The Bookworm: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Other American Stories
Blogger’s Note:
I’m starting another series of posts for The Quiet Man, similar to “Beer of the Weekend,” though not as tasty. “The Bookworm” will be my way to showcase and review the books I read. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not being pretentious, as if I want to announce to the world how well-read I am (am I?). No. My goal is to get people reading. I’m hoping that talking about books will get people interesting in reading them.
A National Endowment for the Arts report found only 57 percent of American adults read a book in 2002. A 2007 AP-Ipsos poll found that one in four adults hadn’t read a single book the year before. Pathetic. I have a friend who probably hasn’t read a book on his own — for leisure or curiosity — since he was in junior high. Readers make leaders, so what does that say about Americans?
Books. Check ‘em out.
You know where this is going.
“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Other American Stories” is my first experience with Hunter S. Thompson. Gonzo. Somehow, despite having been both a journalism and English major, and falling in love with literary nonfiction, I never read him in college. It’s shameful. But, I have been interested for a while and finally picked up this collection from the UC Irvine library, which explains the very nondescript hard copy. (Like “Beer of the Weekend,” I’ll be taking pictures of each book cover.)
Of course I saw the movie — that bastardized, commercialized version of the book’s main manuscript. Thankfully, I don’t remember much. Just certain scene’s here and there, but the impression was hard to shake as the scenes of “Fear and Loathing” unfolded on the page. I kept seeing Benicio del Toro and anticipating the events I vaguely remember. It’s not the best way to read a book, but I had to deal with it.
Though I had never read him before, I have no doubt Thompson was at his best while writing “Fear and Loathing.” A natural voyeur and psychedelic drugs is a hell of a combination, but I believe he only took notes while in Las Vegas. The actual writing, as he mentions in “The Jacket Copy to Fear and Loathing,” the next piece in the collection, was done in a small hotel room while working on “Strange Rumblings in Aztlan,” the collection’s next piece. (Following me?) He wrote this about it, something I find very interesting and very true:
Writing is torture, but we love it.
“Strange Rumblings in Aztland” is an article Thompson wrote for Rolling Stone about the murder of Ruben Salazar, a Mexican-American TV journalist in Los Angeles. Salazar was shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officer. Thompson stayed in the East Los Angeles barrio near the murder site: the Silver Dollar Café on Whittier Boulevard. At the time he arrived, the Hispanic community and pigs were at each other’s throats. In the center of it all was Oscar Zeta Acosta, the Chicano activist and lawyer who accompanied Gonzo to Las Vegas. Thompson, in his involved style, tries to make sense of what happened and what both sides are saying. He gets down into the bowels of the barrio to tell it like it is, which I admired a lot. It’s a very interesting and intriguing piece.
Finally, the collection ends with the article that gave birth to “gonzo journalism,” Thompson’s first person, subjective style of new journalism: “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” the tale of Thompson covering the Kentucky Derby with British cartoonist Ralph Steadman. It’s a Kentucky fried “Fear and Loathing,” though less crazy than what I was expecting. Everything I read about it made it seem like the piece was just as outrageous as the Sin City escapade. In fact, I found it much more mellow and less exhibitionist. It’s probably because he was drunk instead of stoned. Oh, Jim Beam.
No grades for books. Just start reading.
I’m starting another series of posts for The Quiet Man, similar to “Beer of the Weekend,” though not as tasty. “The Bookworm” will be my way to showcase and review the books I read. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not being pretentious, as if I want to announce to the world how well-read I am (am I?). No. My goal is to get people reading. I’m hoping that talking about books will get people interesting in reading them.
A National Endowment for the Arts report found only 57 percent of American adults read a book in 2002. A 2007 AP-Ipsos poll found that one in four adults hadn’t read a single book the year before. Pathetic. I have a friend who probably hasn’t read a book on his own — for leisure or curiosity — since he was in junior high. Readers make leaders, so what does that say about Americans?
Books. Check ‘em out.
“The sporting editors had also given me $300 in cash, most of which was already spent on extremely dangerous drugs. The trunk of the car looked like a mobile police narcotics lab. We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.”
You know where this is going.
“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Other American Stories” is my first experience with Hunter S. Thompson. Gonzo. Somehow, despite having been both a journalism and English major, and falling in love with literary nonfiction, I never read him in college. It’s shameful. But, I have been interested for a while and finally picked up this collection from the UC Irvine library, which explains the very nondescript hard copy. (Like “Beer of the Weekend,” I’ll be taking pictures of each book cover.)
Of course I saw the movie — that bastardized, commercialized version of the book’s main manuscript. Thankfully, I don’t remember much. Just certain scene’s here and there, but the impression was hard to shake as the scenes of “Fear and Loathing” unfolded on the page. I kept seeing Benicio del Toro and anticipating the events I vaguely remember. It’s not the best way to read a book, but I had to deal with it.
Though I had never read him before, I have no doubt Thompson was at his best while writing “Fear and Loathing.” A natural voyeur and psychedelic drugs is a hell of a combination, but I believe he only took notes while in Las Vegas. The actual writing, as he mentions in “The Jacket Copy to Fear and Loathing,” the next piece in the collection, was done in a small hotel room while working on “Strange Rumblings in Aztlan,” the collection’s next piece. (Following me?) He wrote this about it, something I find very interesting and very true:
“The only other important thing to be said about Fear & Loathing at this time is that it was fun to write, and that's rare — for me, at least, because I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling.”
Writing is torture, but we love it.
“Strange Rumblings in Aztland” is an article Thompson wrote for Rolling Stone about the murder of Ruben Salazar, a Mexican-American TV journalist in Los Angeles. Salazar was shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officer. Thompson stayed in the East Los Angeles barrio near the murder site: the Silver Dollar Café on Whittier Boulevard. At the time he arrived, the Hispanic community and pigs were at each other’s throats. In the center of it all was Oscar Zeta Acosta, the Chicano activist and lawyer who accompanied Gonzo to Las Vegas. Thompson, in his involved style, tries to make sense of what happened and what both sides are saying. He gets down into the bowels of the barrio to tell it like it is, which I admired a lot. It’s a very interesting and intriguing piece.
Finally, the collection ends with the article that gave birth to “gonzo journalism,” Thompson’s first person, subjective style of new journalism: “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” the tale of Thompson covering the Kentucky Derby with British cartoonist Ralph Steadman. It’s a Kentucky fried “Fear and Loathing,” though less crazy than what I was expecting. Everything I read about it made it seem like the piece was just as outrageous as the Sin City escapade. In fact, I found it much more mellow and less exhibitionist. It’s probably because he was drunk instead of stoned. Oh, Jim Beam.
No grades for books. Just start reading.
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