Kevin Sharp is a Palo Alto, California-based writer who has taught writing throughout the region. Kevin Sharp also has penned book reviews and articles for Bookmarks Magazine and Fiction Attic, among other literary outlets.
H.L. Mencken is one of literature’s most well-known and influential critics and scholars. Over the course of his lifetime, he reviewed a number of major titles and authors. Despite his experience and literary renown, Mencken was hardly infallible. In 1925, he reviewed The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald for the Chicago Tribune. Mencken, in short, cared little for Fitzgerald’s third novel, now regarded as one of the finest American books ever written.
Mencken opens the review by stating that The Great Gatsby amounts to little more than an implausibly plotted anecdote. He found the characters “astonishingly lifelike,” but felt the book lacked depth, particularly compared to earlier Fitzgerald efforts like This Side of Paradise. Again, present sentiments run quite the contrary, with most maintaining that The Great Gatsby and its themes speak to the nebulous concept of the great American novel, while Fitzgerald’s prior works read somewhat juvenile in comparison.
To his credit, Mencken identified Fitzgerald as a talented writer and important among his peers. He also praised the book’s careful structure and lush prose. Ultimately, however, he concluded that The Great Gatsby was an incomplete work and only a suggestion of his full capabilities. Since Mencken’s review, Gatsby has been revered as a near flawless construction and generally considered Fitzgerald's greatest accomplishment.
