Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
Author: Hunter S. Thompson
Rating: â 3/5
Date Read: 2014/08/11
Pages: 204
I just sent the following text message to a dear bookish friend of mine, explaining why I wasnât completely enamored with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:
âBut really, Hunter S. Thompson talking about being super high is fun for like, the first two mentions of reptiles everywhere but then itâs like, dude, maybe lay off the mescaline and get a plot or something.â
And, basically, the sums it up, but perhaps here I should expand on that a bit. Fear and Loathing is supposed to be a subversive book about all manner of hallucinogenic drugs, pills, weed, alcohol, and general debauchery. Itâs the kind of book that teenagers who wouldnât dare to actually take LSD might dare to claim as their favorite book, in a vain attempt to convince the kids that are actually into LSD that they are, in fact, cool.
Thereâs not much of a plot here, and the drug use is reminiscent of anything one might see at any unremarkable summer music festival. The main difference is that the pseudo-Thompson character is supposed to be working in Vegas whilst on all these drugs, which seems like a somewhat bad idea. I mean, mescaline and writing serious journalistic pieces donât seem like theyâd mix particularly well. Then again, hallucinogens would explain some of the more bizarre Fox News interviewing techniques.
Anyway, Iâm sure that high school students who want to be cool will continue to read this and then brag about having read this, and no one will really care. But itâs all good, because eventually these high schoolers will turn into college students who might be able to participate in actual Vegas trips, where they will discover that what actually happens in Vegas is a lot more interesting and unpredictable than this quasi-counterculture pseudo-intellectual bullshit.