Grouchy Old Men

I have reasons why I'm usually reading three of four different books at the same time, but right now I'm reading the work of two grouchy old men along with my devotional slog through the whole obtuse but intellectually compelling A Grammar of Motives by Kenneth Burke.

Besides Professor Burke, the curmudgeons on my reading list are H.L. Mencken (The American Language) and Anthony Bourdain (Medium Raw).

I've read lots of Mencken. He did very interesting and insightful work on a range of topics (Treatise on the Gods mixes erudition and humor quite well), and I've heard about how excellent The American Language is supposed to be. The man doesn't disappoint. I've always enjoyed the Sage of Baltimore's style--how he uses simple and complex sentence structures and selects a wonderful variety of word choices, the high and low--and his Juvenalian study of American English at that time is a lot of fun. Besides focusing on our use of the English language, the book is also an examination of American character. In particular, one statement stands out for me when Mencken talks about how Americans love to adopt new or in vogue words, how they are not linguistically conservative like the British: "A new fallacy in politics spreads faster in the United States than anywhere else on earth, and so does a new fashion in hats, or a new revelation of God, or a new means of killing time, or a new shibboleth, or metaphor, or piece of slang" (30-1).

Spot on.

Bourdain of No Reservations fame, on the other hand, writes like he tends to talk, which goes against the usually useful mantra of folks who teach writing. But Bourdain talks/writes in very interesting ways (except for the overuse of profanity), and his book, and I hadn't realized it came out this year, courts my fascination with food, my growing exasperation with the Food Network, and other food/cooking concerns. His "Heroes and Villians" essay, for example, has the directness of a punch in the gut, and I look forward to reading the "Alan Richman Is a Douchebag" chapter.

But rather than this post being some sophomoric book report, what I'm pondering is why I'm drawn to such grouchy old men. Even Burke in his massive tome has occasional snarky comments about Aristotle, Emerson, Kierkegaard, et al.

Sure, I'm getting older myself (creeping up on the big Four-O); however, I think I've always sort of been a seventy-five year old dude in a younger body ("What the hell are all these people texting about? Don't they have better things to do?").

I should be thankful, I know. I have the loving Mrs. Nasty as my wife, and my kids are my main joys even though there are some times when I understand the old saying, "Madness is hereditary. You get it from your kids." I've been called a lot of names in my life, but my favorites are "Dad" and "Daddy."

I'll chalk up my grouchiness and penchant for reading grouchy old men to my defensive pessimism, which is a phrase I was introduced to recently from an article in Ode Magazine, and I can't link the article from Ode's website for whatever reason (See why I'm defensively pessimistic, especially about technology?).

So I'm thankful but wary.