Week Beginning Sunday 23rd April 2006: "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas" (1971) by Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005)
First Line
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
Diagnosis: 7/10. A famous "great opening line". I didn't go into this book knowing much about Hunter S. Thompson apart from the general mythology about Gonzo, drugs and his eventual suicide, but this first line is probably exactly how I'd expected "Fear and Loathing" to start. Straightaway, the opening evokes Kerouac's "On The Road", a book which Thompson clearly had in mind when he wrote this, and sets the tone for the reckless, chemical-induced, self-destructive mayhem which is to follow.
Main Characters
Hunter S. Thompson a.k.a. Raoul Duke: The narrator - it is unclear, and pointless to speculate, just how autobiographical this novel is, but the character Thompson creates as the narrator is, coincidentally, a journalist in search of the American Dream with only a hired Cadillac full of many different kinds of illegal mind-altering substances and an unpredictable Samoan attorney for company.
The Attorney a.k.a. Dr Gonzo: The Samoan is Thompson's companion throughout the novel, and is equally as drug-crazed and outrageous as the author.
Lucy: A young girl, a highly strung artist from Montana who is befriended by the attorney, who introduces her to drugs and alcohol and then has sex with her in the hotel room.
Impressions
"Fear and Loathing" appeared in Rolling Stone in two volumes in the early 1970's, and, given the way that it is presented as a factual account of Thompson's experiences, I would argue that it is less of a novel than a piece of journalism. Its subtitle is "A Savage Journey Into The Heart Of The American Dream", and you can certainly feel the vitriolic anger with which Thompson sets about deconstructing the myth.
In terms of the action and plot, the book is actually pretty repetitive - the two men are sent to Las Vegas to cover a famous motorcycle race, but when that becomes impossible, they check into a hotel, take drugs, have disturbing and paranoid hallucinations, take more drugs, destroy their hotel room a bit more, almost kill each other several times, and then audaciously try to infiltrate an anti-drugs meeting of District Attorneys from all over America while high on mescaline.
Its brilliance, though, lies in Thompson's narrative and the intellectual digressions that he goes off on. It certainly feels like a strange kind of journalism, even now, with the usual detached, objective tone given over to a voice that is completely involved and subjective. At several points, Thompson laments the passing of the idealism of the 1960's, and the fact that the utopia that many of the great countercultural icons worked towards has never materialised. Though the casual use of narcotics plays a huge part in this novel, I don't think Thompson could be accused of glorifying drug use - with his portrayal of Lucy, and his descriptions of both himself and the Samoan and different points, he shows that instead of expanding the mind, drugs in fact limit the mind and turn users into mindless zombies. The drugs are used as an escape from the grim reality of Twentieth Century America, in which the heady idealism of the 60's has exploded and the promises of a quick and easy road to happiness have been exposed as bullshit. As a particularly slow-witted waitress says when asked if she knows where the American dream is: "What's that? What is it?...Could that be the old Psychiatrist's Club? It was a discotheque place..."
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
Diagnosis: 7/10. A famous "great opening line". I didn't go into this book knowing much about Hunter S. Thompson apart from the general mythology about Gonzo, drugs and his eventual suicide, but this first line is probably exactly how I'd expected "Fear and Loathing" to start. Straightaway, the opening evokes Kerouac's "On The Road", a book which Thompson clearly had in mind when he wrote this, and sets the tone for the reckless, chemical-induced, self-destructive mayhem which is to follow.
Main Characters
Hunter S. Thompson a.k.a. Raoul Duke: The narrator - it is unclear, and pointless to speculate, just how autobiographical this novel is, but the character Thompson creates as the narrator is, coincidentally, a journalist in search of the American Dream with only a hired Cadillac full of many different kinds of illegal mind-altering substances and an unpredictable Samoan attorney for company.
The Attorney a.k.a. Dr Gonzo: The Samoan is Thompson's companion throughout the novel, and is equally as drug-crazed and outrageous as the author.
Lucy: A young girl, a highly strung artist from Montana who is befriended by the attorney, who introduces her to drugs and alcohol and then has sex with her in the hotel room.
Impressions
"Fear and Loathing" appeared in Rolling Stone in two volumes in the early 1970's, and, given the way that it is presented as a factual account of Thompson's experiences, I would argue that it is less of a novel than a piece of journalism. Its subtitle is "A Savage Journey Into The Heart Of The American Dream", and you can certainly feel the vitriolic anger with which Thompson sets about deconstructing the myth.
In terms of the action and plot, the book is actually pretty repetitive - the two men are sent to Las Vegas to cover a famous motorcycle race, but when that becomes impossible, they check into a hotel, take drugs, have disturbing and paranoid hallucinations, take more drugs, destroy their hotel room a bit more, almost kill each other several times, and then audaciously try to infiltrate an anti-drugs meeting of District Attorneys from all over America while high on mescaline.
Its brilliance, though, lies in Thompson's narrative and the intellectual digressions that he goes off on. It certainly feels like a strange kind of journalism, even now, with the usual detached, objective tone given over to a voice that is completely involved and subjective. At several points, Thompson laments the passing of the idealism of the 1960's, and the fact that the utopia that many of the great countercultural icons worked towards has never materialised. Though the casual use of narcotics plays a huge part in this novel, I don't think Thompson could be accused of glorifying drug use - with his portrayal of Lucy, and his descriptions of both himself and the Samoan and different points, he shows that instead of expanding the mind, drugs in fact limit the mind and turn users into mindless zombies. The drugs are used as an escape from the grim reality of Twentieth Century America, in which the heady idealism of the 60's has exploded and the promises of a quick and easy road to happiness have been exposed as bullshit. As a particularly slow-witted waitress says when asked if she knows where the American dream is: "What's that? What is it?...Could that be the old Psychiatrist's Club? It was a discotheque place..."
posted by Michael D. Conley | 10:31 pm
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