Skip to main content

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

 How did Hunter S. Thompson survive the 1970s.

That's the oft-repeated question that circles around your brain as you read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Thompson's drug-fueled report of the time he and his lawyer spent in Las Vegas in 1971. The trip was ostensibly for journalistic reasons, but it quickly devolved into Thompson and his lawyer streaking down the interstate in a giant Cadillac, pumped full of so many drugs and so much alcohol I have no idea how his organs retained any semblance of performing their sworn functions. 

I spent about two hours in the bar, drinking Bloody Marys for the V-8 nutritional content.

His catalogue of things seen while in his drug-induced insanity is worth reading, if only because if he had to ingest that many mind-altering substances, at least he wrote about it, so others could live vicariously through him while not destroying their bodies. And Thompson can obviously write. I won't begin to speculate on whether he would've been even better without pills, because who knows. Maybe he would've been worse. But his way with words is undeniable:

It was pure smooth hell...all that elegant upholstered weight lashing across the desert was like rolling through midnight on the old California Zephyr.

His writing is almost liquid sometimes, and could be too much for fiction maybe, but is amazing for journalism. His writing style combined with his exploits creates an Undeniably Hunter S. Thompson Experience.

Fear and Loathing is a story of how far you can push your limits. Thompson seems to go past the line time and time again. How he didn't wrap his car around a cactus or pass out in a bathtub full of coke, I have no idea. He ended up killing himself, but in the late late year of 2005 at the age of 67. His ashes were fired from a cannon, accompanied by fireworks. This seems a fitting way for him to have gone.

(x)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Minithon: The Mini Readathon, January 11th, 2020

The minithon is upon us once more! Minithons are for the lazy. Minithons are for the uncommitted. Minithons are for us. The minithon lasts 6 hours (10 AM to 4 PM CST), therefore making it a mini readathon, as opposed to the lovely Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon and 24in48, both of which you should participate in, but both of which are a longer commitment than this, the Busy Watching Netflix person's readathon. By 'read for six hours' what's really meant in the minithon is "read a little bit and eat a lot of snacks and post pictures of your books and your snacks, but mostly your snacks." We like to keep it a mini theme here, which mainly means justifying your books and your snacks to fit that theme. Does your book have children in it? Mini people! Does it have a dog! Mini wolf! Does it have pencils? Mini versions of graphite mines! or however you get graphite, I don't really know. I just picture toiling miners. The point is, justify it or don't...

Book Blogger Hop, Pt II

All right. The question for this week is:  "Do you read only one book at a time, or do you have several going at once?" Oh-ho my. I have an issue with book commitment. I start a new book, and it's exciting and fresh, and I get really jazzed about it, and then 20% of the way through, almost without fail, I start getting bored and want to start another book. I once had seven books going at the same time, because I kept getting bored and starting new ones. It's a sickness. Right now I'm being pretty good and working on The Monk , Northanger Abbey , Kissing the Witch , and I'm about to start Waiting for the Barbarians since my friend lent it to me. But The Monk and NA are basically books I only read when I'm at work, so I don't see it so much as working on four books, as having books in different locales. Yes. This entry wasn't as good as some of the others, but I shall rally on the morrow. Yes I shall.

Harry Potter 2013 Readalong Signup Post of Amazingness and Jollity

Okay, people. Here it is. Where you sign up to read the entire Harry Potter series (or to reminisce fondly), starting January 2013, assuming we all survive the Mayan apocalypse. I don't think I'm even going to get to Tina and Bette's reunion on The L Word until after Christmas, so here's hopin'. You guys know how this works. Sign up if you want to. If you're new to the blog, know that we are mostly not going to take this seriously. And when we do take it seriously, it's going to be all Monty Python quotes when we disagree on something like the other person's opinion on Draco Malfoy. So be prepared for your parents being likened to hamsters. If you want to write lengthy, heartfelt essays, that is SWELL. But this is maybe not the readalong for you. It's gonna be more posts with this sort of thing: We're starting Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone January 4th. Posts will be on Fridays. The first post will be some sort of hilar...