Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

This thread is for the June 2024 Buddy Read of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

I'm in, and will start reading this at the end of the week

Okay I will start about same time as you Anisha.

Cynda wrote: "Okay I will start about same time as you Anisha."

okay, and if it's not clear I meant around 7th June :)

I'm starting this tomorrow.

the scene where they are checking into the hotel, hilarious

Starting now.

What Laughs!

Pure Gonzo Journalism.

Studying the movement of the mechanical snake.

Oh no they lost their valet parking ticket, but it's okay because the valets remember them somehow.

From Part 1: Chapter 6.
This may be the controlling idea of this fictionalized account of gonzo reporting:

Sympathy? Not for me. No mercy for a criminal freak in Las Vegas. This place is like the Army. The shark ethic prevails: Eat the wounded. In a closed society, where everybody is guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a town of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.

Cynda wrote: "From Part 1: Chapter 6.
This may be the controlling idea of this fictionalized account of gonzo reporting:
Sympathy? Not for me. No mercy for a criminal freak in Las Vegas. This place is like the A..."

I’m not sure Cynda, maybe. Throughout there have been many scenes where I’m not certain how accurately the events are being reported. This is v wacky and my ed comes with brilliant illustrations by Ralph Steadman that add to this.

Right. Perhaps the term "gonzo reporting" is what misleads here. Gonzo reporting is a real thing, and this novel helped gonzo reporting become popular writing style. There are various articles defining this reportage style that is more about the writer than the nonfiction report.

It seems odd reading this now so long after the culture that inspired and absorbed this type of writing ( and the lifestyle it was was based on) has passed. I can enjoy the humor but having lived the lifestyle, question the responsibility exercised by the promoters of it.

I can't help in seeing the competition between Thompson and Tom Wolfe. reading this now. Thompson had released Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcyle Gangs in 1966 which did well, but Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was even more popular. Fear and Loathing was Thompson's answer.

Cynda wrote: "Right. Perhaps the term "gonzo reporting" is what misleads here. Gonzo reporting is a real thing, and this novel helped gonzo reporting become popular writing style. There are various articles defi..."

Or it could also be a very specialised form of writing, though I am wondering if it’s a joke, or maybe a product of its time, if this is journalism than I’m having a hard time taking it seriously.

Sam wrote: " ... I can't help in seeing the competition between Thompson and Tom Wolfe. reading this now. Thompson had released Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcyle Gangs in 1966 which did well, but Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was even more popular. Fear and Loathing was Thompson's answer."

That's interesting, and thanks for the pointer to all these books. I have Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities on my tbr, but I'm guessing this is a v different book to Electric Kool.

Didn't realize this was a buddy read. I'll try to jump in at some point if I can find a copy at the library.

Franky, I saw an audiobook copy on YouTube. The audiobook is about 6 hours.

Cynda wrote: "Franky, I saw an audiobook copy on YouTube. The audiobook is about 6 hours."

Okay, cool. Thanks!

Anisha book is not about the reporting on a car race or a drug-study convention. It is about being people who are feared loathed even in a crazy guilt town like Las Vegas. This deeply dark comedy.

Cynda wrote: "Anisha book is not about the reporting on a car race or a drug-study convention. It is about being people who are feared loathed even in a crazy guilt town like Las Vegas. This deeply dark comedy."

I thought we were talking about Gonzo reporting Cynda ☺️

Yes. Gonzo reporting is pretty wild stuff ☺️

Reading this article while out running errands on buses today.

https://www.beatdom.com/fact-and-fict...

Thanks for that article. It makes me want to read more of his work. I have only read the two books mentioned in this post, plus I think some of the Rolling Stone work he did. I will have to research to see what may have since been published. I am not re-reading FALILV, but giving this account of my personal experience as it relates to Hunter Thompson and the article with which I largely agree.

I knew Hunter Thompson, not well, but interacted with him on the McGovern campaign in Southern California. I was a volunteer in press advance, and he was covering the campaign, written about in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. First, he was a Southern style gentleman and always treated me with the best of manners and respect. Secondly, the serious print media respected his writing talent as a journalist in the same way they respected Johnny Apple of the New York Times, or Jack Germond and others at the very top of contemporary political journalism at the time. They read his work, sought to understand his perspectives and admired his talent.

Then, as an ex-hippie myself, I can say that I believe Hunter definitely had taken some drugs (although nothing more serious than alcohol and marijuana while working - sheer conjecture about the weed on my part, though). Having consumed a fair variety of hallucinogens myself, you could sometimes get a sense of someone who had taken acid or other psychedelic substances, in the past. Maybe his reputation influenced the appearance of his actual personae. But, smart as he was, he couldn’t have functioned at the high level of art covering a presidential campaign if he were THAT high. Plus he also drank alcohol (which pretty much all the best reporters did, by the way) and smoked cigarettes but did not join in the ever present poker games. He also didn’t sit around socializing with the press corps. You could also get the sense that he did not tolerate fools well at all.

Whether he was high while writing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas isn’t really important — I would contend that he knew about at least some drugs (ether might have been an exaggeration) from personal experience. And trying to figure out if the Las Vegas trip really happened that way is really not the point. It’s intentionally over the top, in my opinion. My advice is just to kick back and enjoy the reading.

What you say Terry confirms my perception of Thompson's writing as being somewhat like the stream of consciousness of William Faulkner, the extreme satire of John Kennedy Toole who wrote A Confederacy of Dunces and of the end of American Dream/end of the optimism of the post-WWII era. Very telling that the place of the American Dream is a oversized drug den where the American Dream goes the ways of some drugs--up in smoke, up the river (blood), and down the hatch. Thank you for your background notes Terry.

Cynda wrote: "Reading this article while out running errands on buses today.

https://www.beatdom.com/fact-and-fict..."

Cynda, I haven't had a chance to read this but thanks

finished read, this has been on my tbr for a while, that's one down and loads more to go :)

I have been wanting to add thoughts here but haven't been able to sort them into intelligent enough comments worth posting. What a brilliant choice! I probably would not have reread this otherwise and I am glad I did. But what I liked about the choice was the different life experiences we are all bringing to our own experience with the novel. I cannot imagine reading and liking this not having lived the through the period it was written as a young baby boomer and having had relatable experiences, but OTOH, I would have loved to have read this without having those experiences and seen how I would have responded.

Just last month I read Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography and it was an excellent book that detailed Whitman's life in relation to what was happening during his life with attention paid to how this shaped his writing. It is the cultural aspect that I feel is important to our reading of Fear and Loathing for it was one of the books on the vanguard of changing societal views.