Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

[CENTER]FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
a Savage Journey to the Heart
of the American Dream

OVERVIEW: Journalist Raoul Duke sets off for Las Vegas with his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, on assignment to cover the fabulous Mint 500. "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." And the drugs remained throughout. Typical of Thompson, the book's subject matter is American excess. This, his most famous and probably best work, is a whirlwind read tracing Duke's journey to Vegas and his flight from the desert city. Gonzo and Duke run amuk down Sin City streets, in the casinos and desolate north Las Vegas searching for the American Dream; one pedestrian claims the American Dream was a hang out for pimps and hustlers, and burned down several years prior to the duo's arrival.

Thompson, aka Duke, is a patriot in the true Jeffersonian sense of the word - he dissents with his outlandish satirical observations, which are made plausible given the extreme use of drugs. Essentially, Thompson adds credence to the quotation before the first chapter: "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

PROs:
* First, I would sight Thompson's excellent prose. It's fast paced, yet reflective. Wildly brutal, yet sophisticated. As Tom Wolfe said, "A scorching epochal sensation!"

* Thompson manages to present a truthy duality about the drug culture, with Duke as a sort of maniacle yet responsible drug addict, juxtaposed with Dr. Gonzo as the unruly, violent, and insane menance.

* Some bright critic once said that the source of fiction is the setting, or something like that. Thompson's choice of Vegas was perfect for criticizing American culture in all it's insane decadence; the choice allows him to rudely, yet rightly, compare a slice of Americana to Nazi Germany. That's not an easy comparison to pull off with style.

* Excellent example of post-modernism; by writing fiction as journalism, Thompson develops his own unique version of meta-fiction he calls Gonzo Journalism; Thompson breaks chronology with wit, giving the reader scenes from Duke's past that help explain Duke's reaction to Las Vegas.

CONs:

* This is purely my opinion, I have no evidence for the claim, but I am convinced that this novel is the leading cause of psychedelic use in the United States.

* There are several scenes that, intentionally, make you uncomfortable. The rape of a young woman while she uses LSD for the first time is not pleasant to read about. Then again, that's kinda the point.

HIGHLIGHTS:
- Dukes run-in with gun club members in the desert while trying to cover the Mint 500
- Dr. Gonzo's assault on the diner waitress, and his assault on the photographer... and the various other assaults throughout the book.
- The last minute race to catch Dr. Gonzo's plane out of Vegas after he gets "the Fear"
- Every word of the duo's time at the Circus-Circus... "Woodstock Uber Alles!"

MEMORABLE QUOTES:

Aside from the opening line sighted above, here are a few favorites worth sharing; I apologize if some of them are not precisely as written by Thompson as most are taken from memory:

"You better take care of me Lord, otherwise you will have me on your hands." (consider the implications in light of Nietzsche's God is Dead idea, that's what hit me about this quote)

"What was I doing here? What was the meaning of this trip? Was I just roaming around in a drug frenzy of some kind? Or had I really come out here to Las Vegas to work on a story? Who are these people, these faces? Where do they come from? They look like caricatures of used car dealers from Dallas, and sweet Jesus, there were a hell of a lot of them at 4:30 on a Sunday morning, still humping the American dream, that vision of the big winner somehow emerging from the last minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino. "

"One of the things you learn from years of dealing with drug people, is that you can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug. Especially when it's waving a razor-sharp hunting knife in your eye. "

"What the f*ck were we doing out here on this desert, when we both had bad hearts?"

[CENTER]" KILL THE BODY AND THE HEAD WILL DIE

This line appears in my notebook, for some reason. Perhaps some connection with Joe Frazier. Is he still alive? Still able to talk? I watched that fight in Seatle - horribly twisted about four seats down the isle from the Governor. A very painful experience in every way, a proper end to the sixties: Tim Leary a prisoner of Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria, Bob Dylan clipping coupons in Greenwhich Village, both Kennedys murdered by mutants, Owsley folding napkins on Terminal Island, and finally Cassius/Ali increadibly off his pedestle by a human hamburger, a man on the verge of death. Joe Frazier, like Nixon, had finally prevailed for reasons that people like me refused to understand - at least not out loud."

"Ether is the perfect drug for Las Vegas. In this town they love a drunk. Fresh meat. So they put us through the turnstiles and let us loose inside."

"Beat the dealer and go home rich. Why not? I stopped at the Money Wheel and dropped a dollar on Thomas Jefferson - a $2 bill, the straight Freak ticket, thinking as always that some idle instinct bet might carry the whole thing off."

"EDITOR'S NOTE:
At this point in the chronology , Dr. Duke appears to have broken down completely; the original manuscript is so splintered that we were forced to seek out the original tape recording and translate it verbatim."

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MY RATING: High grade sunshine, baby. That pure American stuff. I hope you have some Thorazine somewhere. ....and that's not a bad attempt at humor on my part, if you've read the book.

If you are looking for a purely American post-modern manifesto, this is it. Look no further. Walt Whitman gave us a purely American poetry, and althought Thompson's novel is not quite as brilliant as Leaves of Grass, it serves the same function for American prose.

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