Rating: 
Summary: Good intro to Mencken.. beware of some posts
Review: First of all, I picked up this book because I have seen and enjoyed numerous quotes attributed to Mencken and I wanted to learn about the man behind the quotes. In this respect, the book was a very good intro to an extraordinary individual and it whetted my appetite to read Mencken's thoughts and views written by his own hand. He certainly appeals to reasoned, free thinkers.That said, I was dismayed by many of the reviews here after reading the book. Much negativism regarding the book portraying Mencken in an unflattering light is unjustified I think, for I found him to be anything but a real bigot after reading the book, although he certainly was not P.C. (nothing wrong with that, per se). Menkcen defenders need to back off a bit and realize that reasoned readers can accept Menkcen despite some human frailties, to include his domineering editorial style. In addition, some so-called libertarians have posted about whether he was or wasn't a libertarian and whether the author explores this enough, etc. As a libertarian myself, I disagree with this reasoning. The book is about Mencken the man and his outlook on life, and I think is political views are fairly treated and rather plain to readers. As the title suggests, he was a skeptic of government and easy answers to human problems -- so I'm inclined to believe he'd be skeptical of any libertarian panacea to solve all the world's problems. He is able to be critical of both the right and left, both autocracy and democracy, both elitism and populism. I really recommend this book as a back drop to begin a more thorough investigation of Mencken's views and writings.
Rating:
Summary: Good intro to Mencken.. beware of some posts
Review: First of all, I picked up this book because I have seen and enjoyed numerous quotes attributed to Mencken and I wanted to learn about the man behind the quotes. In this respect, the book was a very good intro to an extraordinary individual and it whetted my appetite to read Mencken's thoughts and views written by his own hand. He certainly appeals to reasoned, free thinkers. That said, I was dismayed by many of the reviews here after reading the book. Much negativism regarding the book portraying Mencken in an unflattering light is unjustified I think, for I found him to be anything but a real bigot after reading the book, although he certainly was not P.C. (nothing wrong with that, per se). Menkcen defenders need to back off a bit and realize that reasoned readers can accept Menkcen despite some human frailties, to include his domineering editorial style. In addition, some so-called libertarians have posted about whether he was or wasn't a libertarian and whether the author explores this enough, etc. As a libertarian myself, I disagree with this reasoning. The book is about Mencken the man and his outlook on life, and I think is political views are fairly treated and rather plain to readers. As the title suggests, he was a skeptic of government and easy answers to human problems -- so I'm inclined to believe he'd be skeptical of any libertarian panacea to solve all the world's problems. He is able to be critical of both the right and left, both autocracy and democracy, both elitism and populism. I really recommend this book as a back drop to begin a more thorough investigation of Mencken's views and writings.
Rating:
Summary: Good book about a pitiable, overated writer
Review: Having been familiar with Mencken since my 60s college days, but having never read Mencken, when a friend lent me the Skeptic I quickly began reading it. I wanted to know just who he was, why was he important, what did he believe or value? Overall, with nothing to compare it too, I found it engaging, Teachout's descriptions of Mencken `s works, words, and personal relations were all woven together effectively, and it answered my questions well enough (as far as I know). I was left thinking I should read something by Mencken, check out his way with words, his style, and I will--I am curious since, if anything, that is supposed to be his special talent, his importance. However without being able to appreciate his gift until I have indeed read him, I was also left with these impressions: That Mencken was essentially a journalist, whatever his gift for vernacular and wit. He was very narrow minded, egotistical to a fault, about the truth of his opinions. His browbeating, and loudmouth disdain for those he criticized was bullying, though I could not even give it credit for being intellectually bullying--a nasty thing in its own right--but Mencken comes across more as just a loud, forceful, a crude force clothed in wit. Entertaining perhaps, but lacking in substance. His social, and political views seemed more often than not rather simplistic, ill informed, lacking any reflection. Ok, people can be very mindless when it comes to religion, it is a superstitious belief whose influence often works against human reason, and its ripe and full of hypocrisy--I agree with him--but his totalizing dismissal of it still seemed simple minded. Politicians are out for a buck, self-serving, hypocritical players on the gullibility of the masses; yeah, that notion is still with us today, and that shared truism does not keep from dividing up into hostile camps, pretending that our favored players are authentic, untainted by greed, not bought off by money--we could agree their, but Mencken never pursued that, its implications, he just damned it, got some laughs, and moved on. Mencken's attacks left a vacuum for any further visions, reflections, possibilities--as if he defaulted to some kind of thoughtless nihilism. As for the discussion of his supposed racism and anti-Semiticism, I think Teachout made a good point for the fact that: no, Mencken was not a racist in the sense of the KKK was, he abhorred the KKK, but he thought blacks were inferior, he spoke and wrote of them as such. His exceptionalism for "Good Negroes" as opposed to the majority of "Inferior or Bad Negroes" (still with us today) does not translate into Mencken the non-racist! The same goes for his attitude or beliefs about Jews; he believed in good Jews, but thought them as a race to be very reprehensible, and to blame for their victimizations. Mencken was a racist, and anti-Semitic, but not anywhere near what we associate with Southern lynchings, the KKK, or the Holocaust--we give him saving credit for the degree of difference. That he aided some Jews, had them as friends, and finally became disgusted with Hitler is worthy, but not necessarily redeeming! So these are my impressions after reading The Skeptic. I will try to read some of Mencken, but for now I view him as a great disappointment, a lightweight intellectual (which I admit to being), without much substance, a sad man, and so I do not understand why anyone cares about him anymore?
Rating:
Summary: Larger Than Life Bio of Legendary Cynical Newspaperman
Review: He was the cantankerous, stogie-smoking "Voice of the Jazz Age," though personally, he hated jazz. The most influential literary and social critic of his time, he made household names of such now-renowned authors as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair lewis, Joseph Conrad, Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser, Dorothy Parker and James M. Cain. He transformed the Baltimore Sun into a first-rate newspaper as ediotr-in-chief, and brought it national recognition through his tongue-in-cheek reportage and editorials. He first made the observation "Those who can do; those who can't, teach" and coined the sobriquet "Bible Belt." Even today, the reverberations of his caustic wit resound through such diverse writers as historian William Manchester, "Gonzo" journalist Hunter S. Thompson on the left and libertarian humorist P.J. O'Rourke on the right.
Yet, despite his vast influence on American letters, H.L. Mencken is virtually unknown to most American readers today.
Over the course of the past decade, thankfully, Terry Teachout has been doing a yeoman's task in helping return many of Mencken's works back onto bookshelves, beginning with 1995's "A Second Mencken Chrestomathy." The Second Chrestomathy -- comprised of the author's hand-picked reviews, columns and miscellany -- lay forgotten in boxes in the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore until discovered by Teachout, who then edited it into book form. This recent biography by Teachout has thrust Mencken's name and notorious reputation back into the spotlight.
Henry Louis Mencken first emerged as the real H.L. Mencken in the late 1910s on the pages of his magazines "The Smart Set" and "The American Mercury." In them, he wrote as he spoke, in an unusual mixture of intellectual discourse -- seasoned to taste with Stammtisch German and scholarly Latin and Greek -- woven together with American street slang. Its effect was both outrageous and infectious: He used it to roil against frauds, quacks, mountebanks, Rotarians, uplifters, Ku-Kluxers, morons and the American middle class, which he labelled "the booboisie." He once quipped, "No one ever went broke misunderestimating the intelligence of the American public." In this age of lip-sync'd pop music and contrived "reality" television programming, this observation is just as prescient as ever.
Through Mencken was probably the most well-read intellectual of his generation, he also liked being a fly on the wall, listening to the pungent language of the rough and brassy people he ran across in speakeasies, brothels and night courts. For Mencken, the American language was markedly different from its mother tongue, and in 1921 published "The American Language," a huge volume devoted to the unique Americanisms he collected since his early days in journalism. Teachout thoroughly establishes Mencken's importance to the preservation and legitimization of a disctinctly American tongue.
At the height of his popularity, in 1925, Mencken covered the famous Scopes "Monkey" trial (as he dubbed it) for the Baltimore Sun. Mencken had no qualms mocking proseutor William Jennings Bryan, a former Democrat presidential nominee whom he thought a demogogue who played to mob prejudice. To the atheist Mencken, the trial was a battle between science and religion, between the literate North and the ignorant South. Scopes was found guilty (but only fined $100), but Mencken became a household name and burned in effigy throughout the South.
Teachout also deals with Mencken's anti-Semitism. True, Mencken was predisposed to be against religion in general (which he regarded as childish superstition), but in revealing correspondence which evinces some of Mencken's less than honorable treatment of even Jews close to him (such as his publisher Alfred A. Knopf and literary critic and co-editor George Jean Nathan), Mencken is found wanting. Some of this Teachout ascribes to Mencken's native sense of German superiority, and some to his lack of sentiment beyond a certain point. But what Teachout finds most damning is Mencken's silence during World War II. Far from painting Mencken as a Nazi sympathizer, Teachout instead saw Mencken as so cynical that he not only could not see good in mankind, but neither could he spot evil.
Mencken's star faded during the 1930's, the "Red Decade." Teachout draws a sympathetic portrait of Mencken in his later years, writing his memoirs, and editing collections of his essays. Mencken suffered a stroke in 1948 that left him unable to engage in the two activities most central to his very being, reading and writing.
H.L. Mencken died in 1956, at 1524 Hollins Street, Baltimore, in the house of his birth, which he regarded "as much a part of me as my own two hands." From his upstairs office there, the man whom Edmund Wilson called "our greatest practicing literary journalist" pounded out a legacy on his portable Corona typewriter, with just his two index fingers, that still reads as juicy, poignant and vitriolic as when it first came hot off the presses.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, But a Few Flaws
Review: I found Terry Teachout's bio of Mencken to contain a lot of information available elsewhere. It was interesting, but I must take issue with some of Teachout's analysis. He claims that Mencken was an anti-Semite. No more so than he was anti-Irish; anti-Negro; anti-Italian American, etc. In other words, it is quite obvious that Mencken was an equal opportunity offender. The alleged proof of his anti-Semtism: that he disliked Jews who called attention to their Jewishness. This was no worse than Mencken's belief that others shouldn't call attention to their ethnicity, either. Then, too, there was his isolationism during WWII, and belief that the Jews brought anti-Semitism on themselves. While I do find such a viewpoint debatable (and no excuse in any way for the holocaust, which Mencken didn't support), I don't think that made Mencken an anti-Semite (he did call Hitler a fool). Rather, such a viewpoint made Mencken what he was: a very opinionated believer in how people, no matter what their color or ethnicity, should conduct themselves. Of course, he also castigated African Americans, and, collectively speaking, considered them to be inferior. Yet he also recognized the brilliance of such African American individuals as James Weldon Johnson and Claude McKay. And to be honest, I found one choice quote of his about African Americans as a whole unwilling to improve themselves, riding on the shoulders of those who genuinely deserve praise for their accomplishments, to be right on the mark (though I don't agree with his opinion of Jazz, which I think is a brilliant contribution to American culture). And I'm African American. In sum, Mencken, in many ways, was a product of his times. What set him apart and what I appreciate in his writing was his HONESTY. It was rare in his day, and certainly remains so today. Yet, as some have said, while Teachout's book is informative, it's not absolutely essential for anyone seeking to understand the essence of Mencken.
Rating: 
Summary: pure unvarnished mencken
Review: I was really looking forward to this biography, and by and large my hopes were rewarded. Like many people, I knew Mencken primarily as the source of countless great one-liner denunciations of government, Puritans, and other fools. Thanks to Terry Teachout's research, understanding, and very readable prose, I know HLM much better now. Teachout's presentation is comprehensive and largely balanced. We get a lot about HLM's politics, of course, but also a clear explanation of his impact on America's literary world and the ways he not only helped shepherd into existence a truly American vernacular in fiction and journalism, but also advanced the careers of promising African American writers like George Schuyler (p. 202-3). Mencken the man comes through clearly as well, as an esthete under his hard-bitten exterior, a lover of art and music -- at least within the rigid bounds of what he considered worthwhile. One area I think Teachout's analysis is a bit incomplete, however, is in his discussion of whether or not Mencken can justly be considered a libertarian. Teachout says no, based mainly on HLM's own declarations that he was not a "liberal" (i.e., "classical liberal" in the modern parlance, or libertarian), did not believe in "forcing" freedom upon others, and his admiration for Wilhelmine Germany before, and even during, World War I (p. 126). At the same time, however, the "American Mercury," HLM's one-man show (p. 205), explicitly called for "articles on some social problem treated from [the] liberal viewpoint" (p. 256). And as Murray Rothbard, founding father of modern libertarianism, pointed out in a 1962 article titled "H.L. Mencken: The Joyous Libertarian," the vast assortment of quotes "from highly individualist or anarchist sources" in HLM's "New Dictionary of Quotations" (1942) would strongly indicate that Mencken was not only familiar with, but indeed highly sympathetic to, such writers. As Teachout notes, Mencken wasn't a philosopher, and never articulated a comprehensive political worldview. The important thing, as this book makes very clear, is that Mencken had a passionate, unbending devotion to individual liberty and an undying hostility to those who for whatever motives seek to control others' lives or limit their freedom. If that's not "libertarian," it's close enough to it for my purposes. On the whole, this biography does much to rescue from gathering oblivion the reputation and importance of a man whose contributions -- to letters as much as, or more than, politics -- deserve to be remembered and honored. Teachout doesn't shy away from difficult topics like HLM's arguable anti-Semitism, his sometimes heartless treatment of former friends and colleagues, or the contradictions between his public face and his private life. But the book as a whole gives us a complete enough portrait of the man that it's easier to put those failings in context and draw our own conclusions. This biography is an interesting and rewarding read, and I recommend it to students of American politics and letters.
Rating:
Summary: An Impressive Introduction To The Sage Of Baltimore
Review: It's now been almost half a century since H.L. Mencken's death, but the debate over his life and works only seems to grow more passionate. Much of this was undoubtedly the design of the Sage of Baltimore himself. He took great care in preserving and ordering his papers, and wrote two volumes of memoir and a diary designed to be opened only long after his departure. The publication of these works--the diary, "My Life as Author and Editor," and "Thirty-five Years of Newspaper Work," helped spark a new round of debate about Mencken, and also helped pave the way for Terry Teachout's fine biography. Teachout has mined the rich Mencken trove to produce a life story that's vivid, engaging and a pleasure to read. He confronts the Big Questions about Mencken--especially his anti-Semitism--quite directly. He celebrates the man's achievements, points out his faults and blind spots, but does so through the perspective of a life-long interest in the man. As he explains in the introduction, his eighth-grade social studies teacher gave him his first book on Mencken. In a relatively brief 349 pages, Teachout manages to cover the sweep of the Mencken story...from the boy reporter who first made his mark at the end of the 19th century, to the literary critic who made such a splash in the teens and twenties ("discovering" the likes of Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis); to the memorable battles he waged against the "booboisie," the great unknowing masses who he saw as the scourge of society; to the self-trained scholar who performed pioneering work in the field of the American language. It's a great introduction to the man for anyone who isn't familiar with him, and can be read with pleasure by those who do know him. A first-rate biography in every sense.--William C. Hall
Rating:
Summary: Informative overview of Mencken's life.
Review: Not having read any other biography on Mencken, I have nothing to compare this one to. What I can say is that I learned from Teachout's book much about the chronology of Mencken's life, as well as his strengths as a stylist, and rather less about his substance as a thinker. I found this disappointing, but must nevertheless concede that the book taught me much about Mencken (indeed including a couple of aspects of his thought) that I did not know before; so, although I do not consider it an ideal biography, I nevertheless would rate it a good one.
Rating:
Summary: Concise, insightful, and well-written, however...
Review: Shortly before suffering the stroke that would virtually end his career, H.L. Mencken estimated that he had written perhaps five million words over the preceding fifty years. Given all this, not to mention everything written about him by others, any biographer faces a monumental task-not only absorbing all of this material, but distilling it into it's essence without sacrificing vital details. Fortunately, Mr. Terry Teachout proves up to the job. His experience as a journalist and music critic gives him valuable insight into Mencken's career and avocation of music that other biographers lack.
This is probably the best biography for someone who has come upon Mencken's writing somewhere, either quoted or in full, and only knows him as a name but would like to learn more about him. There is a great deal in the book that is new concerning Mencken's relations with the women in his life, chiefly his longtime lady friend, Marian Bloom, and his wife, Sarah Haardt. Unlike some reviewers on this page, I do not think there is anything prurient here; rather, it serves as a view into a facet of Mencken's personality and character that has been long obscured. Also fascinating are the details of the estrangement that set in between Mencken and his friend and co-editor (on both "The Smart Set" and "The American Mercury"), the drama critic George Jean Nathan.
The book takes up the long-smoldering controversy over Mencken's ambivalent opinions of the Jews that burst forth afresh in 1989 after a volume of excerpts from his diary was published. I do not wish to give a potential reader any preconceptions, so I will restrict myself to observing that Mr. Teachout strikes me as fair and specific in his consideration of the evidence, and just in the conclusion that he draws.
Despite the foregoing, the book does have a few minor but annoying (at least to me) quirks. Mr. Teachout is a bit too hard on one of Mencken's earliest books, "The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche", first published in 1908 (with a second edition in 1913). Despite some of Mencken's youthful misconceptions, his book turns out to be a remarkably good conspectus of some of Nietzsche's main concepts and ideas. Considering that Mencken struggled through Nietzsche's collected works in the original German (Despite widespread misimpression to the contrary, Mencken was not especially fluent in German.), and had almost no prior studies to consult; I think it is something of a miracle that he gets as much right as he does. He was certainly far closer to the mark than the stock caricature of Nietzsche-as-proto-Nazi that was the order of the day in Anglo-American philosophy and literary criticism until well into the 1960's.
Also, Mr. Teachout is a tad too disapproving of Mencken's religious skepticism. To be sure, paying obeisance to religion is now 'de rigeur' among many neo-conservative intellectuals these days, few of whom are actually religious themselves. (Mr. Teachout's preface is dated only a few days before September 11, 2001.) Mencken is too honest for this kind of thing. Moreover, his skepticism is needed now more that ever, what with a U.S. president speaking of a "crusade" against the Muslim world, and the deputy director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency vouchsafing that he could spot "demonic presences" hovering over Muslim cities in reconnaissance satellite photographs(!). (Let us hope that the personnel controlling nuclear missiles are a little less caught up in eschatological fantasies.) These are just differences of opinion though; they do not really detract from what will probably be the standard account of Mencken's life and work for some time to come.
Rating:
Summary: A Conservative's Review of a Hugely Influential Figure
Review: Terry Teachout is one of the most reliable, readable and fair-minded conservative journalists and critics we have. "The Skeptic" is his long-awaited biography of H.L. Mencken, perhaps the most important American journalist of the first half of the 20th century and a huge influence on modern conservativism. This book is relatively compact and briskly-paced, which sets it apart from most modern biographies. But it doesn't leave anything important out; if you want to read just one book about Mencken, this is probably it (although once you are exposed to the guy, you almost certainly won't want to stop at one.) Walter Lippman said that Mencken "calls you a swine and and imbecile, and increases your will to live." That's the secret of Mencken's appeal; what Teachout calls an "18th century force and candor and rationality" wrapped in a rollicking comic prose that is absolutely unforgettable. During the 1920's, he was almost worshipped as a cultural deity in America because of his stylistic greatness. And in the world of ideas, Mencken could be thought of as a founder of today's libertarianism. But Teachout is clear-eyed enough to see the man's foibles as well as his many virtues. There was the postumously notorious anti-Semitism, which also caused Mencken to seriously underestimate Hitler. (During and after World War II Mencken kept a public silence about these subjects; I think feelings of embarrassment might have played a role.) Mencken was oblivious to the burgeoning artistic Modernism of the 20's; Hemingway, Faulkner, jazz, and Frank Lloyd Wright were beyond his comprehension. And he could be a bigot and a bully. "In Memoriam: W.J.B", his brilliant obituary of William Jennings Bryan is one of the greatest pieces of invective ever. But Mencken never realized his malice and close-mindedness became every bit as great as Bryan's was. And in his high-handed dismissal of religion he didn't see that there was more than one way to be a Puritan: he was one about his atheism and radical skepticism. But Teachout restores Mencken to his rightful place as not merely a gifted comic writer, but a serious (if flawed) thinker on ideas that are still very relevant.
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