My fist recollection of reading HST was right out of high school—fall/winter of ’94 during my first stint at Tower Records (Burlington, MA). Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, of course. It was a revelation of sorts. Never had I had that much fun reading a book. Up to that point it was pretty much required reading from school and dorky teen material. And I remember vividly sitting in the sub shop two doors down from Tower reading Vegas and my boss moseyed in and ended up sitting across from me, he noticed the book and said something like, “You know that books really a big exaggeration of course…” He was a bit of a hippy himself, which was funny, but he genuinely seemed concern how I was taking the whole thing as I probably seemed giddy while reading it. I think I pretty much nodded and sheepishly said yeah.
But his point, false as I probably is, really struck me as irrelevant, whatever... The book was a blast—being a bit over twenty years old it did and still does seem like the freshest and most interesting style of writing I’ve come across. Hunter can put you in the middle of his frenzied, addled brain, peering through his sweaty sunglasses and have you wonder along with him how the fuck you got there and what the fuck could possibly come next. Buy the ticket, take the ride. Etc.
I immediately started devouring everything else I could find of his. And for the most part it lived up to or surpassed Vegas. The Great Shark Hunt collection blew me away, it’s his definitive collection of articles and immediately give you a solid respect for the man. He voice is persuasive and clear. And Vegas was indeed a political book, but heavily disguised with humor and craziness—and as there is much of that here as well, his politics in some of those articles come through much sharper.
Of course, at that point I hadn’t yet read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in ’72. Now this is, to many people, the epitome of his craft. It’s the most precise of what you’d call The New Journalism. And from what I gather there is no better and truer book on politics—completely demolishing the wall that mainstream media and news puts up to make the whole scene seem untouchable. He pulls the curtain here and shows you the shame that lies in every political campaign. The crooked egomaniacals that actually put themselves out there in the spotlight, and the scurvy minions that try so desperately to smooth their rough edges by whatever means necessary. If you thought at all that the book/movie Primary Colors was a hoot… shit. Hunter shows, and tells you, why that book was released by Anonymous.
The only other book I feel the need to talk about here is The Rum Diary. This was hunter’s baby. The first novel he ever wrote, before the great Hells Angels book. When he had the clout to release it proper in the 70’s he declined not to, feeling it hadn’t aged well and wasn’t up to his own standards at the time. But as he slowed down these past 15 years or so he revisited it and was able to edit it down to something he liked again. The book covers an important time in his life when he got his first serious writing gig at the San Juan Sun newspaper in Puerto Rico. At the time it finally got released I was damn excited for it. It was the first new thing he’d put out in quite a while. It was a novel—something he had precious few of. And it kicked my ass. Short, sweet, touching, like a good Salinger or Fitzgerald story. Clearly like nothing else he’d written or become famous for—but, clearly a HST story, I can’t recommed it enough—even if you aren’t familiar with his other material. Benicio Del Torro was to make it his directorial debut, but the thing’s gone through much development hell and still stands in limbo. Check the link to the IMDB page in the sidebar for that story.
Well, what else can I say… I recommend getting the Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas Criterion Collection DVD and listening to his commentary track. It’s one of the best of it’s kind, right up there with the one for Cannibal: The Musical. It also has great docs on the stars of the book, Hunter and Oscar Acosta, the late 70’s BBC doc being at times funny and sad as he kind of reveals himself to be at odds with his fans in trying to live up to an image he’s created but realizing it to be more that he can handle—a bit of a hindsight is 20/20 thing now… And if you’re a fan at all, you should go
here now and pick up Breakfast With Hunter, a great little movie with more access to the man then any other documentary you’ll find out there.
The most profound thing I came across yesterday may be the most obvious thing to mention—depending on why you think he ended up taking his own life. [I think it had to do with the fact that his ailing health was just getting to him too much—seemed he was spending some time in wheelchairs and such…] At any rate it’s from Dr. Samuel Johnson. “He who makes a beast of himself, takes away the pain of being a man.”
For other links I point you to
gonzo.org. nytimes.com has a nice reference to all of their book reviews going on right now and for what seems to be his last writings check out
his writings for ESPN the title of the last post they have available seems way too approprite. But a glanse through the titles of the archive there gives you an idea or two what might have led to this ending as well... Hunter in a wheelchair? I'd rather not.
Mahalo, Hunter... Mahalo
