Posted on 02/21/2005 11:05:41 PM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Hunter S. Thompson was one of those rare writers who come as advertised. The Addams-family eyebrows in Stephen King's book jacket photos combined with the heeby-jeeby horrors of his stories always made me think of Dracula. When I finally met Mr. King, he was in Miami playing, along with Amy Tan, in a jook-house band called the Remainders. He was Sunshine itself, a laugh and a half, the very picture of innocent fun, a Count Dracula who in real life was Peter Pan. Carl Hiaasen, the genius who has written such zany antic novels as "Striptease," "Sick Puppy," and "Skinny Dip" is in person as intelligent, thoughtful, sober, courteous, even courtly, a Southern gentleman as you could ask for (and I ask for them all the time and never find them). But the gonzo--Hunter's coinage--madness of Hunter Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1971) and his Rolling Stone classics such as "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved" (1970) was what you got in the flesh too. You didn't have lunch or dinner with Hunter Thompson. You attended an event at mealtime
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Yes, he died as he lived. Very loudly and leaving someone else to clean up the mess.
This is much better than that crap Weakly Standard article that someone posted a while ago.
Ha! Great anecdote about the "marine distress signaling device"!
Thanks for the post.
I frankly don't think you could have found a more appropriate person to write an article on Hunter Thompson than Tom Wolfe.
Wolfe's work doesn't depend on one caring about the writer to be effective and valuable. If you don't care about Thompson himself in his post-70's work, it's useless.
He really became quaite a loathesome fellow. It seems appropriate that he killed himself in that way. Liberal hatemongers are never happy and hate themeselves first, then hate anyone trying to be decent.
Fear and Loathing apperently was nearer and dearer to him than we knew.
It's been better if he'd simply realized he could stop being like that and turn around rather than killing himself.
Instead of pulling the trigger, if he;d set the gun down and decided to change he could have done his greatest work.
Died as he lived: a sad, fearful coward.
He might have done a little more investigating of old areas. Altamont, for one. (They're no angels, but AIM is AIM . . .)
Wolfe has the excess of a Hunter without the salience, and the detachment of a Waugh without the finesse.
Tossed Allusions . . .
Dunno what went wrong with this post. I meant to nominate PG Wodehouse for this distinction instead and solicit Freeper nominations.
The loathing apparently overcame the fear in the end.
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