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H.L. Mencken Reviews the Great Gatsby (1925)

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Re: H.L. Mencken Reviews the Great Gatsby (1925)

#51

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

aidenn0 wrote: post #17
ghaff wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's the 18th and 19th century tomes that are tough sledding in high school a lot of the time; many like Moby Dick and much of Dickens are pretty long in addition to the somewhat archaic language. There are exceptions like The Picture of Dorian Gray although that's very late 19th century--and, of course, Wilde is very accessible. ADDED: In general, I don't think I read any, but both Fitzgerald and Hemingway s…

Obviously everyone is different, but (aside from Shakespeare) the two books I read in HS that I most liked were Cather in the Rye and A Tale of Two Cities . I should note that after liking A Tale of Two Cities so much, I tried David Copperfield and Oliver Twist and found neither to my liking. I had my great expectations of Dickens' other work rather crushed at that point. Oh, and forcing anyone to read Melville shoul…

My sixth grade teacher made us read The Hobbit.

The rest is history. I'm a voracious reader of "junky" fantasy books.

But Mencken was a real wordsmith -albeit a really, really cynical one.

> and, under it all, the simple sentimentality of a somewhat sclerotic fat woman.

Re: H.L. Mencken Reviews the Great Gatsby (1925)

#52

Post by [deleted] »

ghaff wrote: post #10
wiredfool wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno -- I got it in high school, and it's one of the few "class" books that have stayed with me through the years. I'd say On the Road, A smattering of Shakespeare, and 1984 did that as well. "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the m…

I think it's the 18th and 19th century tomes that are tough sledding in high school a lot of the time; many like Moby Dick and much of Dickens are pretty long in addition to the somewhat archaic language. There are exceptions like The Picture of Dorian Gray although that's very late 19th century--and, of course, Wilde is very accessible. ADDED: In general, I don't think I read any, but both Fitzgerald and Hemingway s…

[deleted]

Re: H.L. Mencken Reviews the Great Gatsby (1925)

#53

Post by proxyon »

johndhi wrote: post #24
motohagiography wrote: post #23

Gatsby, like most officially great novels, is the least good of Fitzgerald's books. Tender is the Night and The Beautiful and the Damned were way better. There was something about critics of the time who needed to suffer to appreciate anything and it was good of Mencken to hold Fitzgerald to his own standards, but what made authors of the era great were the books that were actually enjoyable. When you look at other a…

Not sure I agree. You, as with most critics actually, seem to be asserting there are clear "quality" lines to be drawn between great novels. IMO we're into the realm of subjectivity here and it's really up to the reader to decide what they like. I didn't like Tender is the Night too much, and I love Hemingway's novels more than his stories (generally), chiefly The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Do I know…

Good art is not entirely subjective

Re: H.L. Mencken Reviews the Great Gatsby (1925)

#54

Post by proxyon »

082349872349872 wrote: post #21
lostlogin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Above jihadjihad mentions how very American the book is. Their comment combined with yours might explain my bemusement once I’d finished it. ‘What was that and why is it so well regarded?’

Not only was it very American in 1925 (perhaps Mencken wondered why a fish would write such cardboard about water?) but it still is. Very few days go by when the HN Front Page does not remind me of Jay Gatz: Gatz' schedule: Rise from bed..................................6.00...........A.M. Dumbell exercise and wall-scaling..............6.15 - 6.30...." Study electricity, etc.........................7.15 - 8.15...." W…

So we've only made sufficient "moral progress" (whose morals?) when no one on Twitter questions wokeness and when a nation state has such porous borders that the founding stock of it can only come to the conclusion that they're intentionally being replaced by their elite. Moral progress is when everyone submits to your morals.

Re: H.L. Mencken Reviews the Great Gatsby (1925)

#55

Post by 082349872349872 »

proxyon wrote: post #54
082349872349872 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only was it very American in 1925 (perhaps Mencken wondered why a fish would write such cardboard about water?) but it still is. Very few days go by when the HN Front Page does not remind me of Jay Gatz: Gatz' schedule: Rise from bed..................................6.00...........A.M. Dumbell exercise and wall-scaling..............6.15 - 6.30...." Study electricity, etc.........................7.15 - 8.15...." W…

So we've only made sufficient "moral progress" (whose morals?) when no one on Twitter questions wokeness and when a nation state has such porous borders that the founding stock of it can only come to the conclusion that they're intentionally being replaced by their elite. Moral progress is when everyone submits to your morals.

Moral progress is when people who nominally espouse a judeochristian culture take the Book of Ruth seriously.

I suspect our axioms are very different, and am trying to think of where in between to start from; will write more later tonight.

Re: H.L. Mencken Reviews the Great Gatsby (1925)

#57

Post by dredmorbius »

jihadjihad wrote: post #5

I was lucky not to have The Great Gatsby ruined for me by having to read it in high school. I borrowed it from the library a couple years ago, and wondered if it could live up to the massive hype around it. I have to say that it does. Mencken's critique seems to be that for all the craftsmanship Fitzgerald displays on the page, the story itself is rather thin and contrived. I don't think I'd disagree with that, thoug…

Similar example. I'd managed to not read it somehow until 3--4 years ago.

It is quite the yarn.

Re: H.L. Mencken Reviews the Great Gatsby (1925)

#58

Post by dredmorbius »

Tomte wrote: post #11

Mencken is very quotable. For example: > Evil. That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake. > There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.

Quotable, but very seldom recorded.

The one extant audio interview I'm aware of was made at the Library of Congress, in 1948. It's now available on YouTube:

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=QpGzpqU-b04>

Re: H.L. Mencken Reviews the Great Gatsby (1925)

#59

Post by aidenn0 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #51
aidenn0 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously everyone is different, but (aside from Shakespeare) the two books I read in HS that I most liked were Cather in the Rye and A Tale of Two Cities . I should note that after liking A Tale of Two Cities so much, I tried David Copperfield and Oliver Twist and found neither to my liking. I had my great expectations of Dickens' other work rather crushed at that point. Oh, and forcing anyone to read Melville shoul…

My sixth grade teacher made us read The Hobbit . The rest is history. I'm a voracious reader of "junky" fantasy books. But Mencken was a real wordsmith -albeit a really, really cynical one. > and, under it all, the simple sentimentality of a somewhat sclerotic fat woman.

My dad read me The Hobbit as a bedtime story starting from kindergarten. It was the first non-picture book I ever read.

Re: H.L. Mencken Reviews the Great Gatsby (1925)

#60

Post by 082349872349872 »

proxyon wrote: post #54
082349872349872 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only was it very American in 1925 (perhaps Mencken wondered why a fish would write such cardboard about water?) but it still is. Very few days go by when the HN Front Page does not remind me of Jay Gatz: Gatz' schedule: Rise from bed..................................6.00...........A.M. Dumbell exercise and wall-scaling..............6.15 - 6.30...." Study electricity, etc.........................7.15 - 8.15...." W…

So we've only made sufficient "moral progress" (whose morals?) when no one on Twitter questions wokeness and when a nation state has such porous borders that the founding stock of it can only come to the conclusion that they're intentionally being replaced by their elite. Moral progress is when everyone submits to your morals.

Some questions, from back to front:

1/ How are "they" being replaced by "their" elite? What even is the "elite"?

2/ What makes you think this "replacement" is intentional?

3/ How do porous borders imply a single conclusion?

4/ What constitutes a "porous" border?

5/ What is the "founding stock"? (Does it include the 3/5-counted people in 1789? How about people in 1776? Beforehand?)

6/ How does "woke" differ from "not characterising one's country as a Mary Sue" (universally beloved, possessed of all positive virtues and suffering no negative vices)?

7/ What is the difference between your morals and those of Lothrop Stoddard?

from front to back, my positions (we can either seek a middle ground on any of these, or simply agree to disagree):

7/ my morals are secular: "climbers: do not pull the ladder up after you"

6/ "woke" is a recognition that much of US history has been driven by slavery and bigotry — neither of which fit the ideals of the country: "with liberty and justice for all"

5/ Although I don't count, say, Lakota among my people, I do have people who were in the New World before 1789, as well as those who arrived after 1883's "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." All were pioneers in their way (I have kept up the family tradition by emigrating from The Old Country); were any more or less "American"?

4/ Can the US border truly be said to be porous if the foreign population is only 14% (compared to my adoptive country's 25%?)

3/ Freedom of movement (one of the 4 freedoms of the EU) can easily be explained on liberty grounds, on economic grounds, as a necessary counterpoint to freedom of capital, etc. There are many possibilities beyond replacement.

2/ if we ascribe stupidity before malice, why should we think replacement (stipulating in this case that it occurs) is due to the latter and not the former?

1/ assuming non-Hispanic white people decline to under 50% of the population, so what? why would that be bad? Are minorities so poorly treated in the US that becoming a minority should be cause for concern?

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