Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A savage indictment of america - and the funniest book ever, 20 Jan 2006
By far the most intelligent and funny book I've ever read. But it's so much more than that, it captures the polarization of cultures in america at the end of the sixties and many of the observations still ring true today. A brilliant satire, the drawings by Ralph Steadman complement the text wonderfully well.My favourite quote: 'at one point I tried to drive the Great Red Shark into the laundry room of the Landmark Hotel - but the door was too narrow, and the people inside seemed dangerously excited'. Genius. RIP Hunter.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No more of the speed that fuelled the sixties, 4 Sep 2004
By A Customer
There is far more to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" than most people think. It is not "about" drugs. It is not about road trips or any of that rubbish...It is in fact a modern Gatsby. "The Great Gatsby" is one of the greatest novels of the century, and Thompson was well aware of Fitzgerald's masterpiece. Both novels deal with that particular characteristic of the American mindset summed up in the phrase "the American Dream"... this is characterised by two things: (1) a belief in agency, or the power of the individual to shape his or her own life and (2) a disregard for the past in preference of the future. Jay Gatsby embodied agency in the sense that he invented himself, and he showed his disregard for the past because he spent all his time trying to get Daisy to return to a time before she met Tom. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is just as complex as Gatsby though there isn't space to properly go into it here... But, for starters: Has anyone else noticed that the first half of the novel is almost exactly the same as the second half? they are structurally identical. the hitch-hiker is replaced by Lucy, one hotel is replaced by another, one car by another, etc. This is not necessarily Thompson's laziness... the past repeating itself is a recurrent theme (is Bush the Nixon of our generation? different?). Thompson is smarter than most people give him credit for and if you want to get anything "solid" from this book then you should try to engage with it on an intelligent level... Thompson's/Duke's actions represent the amazing possibilities which lie at the heart of the American Dream... "but only for those with true grit" ... Thompson makes the seventies a failure of the sixties... Additional: his recent work may be sub-par (or comparatively so) but buy his volumes of collected letters; they show a man who gets enormous joy from real writing (spending a lot of time getting the words "just so" - this is the mark of a real writer...).
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25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
BUY THE TICKET, TAKE THE RIDE!, 8 May 2006
...This is Hunter S Thompson's countercultural classic 1973 non-ficition novel. Originally serialised in Rolling Stone and often written under the influence of mind-altering chemicals or booze (which Thompson injected into his chest), "Fear And Loathing..." is a powerful, funny and forceful assault on American culture and values. Ostenibly taking the viewpoint of one Raoul Duke- a thinly disguised HST-, a journalist assigned to covering a a desert race in Las Vegas, the book gives us a brilliant insight into the American culture of 1970s. Many who review the book draw attention to the protagonist's drug abuse, however this really secondary to the book and quite harmless when you consider he uses mainly psychedelics rather than powerful, habit-forming substances like heroin.
Accompained by his obese Samoan attorney- HST's mate and missing Hispanic loon, Oscar Acosta- the book follows Duke's wild adventures in the joyless pleasuredomes of Las Vegas. Duke's real purpose is to search for the American Dream and find it in physical form, he hopes he will achieve this aim in Las Vegas. However, he knows that Las Vegas is a corrupt and filthy place and that the American Dream does not actually exist.
Thompson is a master of bringing absurd comedy out of a situation and his visceral exposures of the stupidity and idiocy of the Las Vegas people and workers are hilarious. He also brilliantly dissects and informs us about the failures of the Nixon administration and the shame and pity of living in the world after the glory of the 1960s.
The influence of Fear and Loathing echoes in the work of numerous journalists and writers- Will Self. Easton Ellis, the fella who wrote Fight Club- who are by comparison mere imitators.
It is easy to forget, in the fallout of his suicide and the confusion of the adaptation, the brilliance of Hunter S Thompson: his wit, power, brutality and acerbity. He escapes easy caterogorisation and labelling to create a voice and a sense of individuality unique in writing. He specified in his own notes for the book that we should read it drunk and to the accompaniment of loud, violent music. In this violent mix, we can still hear the author's voice raving on with candour and wit like a debauched and intoxicated uncle.
To read Fear and Loathing, and to observe the cartoons of Ralph Steadman, is truly to experience something entirely new and different, HST's voice is one you will recognise and agree with without being preached to and you will doubtless appreciate the sheer power of his work. People complain of his alcoholism, anger and failure to repeat his success, but, ultimately, when you hold this book in your hands, none of that really matters. He changed the way we view our leaders and our contrymen. And he did it all drunk. For that alone, he deserves applause.
A true testament to the importance of rebellion.
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