Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998) - Plot & Excerpts
When gas prices skyrocketed in the summer of 2008, I actually had to stop huffing that sweet shit and resumed mainlining heroin to occupy all the time I suddenly found on my hands in the absence of a solid addiction. This was probably a good move, economically speaking at least, especially since I’m pretty much a priss about my huffing, and sternly refuse to douse my rags with anything with a gradation below that of rocket fuel (and don’t even bother trying to pawn off some ‘smoke’ on me, unless you happen to have some of the fabled One-Eyed Jack, the mad chronic known as Indiana’s Finest, or the oft-celebrated White Rhino). Alas, I gave up toking too, unfortunately, as trying to acquire it became a logistical nightmare, especially with dealers applying a hefty fuel surcharge for delivery to their driver’s-license-lacking clientele. With this changing of the guard, what could be more appropriate than another reading of Fear & Loathing as a fond farewell to my old pastimes? tIt was also fitting in that in my first year on goodreads and having joined the ‘50 Books in 2008’ group, as I slowly drew near the finish line, I wanted to make sure the fiftieth was a certifiable winner; to wrap it up on a high note, and I figured there was no way to go wrong with one of my all-time favorites, representing the feel-good/comedy genre (I hesitate to apply the ‘journalism’ label most affix to this work). Granted, almost 20 of those 50 were re-reads, but hey, what the hell do you expect from a gas-huffer scouring the Chicago burbs for a lid of ‘Purple Haze’ on a Tuesday night.tTo be honest, I was pretty late in jumping on the F&L bandwagon; hell, I didn’t even smoke grass until I was out of high school, and when the Terry Gilliam adaptation of Fear and Loathing came out, all my fiends immediately ran off to see it. I didn’t follow suit, recollecting that these same wankers had similarly scurried off to see “Showgirls” (which I must admit, I ended up seeing in my mid-twenties, and thought it was better than the universal slander it received from critics and the disgruntled masses alike, if only because I got to hear Robert Davi, of “Goonies” fame, drop the line, “It must be weird, not having people cum on you”). However, everyone pretty much always assumed that I partook in the ganja, and I think it’s fair to assume this was because the vast majority of my peeps were a bunch of good-for-nothing potheads. In spite of this unwarranted stigma applied solely on my associations with dunderheaded doobie-smokers aplenty, I wasn’t compelled to get into ‘the lifestyle’ (meaning I’ve never worn tie-dye or Birkenstocks, have never owned a ‘Dead’ album, and vomit at the slightest whiff of patchouli or thought of world peace).tFinally, drinking by some pond one night, carelessly chucking the empty cans into the murky water while lamenting another pitfall in my varied history with the ladies, my companion decided to roll up a torpedo for himself, and he was completely floored when I asked to partake. How he chuckled; what a joke his little buddy was making, the guy who’d sat there amidst a thousand bongloads and witnessed the smoking of overflowing bowls for years without the slightest inclination to take a toke, the lameass who only strangers even bothered to ask for inclusion in the rotation of a passing joint, as even the politest of friends had long since learned this guy just wasn’t interested, and here he was, on just some random night killing time and brain cells asking for a hit. This curmudgeonly Latvian bastard continued to sit there and suck away on the thing, and being I novice, I wondered if he thought he’d hallucinated my request. I repeated my appeal, and it dawned on the Latvian that he was going to be present for an historic event; he’d get the honor of being the one to say that he’d been there when I first danced with the green gremlin, and I can only imagine he hoped I’d do something noteworthy, foolish, and perhaps entertaining to make this story a staple in his repertoire when attempting to pick up trim. To be totally honest, it wasn’t very noteworthy, but, then again, I was pretty bird-shitty drunk.tNaturally, having smoked a single joint, I went through the usual routine; instant marijuana dependency and progression into cocaine, heroin, and giraffe-piss addiction, financial despair, selling my body on the mean streets of Lisle, Illinois, constant arrests and other legal entanglements, intermittent blindness, absolutely reckless behavior beyond description, ostracism from family and friends after constantly fucking up, and the growth of an enormous, third testicle which forever imbued my salty seed with a teal hue. tPerhaps the only benefit from my newfound habit (aside from the colorful joy-juice destined to be a showstopper at parties) was being introduced to Fear and Loathing, which remains one of the funniest damn things I’ve ever read in my life. I recommend this to absolutely anyone without hesitation, and while I’m sure many might suppose you have to be down with the reefer to enjoy this, I can’t imagine this being the case, as most of the richest humor and hilarious insight is independent of the drug-fueled binge the estimable Raoul Duke embarks upon with his twisted attorney Dr. Gonzo, and instead relies heavily on witty and wry writing... or maybe it isn’t. Mayhap, had I never partaken in the sweet leaf and immediately become a permanent mental cripple and social pariah, I wouldn’t appreciate a single element of this vile filth. I’m probably not the man to make this fine distinction.tNo, on second thought, this would still be uproariously hilarious. Sure, maybe there would be a few gags here and there that would drift right over my head as one of the uninitiated, but these would be far less frequent and less baffling than the detailed and heartfelt sentiments Thompson often invokes with rage and disgust with the ‘establishment’ and social mores circa 1971, at least for someone who wasn’t born for another half-decade. tAs for the story itself, Mr. Duke (an esteemed Doctor of Journalism) and his hellacious colleague (and attorney) Dr. Gonzo are slumming it at the Polo Lounge when Duke gets a call recruiting him to cover a what seems to be a pointless, piece of shit story, the Mint 400, some off-road dirt-bike race out in Las Vegas. While the assignment itself appears to be little more than a lackluster fuckaround (eventually abandoned and written off when Duke declares ”The idea of trying to ‘cover this race’ in any conventional press-sense was absurd: it was like trying to keep track of a swimming meet in an Olympic-sized pool filled with talcum powder instead of water”), Mr. Duke and Dr. Gonzo don’t just curse their ill fate and dawdle with their tallywhackers in hand, hell no, they’ve prepared themselves to make the most of this trip by collecting an impressive array of drugs and Acapulco shirts with which to assist in assuring their sojourn is a memorable one, and they began their stupefying narcotic binge before even reaching Vegas.tAfter running amok in a drug-induced frenzy and creating general disarray over the weekend covering the ‘fabulous’ Mint 400 (which they attend ever-so-briefly, as Duke recounts ”I didn’t even know who won the race. Maybe nobody. For all I knew, the whole spectacle had been aborted by a terrible riot..””), Dr. Gonzo quickly heads back to LA after their fiendish spree, leaving Duke in the hands of the powers that be in the hotel room they’ve ransacked. As Duke prepares to flee amidst paralyzing paranoia, he receives a telegram from the Good Doctor, informing him to stay put in Vegas, as Rolling Stone wants him to cover the National Conference of District Attorney’s annual seminar on narcotic and dangerous drugs at the Dunes Hotel. Staying in Vegas, and especially voluntarily walking into a conference full of cops is an act of lunacy not even Duke will consider, and he bails.tOr at least, Duke tries to. His retreat to California is plagued with obstacles and his own frayed nerves, which eventually leaves him enough time to sober up slightly, reassess the situation, and come to the conclusion that the allure of infiltrating the District Attorney’s conference is too crazy/awesome to ignore. He heads back to Vegas, and the pair finish what they started in grand fashion, which is to completely debase every social convention Vegas (herein representing some extreme nexus of American culture in microcosm) holds dear while assbitingly twisted.tMany readers probably chreish and relate to Fear & Loathing for Thompson’s ‘outsider-looking-in’ attacks on the social milieu in the USA at the time; his most notable grievances are the Nixon Administration, the ongoing clusterfuck in Viet Nam, and the thoroughly pitiful collective mindset that immediately fears or discounts anything which doesn’t walk the straight and narrow in mindless goose-step with the masses. I’m sure an equal number of readers just enjoy the bizarre tale of a pair of fiends engaged in the “excessive consumption of every drug known to civilized man since 1544 AD” while partying like Motley Cru on the Vegas strip. I myself liked it for the humor, and not specifically the humor lambasting the American mores of the day, but just some of the absurd shit that Thompson comes up with, especially his ability to resurrect banalities laid throughout the story with greater flair when reintroduced (nuisance characters, the Great American and Samoan Dreams, comments concerning Fatty Arbuckle, and the menacingly-monikered Vincent Black Shadow). I also happen to like the Dead Milkmen, which may or may not be relevant.tI consider this one of the books which has had the most influence in my own life; it helped inspire me in keeping a scrapbook/journal-thing which, while abandoned when I began working 60 hour weeks a few years ago, helped me unfuck myself and unwrap my head when I really needed it at times, plus I’ve probably copped more material from this book and ripped off choice quotes to suit my own needs more than from anything else. For instance, one time my pal, I’ll call him ‘Mike’, and I were en route to a head shop so this poor fool could buy some piece of shit called a ‘proto-pipe’, and while I was driving and filling a balloon (yes, I thought whip-its were cool at the time), the balloon managed to slip from my hand, and sputter throughout my posh 96 Toyota Corolla, to which I could only exclaim “Did you see what God just did to us, man!?”, and my compatriot, who was too much of a tool to be filling his own balloon and allowed a half-wasted driver to do it, replied in kind, “God didn’t do that, You did it! You’re a fucking narcotics agent!” proving, I suppose, that my repeated lending of this book and non-stop promotion of it’s virtues even managed to penetrate the thick skulls of my fellow wastoids, perhaps the most enduring testament to its greatness.
Divertentissimo racconto di un viaggio allucinante ed allucinato alla ricerca del Sogno Americano. Dialoghi carichi di paranoie ed un’analisi acutissima (seppur sotto gli effetti di stupefacenti ed alcolici vari) della “fatale era Nixon”, era durante la quale si assiste al tramonto del sogno psichedelico. Invece di raccontarci la Mint 400 e la Conferenza Nazionale dei Procuratori Distrettuali su Sostanze Psicotrope e Droghe, Thompson tira fuori un pezzo di giornalismo mai visto prima, caratterizzato da un’acida critica dei più noti cliché americani che la Piccola Enciclopedia Psichedelica che accompagna questa edizione cerca di spiegarci con un’ironia piuttosto fuori luogo, visto il tono serio di Thompson soprattutto in materia di droghe. Ciò che egli riesce a fare con maestria è presentare in maniera distorta una realtà allo sbando, senza mai ironizzare sul continuo uso di stupefacenti. Quindi i pezzi che Sandro Veronesi ha raccolto (soprattutto quelli di Nesi, che ho trovato particolarmente odiosi) tentano di forzare la naturale comicità scaturita da un inconsapevole Thompson. Alcuni dialoghi tra Thompson e il suo compagno di viaggio, l’avvocato samoano Dr. Gonzo, sono assolutamente geniali. Il frutto delle loro discussioni è un insieme confuso di fantasia, allucinazioni e realtà. “Cose terribili stavano accadendo intorno a noi. Giusto accanto a me un rettile immenso stava mordendo una donna sul collo, il tappeto era una spugna inzuppata di sangue- impossibile camminarci sopra, nessuna possibile aderenza. «Ordina delle scarpe da golf,» sussurrai. «Altrimenti non usciremo vivi da questo posto. Come puoi vedere, queste lucertole non hanno problemi a muoversi in questo porcaio - ed è perché hanno gli artigli sotto le zampe.» «Lucertole?» disse. «Se pensi di essere nei guai adesso, aspetta di vedere cosa succederà negli ascensori.» Si tolse i suoi occhiali da sole brasiliani, e vidi che aveva pianto. «Sono appena andato di sopra da quel Lacerda,» disse. «Gli ho detto che sappiamo dei suoi traffici. Sostiene di essere un fotografo, ma quando ho nominato Savage Henry be', ha funzionato: panico. Gliel'ho visto negli occhi. Ha capito che gli stiamo sopra.» «Ha capito che abbiamo delle Magnum?» domandai. «No. Ma gli ho detto che abbiamo una Vincent Black Shadow. E l'ho fatto pisciare sotto.» «Bene,» dissi. «E che ne è della nostra stanza? E delle scarpe da golf? Siamo nel bel mezzo di un fottuto rettilario! E qualcuno sta facendo ubriacare questi maledetti mostri! Non ci vorrà molto perché ci facciano a brandelli. Cristo, guarda per terra! Hai mai visto tanto sangue? Quanti ne hanno già ammazzati?» Indicai un gruppo di là della sala che sembrava fissarci. «Santa merda, guarda quella banda laggiù! Ci hanno individuato!» «Quello è il tavolo della stampa,» disse lui. «È dove devi andare a firmare per farti consegnare gli accrediti. Merda, sbarazziamoci delle formalità. Tu occupati di quello, io mi farò dare la stanza.»“Il mio avvocato buttò giù il telefono dopo aver fatto parecchie chiamate. «C’è un solo posto dove si mangia salmone fresco,» mi disse. «E la domenica è chiuso.»«Naturalmente,» schioccai. «Questi dannati fanatici di Gesù! Si stanno moltiplicando come ratti!»Lui mi guardò incuriosito.«Che ne dici del Process?» chiesi. «Non hanno un posto per mangiare, lì? Magari degli affettati, o simili? Con qualche tavolo sul retro? A Londra hanno un fantastico menu. Ci ho mangiato, una volta; incredibile...»«Cerca di tornare in te,» disse lui. «Il Process non devi nemmeno nominarlo, in questa città.»«Hai ragione, chiama l'ispettore Bloor. Lui di roba da mangiare se ne intende. Credo abbia unalista.»”E a volte è difficile capire quale realtà sia la più sballata: se quella allucinata dell’LSD e della mescalina, o quella contemporanea a Thompson che ci viene consegnata in epitomi di profonda saggezza. La mia preferita, quella che secondo me descrive bene la fine di un’era, è questa:“Uno dei momenti cruciali degli anni Sessanta è stato quando i Beatles misero la propria sorte in mano al Maharishi. Come se Bob Dylan se ne andasse in Vaticano a baciare l’anello del papa.”Non mi resta che ringraziare Giuseppe per aver gettato questo libro nel pozzo letterario di Dicembre e mettermi a scaricare il film.
What do You think about Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998)?
Yes, I see all the raving reviews and the four- and five-star ratings, but I honestly don’t remember the last time I was so bored and annoyed by a book. Barring a massive conspiracy, maybe I just didn’t get this book? This is what I got from the book. Please help me if missed something. We drove more than 100 miles an hour while drunk and high. WAHAHAHA! We ran up a huge bill and fled the hotel without paying it. WAHAHAHA! We picked up a teenage girl and gave her drugs and then left her alone, all scared and paranoid. WAHAHAHA! We nearly strangled the poor cleaning lady. WAHAHAHA! Do the good people who’ve never done, and will never do, and in reality will be quite appalled by the things described in this book, really find these tales so interesting and charming? Or did this book offer subliminal messages about human nature or sociopolitical conditions of its time that I missed? What does this have to do with the heart of the American dream? Describing the book as some kind of a backlash against the Vietnam War and the fraudulent Nixon administration must be another joke that I don’t get. This book somehow reminded me of Sexual Life of Catherine M. People waving their filthy laundry – the stench going up to high heavens – in our face, just out of sheer narcissism. Look at me! Aren’t I great?This book must have been really cool and hip when it was published in 1971. If anyone writes a book like this these days, the only thing that I have to say is: grow the fuck up.
—Jafar
You know, if this was the first of Mr. Thompson's books I had read, I never would have picked up another one. As far as I can tell, this is one of his weaker ones and is really the most well-known only for the long, droning drug bullshit. Reading drug writing is about as interesting is watching paint dry. There are little kernals of hilarity (because he's a fantastic writer who is able to describe pitch perfectly the bizarre ineptitude of the human experience) which saves it from being snoringly dull. I mean, he gets on a plane to Denver by accident and decides to attempt to purchase an albino Doberman because "Since I was already here, I thought I might as well pick up a vicious dog." I love his use of language, his token words that he throws around *such as calling various people swine*. I love his misanthropic disposition that saves him from being a misogynist (god probably didn't spell that right but I'm tired) due to the simple fact that he views all of mankind as pretty much an entire wasteland. I have to say I adore Mr. Thompson. I didn't hate this, but I didn't love it either. I'll just pretend I read A Generation of Swine instead. He's more interesting as a political junkie, rather than just a junkie.
—Lord Beardsley
“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.”is one of my favourite opening lines in literature. Two paragraphs later are the equally brilliant lines:“I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.”That whole opening narration sets the tone of chaos and comedy told in a perfect deadpan that defines this book.Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream is a modern classic of American literature and is the cause for untold numbers of irresponsible Vegas road trips. Published in 1971, it tells the semi-true story of when Hunter S Thompson and Oscar Acosta (renamed here as Raoul Duke and Dr Gonzo) went on a drug-fuelled road trip from LA to Vegas where Thompson was commissioned by Sports Illustrated to do a write-up on the Mint 400 motorcycle race in the desert. The drugs they consume - marijuana, mescaline, all kinds of pills, cocaine, opiates, LSD, ether, and adrenochrome - lead to whacky adventures and surreal hallucinations as the pair barrel through a plotless non-story where they also cover a drug convention full of cops and go in search of The American Dream - or its corpse. Our anti-heroes learn nothing and have no character arcs - and it’s perfect!I read Fear and Loathing some fifteen years ago when I was a teenager and remember devouring it in one go, laughing the whole time - it instantly became one of my favourite books. Years later, I’m glad to say it still holds up. I wouldn’t say it’s as intoxicating still, but it remains a terrific book and really funny to boot.What’s most striking about Fear and Loathing is Thompson’s unique voice narrating with a loquacious urgency and an intelligently arresting, feverish, tone. It’s what makes this book so original. And that has to be stated: Fear and Loathing is ORIGINAL.It’s said that there are seven basic plots in the world that get repeatedly used; so how do you get around that to create something new? Abandon plot altogether! Because, yes, there’s a kind of setup with the road trip and reporting, but nothing that could be concretely described as plot. Fear and Loathing careens around at high velocity though it’s aimless – and that’s fine because the book’s strength lies in Thompson’s unstoppable descriptive narration. The book also marked a shift from the author as the creator of the story to the author as the story. And no, Fear and Loathing isn’t the first plotless novel or the first to feature the author as main character. It’s not the first to have a road trip or hallucinations feature prominently - I don’t mean it’s original in that sense. But there had never been a voice like Thompson’s before in literature - he’s the only reason this book is so much fun and so famous - and he would set a style that would be oft imitated for decades to come. It’s also notable for being the first Gonzo book, meaning a blend of fiction, non-fiction, and fantasy. Cartoonist Ralph Steadman’s iconic line drawings capture the mania of Thompson’s potent writing and helped define Gonzo as a literary style. But Fear and Loathing also has more traditional literary features, as befits a writer heavily influenced by Fitzgerald and Hemingway. The search for The American Dream, as abstract as it sounds, takes the form of the novel as well as a real place Duke and Gonzo go searching for – and turns out to be a long burned-out bar (heavy-handed symbolism, Thompson!). The form of the novel could be seen as an indictment of the American Dream, post-idealistic ‘60s. There are snippets of news stories dropped into the text highlighting that ‘Nam was still ongoing, Nixon was in the White House and declared a “war on drugs” that persists today, people on drugs were killing others, and maybe Thompson wanted Duke and Gonzo to embody the America he saw in 1971: self-destructive, paranoid, and almost wilfully stupid.Duke and Gonzo end up driving around in a white Cadillac Eldorado which Duke describes as “the White Whale” perhaps a nod to what is often described as “the Great American Novel”, Moby Dick. Are Duke and Gonzo the white whale themselves, elusive and hunted – is that what the “Fear and Loathing” of the title references? – or are they demented Ahabs, chasing the white whale of the American Dream? While it has a lot of positives, I wouldn’t say Fear and Loathing is perfect. Certain skits like when Duke and Gonzo pretend to be undercover agents to the cleaning lady, or in the bar where Gonzo goes too far in soliciting a female bartender, were very unfunny and felt a bit dated. And, like the tail end of a bender, the novel starts to taper off towards the end and feels like its outstayed its welcome. Make no mistake though: Fear and Loathing is an outstanding novel. Thompson’s irresistible voice is captured forever between the covers to entertain - and it is incredibly entertaining - for generations to come. Is it an important novel? I think there’s a case to be made for it being of minor literary import and I really think those first twenty pages or so could easily stand up to anything by Twain or Hemingway. But for me, and probably for you, the real question is, is it a fun read? And it is. It’s so damn cool and sure of itself, the book swaggers! Pick this one up whenever you want to go on the greatest road trip ever. No point mentioning some of the great scenes that await you inside - you’ll see them soon enough.
—Sam Quixote
