesque satire of the monsters of the time, a counterpoint to the theoretical-reflective tone of Ball's memoir.
Czech edition