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Summary: "The Book is Always Better Than the Movie!"
Review: A fine literary, if not literal psychological journey to be undertaken. This book proves that you get more out of an experience if you read about it rather than view something about it. So, don't be another one of those people who watches the movie and thinks they know the whole story. It pays off if you read the book. You get more out of reading the book than you would have ever gotten out of the movie. The book is always better than movie.
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Summary: Travelin' in style
Review: F&L is a expansive account of overhwhelming recklessness in teh face of underwhelming courage. This is the travel book to spook all travel books, a crazy romp through the USA in a big old convertible, hallucinations, have truths and curious encounters of the fifth kind. If you must read this book, and I did, then take it somewhere with ambience e.g. Amsterdam, settle down with a nice cold beer, and anything else that takes your fancy, and read the most exotic travelogue you will ever encounter. Don't forget NOT to inhale. regards, martyn_jones@iniciativas.com
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Summary: WOW.
Review: I absolutey loved this book. Hunter S. Thompson's writing style is amazing: vivid descriptions and well developed characters. I consider Hunter S. Thompson to be a modern "Jack Kerouac."
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Summary: Narcotized hilarity in Las Vegas
Review: How brilliant that Las Vegas was the destination for this narcotized adventure. What more perfect spot on earth to highlight the search for the quote, unquote, American Dream. This is a rich treasure worth your inspection and introspection. Not for everyone, though. No. Not at all.... Certainly, this will fly by many readers, especially those appalled by the sheer volume of drug consumption. Those are the ones that will miss the essential comparison to the excess and abuse of Las Vegas. And, unfortunately, they will miss the absolute pure comedy Thompson writes, not to mention the great illustrations by Ralph Steadman. I know I could write a better review, but I can not stop laughing every time I picture the attourney fighting "the FEAR", locked in a standstill on the revolving merry-go-round bar, totally confused and going 'round and 'round until he had to be pulled off. This is an original.
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Summary: Fear and Loathing
Review: Twisted and savagely truthful. This work captures timeless questions, attempts to answer them, and it at times is hysterically funny and deeply disheartening. Each read finds another gem in the pages.
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Summary: What a Generation
Review: We must remember that people did actually emerge from the idealism of the 1960's. This book is about them; it is written with all of the necessary disillusionment, sarcasm, and bombasticness. Hunter Thompson writes about (his?) experiences as a journalist covering a motorcycle race ('An ominous assignment. With overtones of extreme danger') with his famous Samoan lawyer, Gonzo pulling the strings ('do you know who I am?'). It's worth a re-read if all that came through was the tripping and the halucinations. It is important to think of the characters as dedicated and well-educated activists who saw a political assasination, a terrible war, and Nixon (recall, the man who lost the election to their assasinated hero). Circuses, gambling, dusty tracks, and moronic Americans are part of a search for the American Dream - that's what's left when the decade of superficial cynicism and drugs overtook the decade of idealism and drugs. The drugs remain and, more often than not, expose the frighful characters who purport to distribute the dream of quick wealth, individualism, and fame. They were already as west as it comes; going east is always a bad idea.
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Summary: A good read
Review: a very funny, well written book.
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Summary: Great Book
Review: Ok, the book was great. It's funny, well written, and fast paced. There is one problem I found with this book. After reading, and enjoying it... DON'T WATCH THE MOVIE. Now, I was told the movie was good. But I read the book first and I thought the movie was horrible compared to the book. That's the only problem I found with the book, and, of course, the lauguage was rough, but that's to be expected. I highly recommend.
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Summary: A blazing ride in a big red shark
Review: This book is pure fun. I cannot give a higher recommendation. A twisted satire of the American Dream through the hazy perceptions of a junkie journalist, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is simply one of the most worthy reads I have had in years. What more is there to say?
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Summary: The title says it all.
Review: "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is definitely a savage journey to the heart of the American dream. But Thompson's (or more specifically, Raoul Duke's, the narrator of this cult novel) search for the dream may be just an excuse to drink a lot of booze and take a multicolored assortment of drugs. The American dream, apparently, lies in Las Vegas, and this is the setting for one of the funniest and most memorable novels of our time. This Las Vegas is the Las Vegas Thompson/Duke allows us to see. It's an enjoyably loud and discolored city, with loud obnoxious people and bright blinding lights. But beyond all that, the city is a wading pool for all the absurdities present in this society since its birth. We can be the naive hitchhiker just looking for a ride, or the dumb photographer looking for the best action shots, or the cute blonde stuck in an elevator with a drugged-out ape and his quiet baldheaded compadre. These are the faces associated with the society we've bred: the society obsessed with both looking AND feeling good about itself while at the same time trying to hold onto that fabric of Puritanical or Calvinistic (or whatever) moralism that clung to the Mayflower. These are all people who want a slice of that dream. For Raoul Duke and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, all they want to do is load themselves up with drugs, get screwed up (in mind and body), destroy motel rooms, etc., all expenses paid. And what better place for all this than Las Vegas? Apparently, Los Angeles just got too boring for our protagonists. The "mission" to cover the Mint 500 race for a sports magazine is just a slight detour in the action. As a writer, Thompson knows exactly how to draw the reader in, whether by listing every single drug (road trip inventory) in the trunk of Duke's Red Shark convertible, or by describing (in great detail) a flashback to the sixties, where an incident in a restroom scars a "Kinston Trio/young stockbroker type" forever. One of my favorite chapters in the novel (sadfully deleted from the film version) involves a search for the American dream. Thompson writes it verbatim from the original tape recording, explaining that the original manuscript for this incident is "splintered." Duke and Gonzo interview the waitress and cook of a taco stand somewhere near Vegas, who misunderstand our well-meaning heroes and direct them to a burnt-out slab of concrete (perhaps Kubrick's monolith?) that was once the "old Psychiatrist's Club." Basically we're all supposed to know that the American dream is not a true physical place but in our minds and hearts, and in the minds and hearts of every man, woman, and child, but of course, it's all right by us if a couple of drugged-out hippies make a go at searching for the place. As most of you know, there's a film version of this novel out. Watch it only if you're curious. It's an adequate film, but it doesn't follow the style of the book most of the time. As for the book, the deadpan humor and quiet understanding should draw you in, even if you never experienced the American Seventies like Thompson did, or if you never experienced that slice of American history at all. First published in 1971, the novel is still true to our times.
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