H.L. Mencken: Critic of American Life
Douglas, George H.
BOOK REVIEW H.L. Mencken,' Critic of American Life George H.Douglas / Archon Books / $15.00 William H. Nolte lthough this book has just about every error known to the publishing business- from...
...He should also not change the text of what he quotes to fit his own quixotic notions of how it should be or might have been...
...He should know, for example, that subjects are not separated from predicates by single commas...
...Douglas, having myself been victimized by drunken and/or idiotic printers...
...When I got to the end of that passage (one could hardly call it a sentence) I knew that the profession of criticism had reached a new peak But I cannot stop here I offer you, patient and gentle reader, lagniappe...
...Why leave out the necessary commas and even spell out the name of the state when Mencken had abbreviated it...
...I read that one three times, once forwards, once backwards, and once cross-eyed, and I'm still stymied...
...The book, or at least the first part of the book, abounds with such blunders...
...But what am I to make of this on page 25: "Mencken as a blend of intellectual forces must be studied as a blend...
...Joe, Mo., Rotary Club...
...The reasons for its short life have been debated at some length, and probably will never be explained...
...To begin with, Mr...
...Listen: "The answer, again, of course, is that Mencken is a writer, a writer possessed of historical imagination, and wants the power of words to do some of his work for him...
...What do you make of that unfolding and flowering...
...Still, I hesitate summarily to dismiss Mr...
...Perhaps it suddenly got better after the fashion of born-again Christians...
...each had something to contribute to his defining style as writer and thinker...
...And this final gem: "Out of the flux of his subject matter [Gott in Himmel...
...On page 36-more of the same: "The American Mercury meant so much to Mencken (just as it meant something debased to Nathan) because the force bursting in him was the joint force of satire and historicism...
...I have no objection to one's giving reasons, but I grow uneasy when one explains them, particularly when they are still being debated...
...Joe Missouri Rotary Club,' "The phrase in Mencken reads "as equal to being welcomed by representatives of the St...
...Three sentences later Douglas says, "...for the Smart Set was a magazine for sophisticated urban-ites, not ideally suited for penetrating analysis in the front sections," In the next sentence (all of this on page 29), he says that the Smart Set and the Mercury "fitted Mencken's talents like a. glove, each in its own special way...
...On the next page I found this: "Mencken was associated with-the Smart Set for fifteen years, and wrote for it copious amounts of material...
...he should also know what a comma fault (or splice) is-particularly'since he is an associate professor of English at the University of Illinois...
...Douglas apparently knows next to nothing about punctuation, a form of ignorance that may be forgiven in school youngsters but is unforgivable in authors (and editors) of books...
...On page 37 Douglas refers to Mencken's "war-cries against the boobsie," by which he probably means Mencken's booboisie rather than a little boob, but I'm not sure...
...On page 35 the author muses on the death ofthe Mercury...
...If I had to choose one favorite I should probably choose this one: "The clue to Mencken's genius was his boundless capacity for gathering raw materials, to the skill with which he could drag forth every little tidbit of American life, with which, like some overeager puppy dog, he could pick up every scrap of information that came his way and give it a few tosses...
...We must look at him simultaneously as a writer and thinker, satirist and social critic" ? Or this?-"The Mencken of the American Mercury period, who unfolds in the essays of the Prejudices and in Notes on Democracy, represents a flowering of his talents as an encyclopedist, a great collector of Americana...
...I do say, however, that the first fourth of the book is an unholy mess...
...Mencken,' Critic of American Life George H.Douglas / Archon Books / $15.00 William H. Nolte lthough this book has just about every error known to the publishing business- from misquotations to misspelled words to fractured syntax-I cannot in all honesty say that it is entirely worthless since I read only the first 50 pages...
...That first comma hit my schoolmarmish eye like a spitball loaded with chili pepper...
...he selects a very few points of dramatic emphasis, but these are just the ones he needs to pin down his main idea.'' I don't care what you say, I think Mencken would have liked this book, but then he was a little bit of a puppy dog...
...On page 25 he writes: "Mencken was first, a journalist, drawn always to the living," etc...
...I groaned and muttered certain unprintables (in this family magazine anyhow) about editors who ask me to review books for so little money...
...On page 42 he is dissecting or rather paraphrasing the little essay "Want Ad": "To be welcomed by such figures would appear to a Thomas Hardy or a Gabriel D'Annunzio 'as equal to being welcomed by representatives of the St...
Vol. 12 • April 1979 • No. 4
