#fear and loathing in las vegas
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - 1998
by Hunter S. Thompson
What’s it about?
It’s the more-or-less true story of one weekend when Hunter (called “Raoul Duke” in the book) and his lawyer Oscar Acosta (called “Dr. Gonzo" in the book) go to Las Vegas to cover the Mint 400 motorcycle raceforSports Illustrated.
And?
And lots of drugs. They spend the entire narrative hopped up on pretty much every drug available in 1971 that you can think of. One of the running jokes is that the reality of the violently superficial Las Vegas nightlife is much worse than any twisted visions their drug binge can produce.
What about the bats?
If you’ve read Game of Thrones and you think Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas has too many non-existent animals flying around overhead, you should present yourself to the relevant authorities at first light.
I smell the death of the American Dream. Again.
Yes, but at least Thompson is good enough to explicitly tell you in the middle of the book that this is why he wrote the book.
What should I say to make people think I’ve read it?
“After finishing the book, I walked at a 30-degree angle for two days.”
What should I avoid saying when trying to convince people I’ve read it?
“This book glorifies drug use.”
Should I actually read it?
Yes. It’s no exaggeration to say that Hunter S. Thompson more or less invented a whole new school of journalism with this one book (and an article about the Kentucky Derby he wrote before). Also, it’s very funny.
Plastic Man + Hunter S. Thompson = FEAR AND LOATHING IN GOTHAM.
While tracking the Scarecrow, Plastic Man gets hit with the fear toxin. The only problem is, Plastic Man doesn’t have a conventional human brain structure. So it makes him go full gonzo. He then follows the Scarecrow into Gotham where hilarity and hijinks ensue.
Post link
Sour.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.
Post link
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,Terry Gilliam, (1998):
PS: Pictures not mine. Credits to the owner.
Rating: 8/10
- There he goes. One of God’s own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
- We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers… Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.
- A drug person can learn to cope with things like seeing their dead grandmother crawling up their leg with a knife in her teeth. But no one should be asked to handle this trip.
- As your attorney, I advise you to take a hit out of the little brown bottle in my shaving kit. You won’t need much, just a tiny taste.
- Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Has it been five years? Six? It seems like a lifetime, the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time in the world. Whatever it meant.
- There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.
- And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
- With a bit of luck, his life was ruined forever. Always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he’ll never know.
Post link
［Trailer］「The Animals in Screen II」DVD - Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas
