LITERATURE ANALYSIS: "FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS" BY HUNTER S. THOMPSON

This novella expertly blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction.  What was originally going to be a "250-word caption for Sports Illustrated" ["Fear & Loathing," pg. 207 (afterword)] about a motorcycle race in Vegas transformed into something else entirely.  As Thompson says, this work is a "failed experiment in Gonzo Journalism," which is a "style of 'reporting' based on William Faulkner's idea that the best fiction is  far more true than any kind of journalism- and the best journalists have always known this" [pg. 208].  It is essentially a style of journalism wherein the author attempts to convey the events he or she is experiencing, stream of consciousness style, without editing.  Thompson calls "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas" a "failed experiment" because it did end up being edited and altered on its road to publication.

TOPICS/EVENTS
1.  "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is about a journalist (who goes under the pen name Raoul Duke) and his attorney's experience in Vegas while covering a motorcycle race.  It has no real 'plot' but is more focused on the experience the two have instead.  You are put into their shoes; at once you are dropping acid with Raoul Duke, later you are beside him at a police anti-drug conference in a Vegas hotel.
2.  Thompson did not choose to write "Fear & Loathing"- rather, he wrote what he felt and experienced, and later morphed it into a novella.  He originally went to Vegas to cover a motorcycle race for Sports Illustrated, but instead focused in on a much more meaningful form of journalism- one that at times bordered on fiction, but also classifies as expressionism.  Thompson himself says it best: "both 'fiction' and 'journalism' are artificial categories; and that both forms, at their best, are only two different means to the same end." [pg. 208].
3.  "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was brought to my attention by the film, which I enjoyed.  Hunter S. Thompson was an inspiration to me- a journalistic Jesus.  What truly appealed to me about this book was it's chaotic, drug-fueled stream of consciousness and non-traditional format.  Duke and his attorney leave mayhem in their wake; this is more an experience than a story.  There is no clear climax or resolution- and that's the beauty of it.  Thompson's writing style is captivating and unique.
4.  This book was more realistic than any other I have read in the past year.  I made many connections through Raoul Duke's (Thompson's) thought process- I have a similarly cynical attitude towards society.  As this book reads like his stream of consciousness, I found myself able to connect with the character much more easily than I otherwise would have.  You have a direct link to Duke's thoughts.

PEOPLE
1.  The only real fleshed out people in this work are Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson) and Duke's attorney (Oscar Acosta).  Acosta was a lawyer, but in reality he went to Vegas as Thompson's friend and not his attorney.  The rest of the characters are side notes- character interactions in this book resemble those of real life and not bullshit fantasy.  Interactions are brief if they occur at all, and there is usually a sense of fear arising when the two main subjects interact with others.  Thompson's tone is that of a cynic and a realist; he faces his problems with humanity head on rather than turning his head away from them.
2.  The first subject met is a hitchhiker who is described as a "poor Okie kid [who] was running up to the car with a big grin on his face." [pg. 5].  You can picture him now: he's worn down from the hot Vegas sun, scraps of clothes stuck to the sweat on his skin. 
Later on the two meet the waitress, to whom the attorney is an asshole, writing "Back Door Beauty?" on a napkin and giving it to her.  She naturally confronts him and he pulls a knife out.  This scene is an important development of the attorney's personality as well as the meeting of the waitress.  Thompson is able to form a full picture of the waitress through just a few pages- after that the character's gone.  "The waitress was clearly in shock.  The sight of the blade, jerked out in the heat of an argument, had apparently triggered bad memories.  The glazed look in her eyes said her throat had been cut.  She was still in the grip of paralysis when we left." [pg. 160].
3.  These people are all incredibly interesting.  Though each person met in the story doesn't stay around for more than a few pages, Thompson creates multiple fleshed out characters.  He gives you a sense of who they are through his own observations.

STYLE
1.  Thompson used a journalistic style- but one of his very own.  Gonzo journalism at its essence, even though Thompson called it a failed experiment, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" takes a different attitude about journalism.  It reads like a story and flows like a poem.
2.  Thompson focuses more on description than action or dialogue, though there are plenty examples of both.  Overall the way in which Thompson balances the two gives the book makes the book a very surreal read.  His style, his point, is to relay an experience.
3.  Thompson uses plenty of tools to establish a tone and mood; but that's not his point.  He didn't write this and think, "Hm, which piece of figurative language should I put in this part?"  He just let it spill out onto the paper, with whatever tool felt right; with whatever fit the moment.
4.  Thompson doesn't give a fuck about the audience, and that's what makes this so great.  He doesn't really like the characters very much either, even though he is one of them.  He is a very cynical writer overall, in the best way; which is to say, his cynicism doesn't detract from his writing but enforces it.
5.  After the main text itself, there is a piece in the book Hunter S. Thompson wrote explaining "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."  Here he offers newspaper resources.  "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was originally published in two large parts in Rolling Stone, which he explains.  He also explains how a brief assignment from Sports Illustrated is what led him to Vegas in the first place.  This ending piece greatly helped my understand the work as well as its added definition of Gonzo Journalism.

ENDURING MEMORY
I will not be forgetting the essence of Gonzo journalism anytime soon.  In fact, I will intentionally apply it in cases when I am able to.  Unfortunately, any attempt really remains faux-Gonzo journalism, as a true stream of consciousness with no editing will be impossible.  A true experience cannot be transported from one person to another, but Thompson comes close through his writing.
"Journalism is not a profession or a trade.  It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits- a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage." [pg. 200].

TOBERMORY EXPLAINED

The last line reaffirms the grim yet humorous tone of "Tobermory" by Saki. 

"If he was trying German irregular verbs on the poor beast," said Clovis, "he deserved all he got." [http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Tob.shtml]

The theme of this short story revolves around humanity and our relative stupidity to animals.  Saki is trying to make the point that we are animals.  We are no different than the cats and the elephants we "taunt" into domestication.  Just animals who've been conditioned to repeat what we hear, like Tobermory.
Tobermory's advanced intelligence compared to the dinner party humans is social commentary by Saki.  Our smalltalk is meaningless, utterly and completely meaningless. Tobermory recognizes this subconsciously in his casual gossip- repetition of what the stupid humans find personal and offensive.

     "More or less... and this qualifier is the essence of what, for no particular reason, I've decided to call Gonzo Journalism.  It is a style of 'reporting' based on William Faulkner's idea that the best fiction is far more true than any kind of journalism- and the best journalists have always known this.
     "Which is not to say that Fiction is necessarily 'more true' than Journalism- or vice versa- but that both 'fiction' and 'journalism' are artificial categories; and that both forms, at their best, are only two different means to the same end..."

- Hunter S. Thompson, 1971.

Brave New World Response

 

Why is it that in an age where our "security" is hailed by our government as being of the utmost importance, I feel at my most insecure?  The people who I thought "protected and served" me as a sixth grader turned into the bad guys before my eyes, not because their behavior changed, but because I became aware of their true behavior and underwent a change of perspective.  The juxtaposition of gangsters as heroes and uniformed authority figures as thugs shook my foundations- rebuilt who I was from the ground up, as it should.

 

What Brave New World boils down to is conditioning, and whether you accept it or not, you have been conditioned.  Your individuality, or at least a portion of it, has been stolen, smashed, sacrificed to gods by men who have no right to sacrifice that which is not theirs.  Who we are, what we are, has been denied us by society. The animalistic nature of man still pokes through; light shines around the corners of the cardboard plastered to the windows.  And that is just what we all are, as a society and as individuals- animals.

 

We are conditioned into believing some drugs are "good" while others are "bad."  Without experiencing a drug for yourself, how can you know whether or not it falls into either of these vague categories?  What baffles me is the fact that most people are fed drugs of some form their entire lives, but are fine with it because it is legal or socially acceptable.  These same people then refuse naturally produced drugs or drugs that have limited repercussions but to expand one's consciousness- preferring to stick with the societal mind-numbing drugs they know.  As Huxley explains, soma is "All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects." [Page 54.]  Whereas the mescal of Brave New World is dirty- used by the "savages."  Politicians pour alcohol on the masses, while hiding the psychedelics that have been proven to be of medical use in the back room.

 

"Civilized" society, both in Brave New World and the real world, views the users of psychedelics or other illicit drugs as dirty or primitive.  Mescaline, psilocybin, LSD, and their many brothers, sisters, and cousins are considered by many (who have never researched the drugs themselves) to be detrimental to one's health, morally wrong, or simply unworthy of use due to their legality.  At the same time, the FDA approves countless killer drugs; the richest drug companies get to be the legal dealers.  America's "drug war" is in itself a physical representation of Brave New World.  People in this "free" country are currently serving life sentences for marijuana related offences; meanwhile the pharmaceutical companies whose drugs either don't work or cause addiction themselves are profiting more and more.

 

We are not innately "good" or "bad."  We do not adhere to morality, but create it.  Through dogma and tradition humanity has built a society in which its true potential will never be known, because of perceived morality; morality which is in itself conditioned, engrained in us through a similar societal caste to that of Brave New World.

"Jesus Loves You"

 

"Everything is a Remix," Transmedia Screenshot
Source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKYHZ4U4g0g&t=103
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