Gimme More Mencken!

I've been reading through selections of H.L. Mencken's book of criticism, and being that he lived back in the 1920s and teens, he made a lot of accurate predictions on where he thought the state of literature was headed, such as Mark Twain and Whitman being writers who would be around a long, long while.

Unlike the PC, humorless critics of today, Mencken was very funny and ruthless in his crits. For example, many of the essays of his I enjoyed the most were on writers that no one remembers now. He even gives examples of those writers back 100 years ago who were praised by the critics, yet had no vision in their work and are since forgotten. Sort of like today. Also, here's what he says about Whitman:

Nothing could be more indecent (or more American) than the hostility which surrounded Whitman at home until the end of his long life.

And the fact that this was written in 1926 makes it all the more worthwhile. For after Whitman's death, his work disappeared and took a few decades to resurface. He speaks about Emerson, and how he at one time praised Whitman, yet when Old Walt "came under fire" as he says, Emerson was quick to abandon him. Emerson, while someone with insight and talent of his own, was not one to want to "rub the establishment the wrong way."

Writers living in fear? This of course is nothing new. A great PBS documentary about Old Walt can be found here, and you can learn all about how he made a habit of "rubbing some the wrong way." It's just delightful.

And here's what he says about William Dean Howells, a writer who was well known but is forgotten today:

Who actually reads the Howells novels? Who even remembers their names? "The Minister's Charge," "An Imperative Duty," "The Unexpected Guests," "Out of the Question," "No Love Lost"- these titles are already as meaningless as a roll of Sumerian Kings."

The truth about Howells is that he really had nothing to say..."

I am still reading Mencken, but I recommend making a trip to the library and check out some of these essays. He speaks on other topics, like science and religion, but the literary ones are what he's most known for (or at least that's been my experience). In fact, in Black Boy, Mencken is one of the writers that young Richard Wright sought out from the library, and he even had to pretend he was getting it for a white man, since blacks were not expected to read.

(Really, it is an amusing scene, where Richard pretends he is getting the book for a white man. Black Boy is a must read).

Till next time...