A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing

It is good to read things that we may not agree with. I can and do enjoy that which I can't relate to provided I am learning, unlearning, or being entertained. A Mencken Chrestomathy is a combo of all three. Sometimes it is simply a matter of seeing a different perspective, or seeing how someone else views something through their words. I don't necessarily wholly agree with nor dsagree with the thoughts shared by HL Mencken, --and I don't need to--but he has shared them clearly and without pandering to anyone. It is intriguing to know more, and given when these essays were writte, it allows us a glimpse into another world- some things have changed, and some things have stayed the same. And really, there are some similarities between he and I, which just makes me think even more about what I am reading and what I know of him- and of myself.I don't know... it's a book to take a sip of and savor. No need to read it all in one big gulp. These are essays.. thought pieces. Maybe you will want to take notes, or make use of some sticky notes so you can come back to certain words, lines, or passages later. He uses words- each sentence crafted with finesse. The wording, the use of language, the style in which he writes, and ultimately the thoughts he shares on the views he holds is worth delving into.Give it a go, you may or may not get something out of it, but hopefully it can at least be appreciated.

I was first introduced to H.L. Mencken by a Jewish friend when I was in my 20's. I've been hooked ever since. Times have changed a lot since then and the Republic is no more. But even so, there once was a time in this country when the press wasn't controlled and paid to spit out propaganda. For one brief shining moment it published freely, unfettered by dictate from government or the mob.This man lived on the edge of that time. His wit, his intellectual ability to think outside the box of events, the people and their culture, taking place around him then, would by today's intellectually fascist standard, fuzzily defined as political correctness by Bill Clinton back in 1990, will not be welcome by those of the strictly herd mentality of today. some of which sit, sadly to say, at Amazon today deleting reviews and comments from like-minded individuals, who will call a spade a spade rather than lie or gloss over their own opinions. I take no pleasure in saying that. In fact, it vexes me deeply, but it is an opinion that has become quite apparent to me when reading book reviews and their comment threads. And it smacks of the dictatorship behind political correctness. I would much rather read what someone actually thought, than what any apparatchik anywhere thinks anyone should say, imply or convey. And no, I'm not talking about name calling. But with the loss of freedom of press, it only follows that those who value it, lose our freedom of speech as well.If you're someone who also appreciates hearing someone's unvarnished opinion, has a sense of humour towards your culture, yourself, religion, and doesn't think the government and politicians are the greatest thing since sliced bread, you will find reading this book to be a breath of much needed fresh air from today's stifling, politically correct pollution that passes for informative commentary and opinion.These are the most valuable, interesting and refreshing aspects of reading H.L. Mencken IMHO and why I give this book 5 stars. He spoke his unvarnished opinion, as did many others of his time. It's what made people real and news and events informative, not glossed over. And they were allowed to have different opinions. They didn't have to tow the line of opinion of the editor or the owner of the newspaper to keep their job.This is a keeper.

H.L. Mencken worked for newspapers for 50 years, living and working in Baltimore the entire time. His niche was criticism and commentary, at which he excelled. There is no one to match his wit and style. H.L.M. was not a reporter, he was a stylist: it's the way he said what he said that is important.This book is a collection of Mencken's writings, mostly from previous books he wrote: the "Prejudices" series, "In Defense of Women", "A Book of Burlesques", et al. Some of the offerings are from the magazines he edited: "American Mercury" and "Smart Set", with a few newspaper articles for good measure. The copyright listings go back as far as 1917.Mencken discusses everything from men and women, government, morals, religion, music and history, to odd fish, quackery, pedagogy, psychology and buffooneries.Listed under the latter rubric, one will find a work entitled "A Neglected Anniversary", which started the famous bathtub hoax, explained by the author in his notes, for those unfamiliar with the Great Man and his life and times.A second of Mencken's commentaries, which seems to have gained more fame than some of the others, is "The Sahara of the Bozart", page 184. The American South is H.L.M.'s subject here, thus: "Down there a poet is now almost as rare as an oboe-player, a dry-point etcher or a metaphysician. It is, indeed, amazing to contemplate so vast a vacuity...that stupendous region of worn-out farms, shoddy cities and paralyzed cerebrums...it is almost as sterile, artistically, intellectually, culturally, as the Sahara Desert. There are single acres in Europe that house more first-rate men than all the states south of the Potomic...." Ouch!One may not agree with his opinions, but one must acknowledge that he expresses them very well, and that reading his writings is great entertainment.H.L. Mencken is probably the greatest American writer of the 20th Century, if not of all time. Enjoy.

Alistair Cook , in his regular radio " Letter From America " , a generation ago , often referred to HL Menken's perseptive critical writing . This collection of his ( HLM ) writings now has a worthy place on our shelves .

Mencken uses the word Chrestomathy to mean a selection of an author's writings chosen by the author. This is thus a diverse anthology of what HLM presumably regards as his best writing; and certainly it is nothing if not interesting. He skates with merry and cynical insouciance over an impressive range of subjects: politics, history, literature, religion, women, statesmen, etc. Often he is funny; always, acerbic.Sometimes his opinions go beyond any evidence he presents (indeed, evidence is something he rarely troubles us with), so we have to take on trust that he knows what he's talking about. I fear that he had sometimes too much confidence in his own powers of pure reasoning, leading, for instance, to views on the South presented at length that flirt disturbingly close to racism, spuriously ascribing cultural phenomena to genetic lineage: "As a result of this preference of the Southern gentry for mulatto mistresses there was created a series of mixed strains containing the best white blood of the South..." "It is highly probable that some of the worst blood of western Europe flows in the veins of the Southern poor whites... The original strains, according to every honest historian, were extremely corrupt." What could that even mean?I find him similarly close-minded in his snobberies: jazz is an "infernal din" for idiots and barbarians; all culture aside from classical music is pigeon-holed under "The Lesser Arts"; and he has a peculiar longing for society to be enriched by an intellectual elite, with the kind of freedoms and invention, but also the kind of feudalistic powers, of European aristocracy. (I may be caricaturing him there, but not much.) And if his 'insights' about Women take the form of back-handed compliments, they are scarcely the less patronising.On the other hand, his prose is never dull and frequently passionate. The sections about his favourite composers float off the page (Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert...). His writing on boxing reeks of sweat and sawdust. He bigs up Twain repeatedly, declaring Huckleberry Finn to be the finest American novel. And his essay The Hills Of Zion is evidently, and understandably, regarded as a classic piece of reportage, brilliantly evoking the heat and fervour of a backwoods revivalist meeting.Topped off with amusing Buffooneries, including a superb little comic fable about a Chinese medicine-man, this is stimulating reading from start to finish. Even where he's clearly wrong, Mencken is a fellow worth the trouble of disagreeing with.

Every line of text is underlined. Unreadable.

Anyone with an e-reader should welcome the opportunity to carry around these little nuggets of sanity.

Admirable. N'a pas pris une ride. Oublions l'Amérique entre la mort de Mencken et l'avènement de Trump, et plongeons nous avec bonheur dans ce qui est possible aujourd'hui.