fear_and_loathing

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS by Hunter S Thompson

1971. Flamingo Modern Classic. Paperback.

I went through a phase of reading a lot of Hunter S Thompson
when I was in my 20s, having picked up a well-presented copy
of The Great Shark Hunt and read many of the stories and articles there
(I still remember the name Reuben Salazar). My copy of
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas got lost somewhere along the line
but I sourced another copy years later and re-read it in June 2019.

This book seems, on a more mature reading, to be a series of jokes
repeated; the main one being the meeting of drug addled
Hunter S Thompson or his attorney with the innocents. My favourite joke
of this type is one of the earliest, when the attorney turns
around to the hitchhiker in their convertible and says 
"We're your friends. We're not like the others".

The other running gags in the book concern getting drugs and stretching
expense accounts to the maximum amount possible for a journalist.
The fact that Thompson ends up in a Drug Convention for Policemen
and other lawmen provides an excellent irony for the book; the
establishment come across in the book as totally clueless.

                                            24 March 2020.

FEAR AND UNLOATHING IN ZAIRE:

MARCH 2021: Perhaps the best book in the sport of boxing is
"The Fight" by Norman Mailer; about The Rumble in the Jungle
between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire. Mailer wasn't
the only journalist there; Hunter S Thompson and Ralph Steadman
were sent by Rolling Stone to cover the fight but it wasn't to be.
"Thompson was quickly bored and would swim in the hotel room and
take drugs. On the day of the fight, Steadman discovered
Thompson had scalped their tickets".

My book reviews are at https://github.com/stucooper/booksiveread