Joe Murphy on Mencken
Hi Everyone-
Hope your February has gone well. It's getting light earlier and staying light later, so we know--at least on an intellectual level--that spring is on the way, even while Mother Nature seems to be holding out precious little other evidence of it. I am so ready for some warm weather.
I've been passing my time indoors by catching up on a title from last fall, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers' magnificent biography Mencken: The American Iconoclast. It's a powerful portrayal of a titan of journalism, master of wry commentary, expert on the American dialect, and professional gadfly. Mencken's life and career covered some of the most formative years of American history--starting his career in the late Guilded Age, he worked and wrote straight through the Second World War.
I have to admit that before now my familiarity with Mencken came mostly from my specializing in Southern lit at school--Mencken wrote a scorching critique of the state Southern letters at the early part of the 20th century entitled "The Sahara of the Bozart" (ouch!). It sufficiently incensed enough up and coming Southern writers that they actually created some of the greatest literature of the century partly in repsonse to Menken's statements.
This was of course only a small part of Mencken's tremendous output; he started his long journalistic career covering the devastating 1904 fire that destroyed much of his beloved (and lifelong) hometown of Baltimore, but went on as a commentator to charge headlong against anything that offended his sensibilities, particularly what he saw as small-minded Puritans imposing their will on others. He fought Prohibition with a vengeance (see the highly amusing cover photo on Rodgers' book), detested censorship in any form, and had an important role in the Scopes trial. Censorship and evolution: clearly Mencken was a man for our time as well as his own; we could use him to help fight some of our fights. The biography underlines these parallels while creating a completely compelling narrative all its own.
If you'd like a selection of Mencken's own writing, I've also ordered in A Mencken Chrestomathy, a generous sampling of Mencken's own funny, prickly, controversial, and always uncompromising writings.
See you in the stores!
Joe Murphy
Head Book Buyer
Hope your February has gone well. It's getting light earlier and staying light later, so we know--at least on an intellectual level--that spring is on the way, even while Mother Nature seems to be holding out precious little other evidence of it. I am so ready for some warm weather.I've been passing my time indoors by catching up on a title from last fall, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers' magnificent biography Mencken: The American Iconoclast. It's a powerful portrayal of a titan of journalism, master of wry commentary, expert on the American dialect, and professional gadfly. Mencken's life and career covered some of the most formative years of American history--starting his career in the late Guilded Age, he worked and wrote straight through the Second World War.
I have to admit that before now my familiarity with Mencken came mostly from my specializing in Southern lit at school--Mencken wrote a scorching critique of the state Southern letters at the early part of the 20th century entitled "The Sahara of the Bozart" (ouch!). It sufficiently incensed enough up and coming Southern writers that they actually created some of the greatest literature of the century partly in repsonse to Menken's statements.
This was of course only a small part of Mencken's tremendous output; he started his long journalistic career covering the devastating 1904 fire that destroyed much of his beloved (and lifelong) hometown of Baltimore, but went on as a commentator to charge headlong against anything that offended his sensibilities, particularly what he saw as small-minded Puritans imposing their will on others. He fought Prohibition with a vengeance (see the highly amusing cover photo on Rodgers' book), detested censorship in any form, and had an important role in the Scopes trial. Censorship and evolution: clearly Mencken was a man for our time as well as his own; we could use him to help fight some of our fights. The biography underlines these parallels while creating a completely compelling narrative all its own.
If you'd like a selection of Mencken's own writing, I've also ordered in A Mencken Chrestomathy, a generous sampling of Mencken's own funny, prickly, controversial, and always uncompromising writings.See you in the stores!
Joe Murphy
Head Book Buyer
0 Comments:
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home