An Infuriating American

A man for whom words were fired like bullets

Hal Crowther could easily have filled these 90 pages with a collection of peerless quotes that would have exposed the power of Mencken’s wordsmithing: “In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”

Instead, he has chosen to review Mencken’s life and try to explain his positions, political, racial and social. Fortunately, Crowther also exhibits the Mencken traits of plain talking, straight shooting, and no holds barred writing. This makes it a most engaging read, and all too brief.

I have a shelf of Mencken. It represents not even a sliver of his work. It is fascinating, inspiring, annoying and laughable. That Mencken can still produce such responses in me and millions of others, is reason and satisfaction enough.

For Hal Crowther, it is not. He wants to know what made Mencken tick, how he justified bizarre opinions that conflicted with his own actions, and what category to finally and definitively assign him. This is a purgatory mined by many over the decades. It leads nowhere.

Rather than put him under this microscope, I prefer the view from 50,000 feet. To me, it has long been clear that Mencken filled pages with vitriol simply to rile readers. To elicit a reaction, an emotion, a sign of life. He held contradictory positions, hypocritical positions, and outrageously nonsensical positions, because he loved to entertain. He became an editorial writer at the age of 19, and spent the rest of his life editorializing. It never meant he believed it or lived it.

Crowther passes this right by halfway through, calling Mencken “a born polemicist”. But then he returns to Mencken’s contradictions as if able to resolve them. That he was just as insulting to his friends as to scoundrels should not be in any way damaging to his reputation. His victims should wear it proudly, as the victims of caricaturists and political cartoonists proudly display originals of ugly and devastating artworks of themselves.

It is best to read Mencken for the pleasure of his artistry, not for any deep insight. Even Crowther admits “When I disagreed with him, it was still like listening to music. When I agreed with him, it was like electroshock therapy.”

The proof, if any more were needed, is that “Nearly everything he loathed and ridiculed about America survives him.” It’s still worth the read.

The tone of this extended essay is established up front by a quote from the subject himself, H.L. Mencken:An Infuriating American

“To the extent that I am genuinely educated, I am suspicious of all the things that the average citizen believes and the average pedagogue teaches.”

Mencken, one of America’s finest journalists, was also a world-class iconoclast, and the tone and spirit of his work is captured wonderfully in this short study by Hal Crowther, himself an esteemed author (and 1992 recipient of the H.L. Mencken Award). Mencken should be required reading for everyone (particularly prospective journalists), and An Infuriating American is as good an introduction to the writer as you’ll find.

Crowther’s prose is fearless in tone and content. He is willing to editorialize and present Mencken in all his contradictions—and he doesn’t shy away from the difficult subjects, like racial discrimination. For all his bluster about defying popular opinion and pedagogy, Mencken was a sheep when it came to racism. His comments about Jews and African-Americans, as well as his complicated love affair with Germany post-WWI, are indefensible, and Crowther makes no effort to do so.

But that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Mencken drew the ire of many and never held his tongue to avoid criticism. He was an elitist and, one could argue, a misanthrope. “Human progress was one of the myths to which Mencken did not subscribe,” writes Crowther.

I would say the evidence supports this decision.

The breadth of his thought is such that members of all political factions can claim Mencken as one of their own. Crowther establishes his proper place: “Certainly Mencken was a conservative by many measures, and died conspicuously to the right of the intellectual mainstream. But it’s a grievous insult and injustice to imagine him watching Fox News, or celebrating the wisdom of Rush Limbaugh and Ayn Rand.”

This is a wonderful book about a complicated man, and an important object lesson for anyone pursuing a career in journalism, writing or general rabble-rousing.

And during this political season of partisan blowhards and neutered media, is there anything more fitting (or even patriotic) than revisiting an era of bold journalism, back when it was a blue-collar profession of integrity, and not something best illustrated by the film Nightcrawlers.

Skepticism + wit + intelligence = Mencken

An Infuriating American: The Incendiary Arts of H.L. Mencken by Hal Crowther (University of Iowa Press, $16).

Journalist H.L.Mencken was referred to as “the most hated man in America,” and, by most accounts, he wasn’t really a nice guy. Instead, he he was, though, was whip-smart, incisive, with a seemingly endless well of sarcasm, satire and irony. He practically invented snark.

And as if those weren’t gifts enough, he could write beautifully.

An Infuriating American, by journalist and columnist Hal Crowther, is a slender introduction to his style and work. While Crowther’s style is sometimes a bit slapdash, this book has a worthy mission—to put Mencken back into the American consciousness, even if he bugs us—and a very timely one. Mencken’s disdain for ignorance, particularly of the willful kind, is as necessary today as it was when he wrote his brilliant coverage of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial in 1925.

This extended essay is the ideal introduction to the writings of influential and controversial American journalist H L Mencken. Perceptive, fair-minded and accessible, I found the book both informative and engaging, and although at times the narrative wanders about a bit, on the whole it is both well-written and well-researched. A must-read for anyone interested in Mencken and his times.