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The Diary of H. L. Mencken
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A Historical Treasure: the never-before, published diary of the most outspoken, iconoclastic, ferociously articulate of American social critics -- the sui generis newspaperman, columnist for the Baltimore Sun, editor of The American Mercury, and author of The American Language, who was admired, feared, and famous for his merciless puncturing of smugness, his genius for def
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I loved the entry about Moby Dick (amazed by its badness). I read that in a book shop some time ago and finally purchased the book.
Very nice although not as interesting and entertaining as I had hoped. He was an antisemite as the editor warns us. Although I found that tolerable. And he seemed to be good friends with the Knopfs (his publisher). There is one Joseph Hergesheimer another friend who gets a lot of entries. A writer at the time very famous who suddenly suffers from a writer’s block and ...more
Very nice although not as interesting and entertaining as I had hoped. He was an antisemite as the editor warns us. Although I found that tolerable. And he seemed to be good friends with the Knopfs (his publisher). There is one Joseph Hergesheimer another friend who gets a lot of entries. A writer at the time very famous who suddenly suffers from a writer’s block and ...more
You'll never like Mencken until you are willing at least to acknowledge, if not actually accept, that which was unlikeable in the man. It's a long list. Mencken was the ultimate name-caller, and what is more childish than this? "Booboisie," "mountebank," "jackass," "buncombe." His heritage was German and he was immensely proud of it, which unfortunately translated into a notorious slowness to condemn the Nazis, while criticizing FDR liberally, and ditto Woodrow Wilson in the previous war. He hat
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Four stars - because it's well written and crammed with all sorts that would appeal to the historian, sociologist and journalist. However, I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to. In fact, it very quickly became a chore to read but I stuck with it as a bookseller had gone to some trouble to get it for me second-hand. I wanted it after reading a couple of entries in 'The Assassin's Cloak', an anthology of diaries. Those initial entries misrepresented him to me in that I expected a man of humou
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A fascinating glimpse into the more private thoughts of a famous early 20th-Century editor, critic and curmudgeon. Particularly interesting if you want the dirt on who was supplying whom with bootlegged liquor during prohibition, or how serious the drinking problems of Sinclair Lewis or F. Scott Fitzgerald were. Not so great for understanding his antipathy toward FDR and the New Deal, or if you expect a late-20th Century perspective on race/racism, sexism, etc. and the pitfalls of stereotypes. T
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I have no idea why I read this. I don't care about H.L. Mencken and this diary written later in his life is basically just him bitching about his ailments and assuming he'll die soon.
He does hobnob with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, and other famous early American writers, but it doesn't make this both worth reading. ...more
He does hobnob with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, and other famous early American writers, but it doesn't make this both worth reading. ...more
interesting in that you can cross reference the dates of his books to the diary. find out who he was interacting with, and what he was drinking when he wrote heathen days.
a must for the mencken obsessive.
a must for the mencken obsessive.
What a boring racist of a little man.
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Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken became one of the most influential and prolific journalists in America in the 1920s and '30s, writing about all the shams and con artists in the world. He attacked chiropractors and the Ku Klux Klan, politicians and other journalists. Most of all, he attacked Puritan morality. He called Puritanism, "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
At the height o ...more
At the height o ...more
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