laurajackx

I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson because frankly, it's a book/movie/author whom receive a ton of praise, have cult status & star-sized following. While I was in London last winter, I bought my own copy of this book at the bookshop around the corner from my sister's former Westminster apartment. However, the copy I read was her's -- my UK print edition sits untouched in my shelf. Anyway, I don’t know anything about drugs… nothing about what it feels like to take them, no knowledge about how to buy them, what it's like to travel with them, the feeling of tripping on them, the horror of recovering from them, etc. So off the bat, I wasn't too sure what I was expecting to get out of this read. I certainly wasn't planning to connect to it on some cerebral, other-worldly level. I guess more than anything I just wanted to know what all the fuss over Thompson has been about; I was on a quest to get the jist of Fear and Loathing's fame and reverence by the time I had finished. In the end, this was one of those books I appreciated more a day or two after the fact. After some reflection you can appreciate the genius in the utterly ridiculous. Some of the writing was just outright bizarre. IE: In one chapter near the end, an "editors note" (which I am still perplexed and unsure about whether it's real or not) says the manuscripts for that portion had been lost/destoryed and instead tapes they recorded on were transcribed in their place. Attorney, Dr. Gonzo, was my favorite part of Thompson's drug-crazed-story-about-nothing-story. The paranoia and the insanity that comes out of his mouth were entertainment enough. Did I instantly become a Hunter S. Thompson fangirl? No. Did I gain an "appreciation" for drug culture? No, not really. Social experiment over.

2022-11-14 14:16