The Scathing Pen of That Ol' Curmudgeon H.L. Mencken

He was born Henry Louis Mencken on September 12, 1880 in Baltimore, though most of us know him as H.L. Mencken. He wrote such bristling prose that if you look up the word "curmudgeon" in the dictionary it would have a picture of Mencken.

The Encyclopedia Britannica has this to say about him:
Mencken was probably the most influential American literary critic in the 1920s, and he often used his criticism as a point of departure to jab at various American social and cultural weaknesses. His reviews and miscellaneous essays filled six volumes aptly titled Prejudices (1919–27). In literature he fought against what he regarded as fraudulently successful writers and worked for the recognition of such outstanding newcomers as Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis. He jeered at American sham, pretension, provincialism, and prudery, and he ridiculed the nation’s organized religion, business, and middle class (or “booboisie”). 

Two recent references to Mencken in a short period of time instilled in me a desire to share a few of his quotes today. The first was an extremely well-written review of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The reviewer demonstrates (a) that he has a point-of-view, and (b) that he is more than familiar with the arc of Fitzgerald's career, shining fresh light on the work he's done up to this point in time. I have included a link at the end of this blog post and--if you are a writer or critic--would encourage you to check it out.

The second was this quote that Ken Burns cited in his documentary on Prohibition, reproduced here:

"Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished." --H.L. Mencken

If his barbed wit reminds you of Nietzsche or Twain, there's good reason. Both of these writers were among his influences. What follows are quotes from the pointed pen of this prickly purveyor of perspicacious sagacity.

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"Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood."

"All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it."

"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under."

"I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time."

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary."

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else."

"A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar."

"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."

"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it."

"An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup."

"The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians."

"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."

"The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom."

"Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking."

"It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf."


Related Links
Superb review of Fitzgerald's Gatsby. Don't stop at the beginning which is harsh. Read it to the end. It's rich.
Britannica entry on Mencken 

Meantime life goes on all around you. Get into it.

A Writing Lesson: Fitzgerald's The Crack-Up

"All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath." 
--F. Scott Fitzgerald

This past month I listened to a set of lectures from the Great Courses series on the subject Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft. This is a seriously good set of lectures that I believe can help anyone serious about their writing. (EdNote: If money is a barrier, you might try your local library, or wait for this set to go on sale.)

The course description begins like this:
Great writing begins—and ends—with the sentence. Whether two words ("Jesus wept.") or 1,287 words (a sentence in William Faulkner's Absalom! Absalom!), sentences have the power to captivate, entertain, motivate, educate, and, most importantly, delight.

In an early lecture by University of Iowa Professor Brooks Landon he dares to kick over one of the sacred cows of nearly every writers conference, the venerable Elements of Style by Strunk & White. Nearly every serious writer I know has a copy of this little volume by their writing desks. It's ideas have nearly Biblical authority in the writer's world, drumming home at least one fallacy that Prof Brooks deplores, that shorter is always better.

We think of Hemingway as a prime example of powerful short sentences, but Professor Brooks cited Hemingway sentences of more than 100 and 200 words, putting the kibosh on this fallacious notion. 

Since listening to this lecture series I've been paying closer attention to sentences again -- their composition, the relationships between words and ideas --- with renewed enthusiasm. For this reason, while reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Crack-Up this week I decided to make use of this essay as an example of a central point of Professor Brooks' lectures, that sentences can be really interesting, and cool. Here's the opening paragraph of Fitzgerald's essay:

Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work—the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside—the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don't show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within—that you don't feel until it's too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again. The first sort of breakage seems to happen quick—the second kind happens almost without your knowing it but is realized suddenly indeed.

Look how that first sentence, which says so much, is followed by a contrast, with the third summing up what has just been set before us. In paragraph two, Fitzgerald then makes it clear that this story of a breakdown is going to be his story. The subject matter has been studied at length under the lens of a high-powered microscope, to be solemnly shared by this man who has spent a lifetime honing his craft. Note the variety of sentences, and even though none are exceedingly short, the manner in which the sentences have been constructed is worth examining.

Now to paragraph two:

Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation – the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the “impossible,” come true. Life was something you dominated if you were any good. Life yielded easily to intelligence and effort, or to what proportion could be mustered of both. It seemed a romantic business to be a successful literary man – you were not ever going to be as famous as a movie star but what note you had was probably longer-lived – you were never going to have the power of a man of strong political or religious convictions but you were certainly more independent. Of course within the practice of your trade you were forever unsatisfied--but I, for one, would not have chosen any other.

* * * *

In the follow-up essay, titled Pasting It Together, Fitzgerald dives deeper into some of the causes of his malaise. Here are some additional sentences with heft and nuance, artistic beauty and unveiled truth intimately woven together.

In this silence there was a vast irresponsibility towards every obligation, a deflation of all my values. A passionate belief in order, a disregard of motives or consequences in favor of guess work and prophecy, a feeling that craft and industry would have a place in any world—one by one, these and other convictions were swept away. I saw that the novel, which at my maturity was the strongest and supplest medium for conveying thought and emotion from one human being to another, was becoming subordinated to a mechanical and communal art that, whether in the hands of Hollywood merchants or Russian idealists, was capable of reflecting only the tritest thought, the most obvious emotion. It was an art in which words were subordinate to images, where personality was worn down to the inevitable low gear of collaboration. ...there was a rankling indignity, that to me had become almost an obsession, in seeing the power of the written word subordinate to another power, a more glittering, a grosser power…

I can so identify with these sentiments, as did David Foster Wallace, whose life was also cut short by his own undoing. What he's saying is that in Hollywood, special effects (SFX) have taken over. Character development and storyline have become marginalized. How many times have you heard people complain about movies with action and no substance? (Fortunately, the Pixar leadership team held fast to their vision that Toy Story had to be, above all, a good story, not just a new kind of SFX animation process.)

The same shift has been happening in other aspects of our culture as well. Instead of character being the most important feature of a political candidate or business leader, the culture values charisma. Do they look good on camera? Do they make good sound bytes? This values shift, Fitzgerald laments, helped contribute to his breakdown.

*

Lest we drift too far, let's get back to the point. Writing is a craft. If you're a writer, learning how to build great sentences is invaluable. Words and sentences are the tools of our trade.

* * * *
Read The Crack-Up in its entirety here. Pasting It Together, can be found here.
The three essays which appeared in Esquire have since been compiled in a book along with material from his notebooks as well as letters. You can find the book here on Amazon.

4 Lessons for Writers from The Rise and Fall of F. Scott Fitzgerald

His first achievement.

This past week I listened again to Professor Elliot Engel's lecture called The Rise and Fall of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Actually, I enjoyed it so much I listened to it twice in a row, even though I'd also heard it and wrote about it in 2008. It is insightful as regards the life of a major American writer, but it is also instructive for those who feel impelled to write today.

There were many takeaway's for me personally during this more recent listen. Here are a few of them.

1. Highest paid short story writer
I knew he was the highest paid short story writer of his era, but I didn't know why. Two factors came into play that caused this to happen. First, he wrote about the Roaring 20's in such a way that teenage girls read the stories to learn how to dress and act and all the rest. Second, two major publishers of short fiction got into a bidding war for his manuscripts. He went from being a no-name writer of little worth to a $4,000 a week writer whose name on the cover guaranteed sales. Lesson: The odds of this latter event ever occurring again are slim. The odds of this happening to most of us who write stories are nil. You're more likely to get struck by an asteroid.

Great book but weak sales.

2. Despite fame, Gatsby sales were a flop
Fitzgerald and is eccentric wife Zelda loved the high life. The problem is once the cash-spigot got turned off, they never learned how to save or live frugal. And as famous as he had become, for some reason the book didn't sell well. Professor Engel stated that The Great Gatsby is the most popular novel today among high school students, but in its time sales were a flop, in part due to critical reviews. Lesson: If you are a writer hoping to sell lots of books, keep your expectations realistic.

3. Timing is everything
Fitzgerald wrote about the Jazz Age. He even coined the word jazzy which did not exist before. Unfortunately, when his follow up to Gatsby was published America was in the throes of a great depression. Tender Is the Night was another big fail. Lesson: To quote the Beach Boys, "Catch a wave and you're sittin' on top of the world." Fitzgerald's wave had passed. The sun had set on the jazz age and he was left floating in the middle of an empty copper sea.

4. What you say can hurt you
Even though his latest didn't sell and Fitzgerald was struggling to make ends meet, he still managed to get a little cashflow by selling stories. This all came to an abrupt end when he agreed to a three-part series that was published in Esquire called "The Crack-Up". He never published another story again. He was too hot to handle. Lesson: We live in an era where authenticity is valued highly, but complete candor isn't as welcome as the pundits would have you believe. It's wise to be circumspect.

Here's the opening paragraph of Fitzgerald's The Crack-Up.

Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work -- the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside -- the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don't show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within -- that you don't feel until it's too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again. The first sort of breakage seems to happen quick -- the second kind happens almost without your knowing it but is realized suddenly indeed.

You can read the rest here.

Download the entire lecture here.

Trivia: When Fitzgerald died his total net worth was $700.

Question: What was your favorite book that you read in high school English class? 

The Big Read Does Gatsby

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone," he told me, "just remember that all people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." ~ Nick's opening lines in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

My last post mentioned I'd been listening to a CD series called The Big Read, produced with grant money from the National Endowment for the Arts. Yesterday my commute included a listen to commentary and an overview of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

I'd also mentioned that someone in the Steinbeck program said Grapes of Wrath was the quintessential Great American Novel. It was amusing to hear the same statement with regards to Gatsby. One critic mentioned that he reads it twice a year.

Jack London was the highest paid short story writer of his time, in the period leading up to World War I. Fitzgerald became heir to that pop throne during the Jazz Age, a phrase he apparently coined. His stories garnered a pretty savory three grand each, which was good money in those days. Unfortunately, despite being the rage in the short story scene, this book failed to catch the wave. The Great Gatsby received little more than a yawn from the public, selling about 25,000 copies over the next fifteen years.

By comparison, London's Call of the Wild sold out the first printing almost immediately, and the second, and has been translated into more languages than nearly any book by an American author, ever.

Pop adulation is apparently not necessarily the mark literary acclaim. Nobel Prize winner Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country sold 3,000 copies the first year. It's a beautiful book and worthy of the recognition it later achieved. But it was hardly a bestseller. And many of Nobel Prize winner Andre Gide's 80 books had print runs of only a thousand copies or less, distributed amongst friends and a few loyal readers. By way of contrast, some of today's best selling authors see opening print runs in the hundreds of thousands, due chiefly to our era of mass distribution.

So why is it that Fitzgerald gets the adulation from the critics, and London a courteous nod? It might be that London, who came up through the ranks from the working poor, simply didn't have the appropriate color of blood, as in blue. Or maybe, being an outspoken socialist who took the side of the working class in some of his books, he was politically out of step in his time. Or... maybe... he tweaked too many peoples' noses and stepped on too many toes of persons in high places.

Yet it is evident that London knew how to reach an audience with his gritty stories written as if he had lived them, which in many cases he had, from the Klondike to the high seas. And for this he was well paid. edNote: if you are serious about making it as a writer, be sure to read Martin Eden.

I admit that I have enjoyed reading The Great Gatsby several times over the years, but for some reason the book felt a little sappy to me in my latest read. Maybe the film spoiled it. Some of the lines felt more dreamy when written, but when spoken were clearly stilted and almost corny. Am I being too harsh here? It may be that I'm more jaded than I used to be.


Review additional comments on Fitzgerald and Gatsby here

The Rise & Fall of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Yesterday I listened to a lecture called The Rise and Fall of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Dr. Elliot Engel. Professor Engel is a good storyteller and active lecturer on literary subjects. He has also written three plays, many articles and seven books, the most recent being A Dab of Dickens and A Touch of Twain.

According to Engel, Fitzgerald is one of only four significant American authors of the 20th century. As he sees it, all the rest will be forgotten in 200 years, but these four will continue to be studied: John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and the topic of this lecture, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Hemingway’s significance is chiefly due to the impact he made on modern literature. His punchy prose smashed the old rules and replaced them with a new stylebook. Short is strong, shorter stronger. Steinbeck will always be associated with his keenly perceptive Depression-era stories. Faulkner’s landscape was the South, and Fitzgerald’s the Roaring 20’s.

Fitzgerald’s life story is itself like a novel. His sisters died while he was in the womb so that when he was born his mother doted on him excessively. When she lost the two girls she vowed never to have any more children.

Though his mother came from a family with means, his dad managed to do badly in business and when Scotty was eleven they were bankrupt. As a result, they returned to Minnesota to be near her folks who could then help them get on their feet. This and other anecdotes were presented to give a backdrop for Fitzgerald’s personality development and his fascination with the Jazz Age, particularly the lifestyles of the rich and infamous.

The irony is that his life seemed to be a repeat of his dad’s. He married a girl from a wealthy background, but somehow failed at providing for her. We’re talking about Zelda here, another tragic character whose insatiable zest for life was greased with wacko zeal. Though at one time the most sought after short story writer of his day, and highest paid, Fitzgerald’s books sold badly, after the first, and Zelda’s spending far exceeded the paltry pittance their sales provided.

Eventually, his nerves were shot, and he wrote about it in a three part feature for Esquire magazine. His extreme candor resulted in his inability to sell any more work. He was “out of favor.” Here are the opening lines of that Esquire piece.

Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work -- the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside -- the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don’t show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within -- that you don’t feel until it’s too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again. The first sort of breakage seems to happen quick -- the second kind happens almost without your knowing it but is realized suddenly indeed.

It was actually a three part series --“The Crack-Up,” “Pasting It Together,” and “Handle with Care”-- which was then published as a book. The irony is that several years later, that book helped restore Fitzgerald’s name as a writer of significance. But by this time he was dead.

Now my question is this. Do you believe Professor Engel is right? Is Fitzgerald worthy of being included in the short list of important American authors who will be remembered 200 years from now? Do you think Fitzgerald’s significance is overrated?

A few related questions: Where does Jack London stand in importance as an American writer? Hemingway? Sinclair Lewis? Thomas Wolfe? And who will be remembered from the second half of the twentieth century?

In closing, a description from near the end of The Great Gatsby, a summing up of what Tom and Daisy Buchanan’s lives were about. “They were careless people… they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money and their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…”

Link to The Crack-Up

More facts about Fitzgerald

NOTE: The photo of the painting on the left was taken in a gallery on Madeline Island and is not an Ed Newman original.