Chris's review of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
by Hunter S. Thompson

Chris's review

rating:

bookshelves: culture

status: Read in July, 2006

Welcome to bat country.

The only other Thompson book I've read was Hell's Angels, and I must say, it's quite a change in tone. That book, written in 1966, was a well-organized, clear and compelling account of a social microcosm and its relationship to the broader American society.

Five years later, and Thompson has turned into a gibbering maniac.

The book is compelling, if only to see what the hell happens next, much in the same way you watch a crazy drunk at a party to see what he's going to try. There's a lot of fun to be had, watching Thompson and his "attorney" try to destroy themselves, and at the same time try to function with other human beings. My absolute favorite scene in the book is one where he explains to a DA from rural Georgia how murderous and depraved the people in California really are, thus fulfilling all the poor man's stereotypes of the West Coast.

But, all through the book, I kept ask...more Welcome to bat country.

The only other Thompson book I've read was Hell's Angels, and I must say, it's quite a change in tone. That book, written in 1966, was a well-organized, clear and compelling account of a social microcosm and its relationship to the broader American society.

Five years later, and Thompson has turned into a gibbering maniac.

The book is compelling, if only to see what the hell happens next, much in the same way you watch a crazy drunk at a party to see what he's going to try. There's a lot of fun to be had, watching Thompson and his "attorney" try to destroy themselves, and at the same time try to function with other human beings. My absolute favorite scene in the book is one where he explains to a DA from rural Georgia how murderous and depraved the people in California really are, thus fulfilling all the poor man's stereotypes of the West Coast.

But, all through the book, I kept asking myself, "What is the point?" Ostensibly, it's a journey to find the "American Dream," but damned if I know if he found it. Mostly it seemed like he was traveling through a series of interconnected Moments, scenes of panic and discovery, each one unconnected to the one before it. If that's the American Dream, then it is a terrible one. It's a dream with no past and no future, just the mad, improvised Now. We don't learn and we don't plan, and we're shocked that we get away with as much as we do.

That's pretty much the point, I think. It's very well hidden, though. Have you ever listened to a really drunk or stoned person trying to explain a heavy philosophical truth? It's an effort, and you have to concentrate really hard to hold together the threads of their narrative to figure out what wisdom they're trying to impart on you. Reading this book is the same way. It's very easy to get distracted by the sidebars and tangents of the book, and very hard to put together the disconnected pieces of wisdom that Thompson is trying to give out.

I don't have much patience with addicts, especially those addicted to mind-altering substances. There is no truth in wine, no matter how cool the Latin sounds, and what a habitual stoner or drunk says is more likely to be irrelevant nonsense as it is to be philosophical insight. They should be labeled, "For entertainment purposes only," and left at that.

I think now I've read the extremes of Thompson's work, of insightful journalism and mad ramblings. Now I'll have to look for something in between that.......less

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Chris's review of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

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