Customer Reviews

A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing

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I really like this book. Mencken's prose and unflinching attitude is like no other author I have read. I don't know if they used the middle finger in the early 1900s but if so, then HLM was its personification. If you were to tally his word usage in the book I believe "idiot", "imbecile", "buffoon", "moron" and "mountebank" would be near the top.

This book contains one of my favorite essay and the single biggest reason to own this book, his piece on the critical process. It's only a 10 page essay but it's probably the most eloquent. For whatever reason he put it around page 450, but I would recommend reading it first. It puts a reader in the right frame of mind for reading Mencken's essays. He explains a worthwhile critic is not so much concerned with truth or detail. Instead a truly great critic takes the target of the criticism and uses it to develop his own original ideas. It separates those who would just be archivists with those who would be artists. Clearly, Mencken was not concerned with the former, he was concerned with art and he was an artist.

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.

Perhaps I am biased. Mayhap I am gushing. I don't mind- I have read a good couple thousand books in my lifetime, and I have reviewed a few dozen for Amazon.com. Yet this is the one I keep coming back to read, year after year. As time goes by I find myself revising the scale of Mencken's achievement upwards and upwards, especially knowing that the only comparison is to other mere mortal writers.

What makes this book brilliant is its terse structure- it is fragmented and in short pieces, and this produces his intense compact wit in wave after wave of the finest observations and thoughts to come out of mortal man since Tom Sawyer. A Mencken Chrestomathy utterly fails to do badly at every turn.

If you have glanced at this book, and have even a tiny thought at not buying at least two copies, shoot yourself in the foot for punishment, then go buy a dozen copies and pass them out to your superior friends as rewards for their sagacity and charm and as a reward for their loyalty. But if you have little humanity and wish to punish a friend or make their lives more miserable, do not tell them of this book, and leave it right where it is.

I give no book this high a regard. But I give this one my complete, unconditional support. If you have the means, I suggest buying a thousand copies and distributing it among the hungry of mind for the wonderful elixer of an effect Mencken has upon the mind.

The only thing bad about this book is the covers are too close together.

This book, like all of Mencken's writings, is a lesson in delivering devastating criticism in the form of highly literate and beautifully flowing prose. It helps, of course, to be able to side with the author on his opinions, but is no impediment to enjoyment if you can't -- unless, I presume, you're one of his targets. Basically, no one writes like this anymore. Many believe that if you're going to insult people, crass and vulgar expression is the way to go. Mencken not only shows a better way, but demonstrates the level of intelligence necessary for harsh criticism to have an impact -- it's very difficult to fault someone with such obvious gifts. It also helps to have a dictionary to hand while you're reading, preferably a large and perhaps old one. Mine doesn't have "buncombe" in it, although the way it's used leaves little doubt as to what's meant. Also, the sheer variety of subject matter both here and in the Second Mencken Chrestomathy allows you to jump around freely. I couldn't find a duff article in either book, whether I agreed with his opinions or not, and I couldn't possibly recommend it any higher.

Can you imagine life without Henry Louis Mencken? I, for one, cannot and shudder to think of even one single day deprived of the Sage's coruscating wit, side-splitting humor, and vituperative angst. The joy and satisfaction gleaned from reading Mencken's essays can be likened to the appreciation expressed by an ailing patient, being adminstered a generous dose of morphine, to an understanding and avuncular physician. Mencken's serrated prose soothes the itching scalp brought on by an excess of sentimentality; assuages the burning ulcer brought on by a surfeit of political correctness; lances the boil exacerbated by the stupefying rhetoric gushing from the mouths of disingenuous and media-savvy politicians. In short, this volume of essays will act as a restorative agent on your enervated soul and bolster your mental stamina tenfold. However, please remember to use the Chrestomathy responsibly as repeated readings can result in massive cerebral hemorrhaging due to overstimulation and lack of sleep.

If I were stranded on an island and could have only one book to read, this would be it. Mencken's insight and erudition are unsurpassed, and seldom matched. He is, I'm sure, the greatest American ever to live.

No doubt Mencken was a world class curmudgeon! Also among the funniest, most insightful, and brilliant writers ever to adorn a pen! This is his classic collection, pieces sure to shock, anger, amuse, or simply be dazzled by his amazing mind. How many current journalists would be so bold as to say that priests are "sorcerers", and to list about 30 gods who were big time eons ago, but now forgotten! Henry's sharp darts could piece any "Bounder" or "Dunderhead", especially those with hypocritical tendencies. Writing in the 1920's , he was not impressed by the South, stating that the pre-Civil War aristocracy was about all gone, to be replaced by..well, you can read to find out. He was not a fan of the New Deal, and his 1934 article compares it with France in 1847. Maybe not quite on the mark, but still insightful and funny! There may be those who consider him a true misanthrope, but this is disproven by his eloquent and elegant comments on the great, especially Twain, Beethoven, and Franz Schubert, who receives about the highest praise possible. This is one book that will never be old or dated, and always worth some serious reading and browsing!

In a field of political discourse dominated by folks making up facts and yelling at each other, one is left to pine for Mencken. A great antidote for political drowning this election year is this book.

His care for the language and strong personal views combine in this book. After you read it, answer this question: where can you find the kind and quality of this writing now? There had been a whole genre - political columnists - before. Finding this today is getting harder and harder. Independent thinkers willing to share their views without working an agenda of some sort cannot find work, it seems.

Mencken is cited by conservatives today with great favor. I find this puzzling, since he did not believe in creationism and would very likely place the vast majority of neoconservatives into his "booboisie."

As in times past, the closest we might be able to get to this is in the realm of contemporary political satirists, like Jon Stewart. Well, if you don't mind hundred-year-old politics but miss the music of words, read this book.

Most human beings can't write worth a damn. Mencken was an anomaly--a once-in-a-generation anomaly. This book represents over six-hundred pages of his best work, culled (by Mencken himself) from a fifty-year career in journalism. It is enjoyable and educational, and you can't ask for much more than that. Of course, Mencken allows his fulsome personality free rein, and hypersensitive, humorless, religious, and/or idealistic folks may be put off. Mencken needed those people to make fun of, to pinpoint their hypocrisy, silliness, uselessness to society, etc.; ergo, they may feel roughly used. Everyone else should have a good laugh.

Well, here is the real literary tabasco sauce, with a sprinkle of Darwin, Twain and Nietzche thrown in for good measure. Mencken was America's greatest prose stylist, and an amateur musician, Nietzche translater and gadfly to boot. To read his prose is sheer joy, and this is the place to begin.