resurrectionsong

February 21, 2005

Hunter Thompson: Not Quite a Eulogy

I first read Hunter S. Thompson for the same reason that I bet most guys did: because I really wanted to sleep with a girl. She was a beautiful, smart, funny, sparkling college student and I was a bartender. One night, in a mildly drunken haze, I proclaimed my lust for her, and, in a mildly drunken haze, she reciprocated my interest. We were just pretentious and honest and young enough to know that it wasn't love, just a passionate curiosity.

There was a catch, though. If I wanted to be with her, she wanted to feel that I truly understood her; to truly understand her, I had to read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (and, incidentally, On the Road, but that's another eulogy). I've been known to read the back of cereal boxes when I can't get ahold of a newspaper, magazine, or book--reading Fear and Loathing in the hopes of a romantic interlude with, quite possibly, the most beautiful woman I've ever known didn't seem to be much of a stretch.

I read the books, but I couldn't say that I understood the girl any better. In fact, when it came to Thompson, I was stuck between thinking he was a fraud and thinking he was a genius. In fact, thirteen years later, I still wasn't sure.

His writing was messy, disjointed, confused, overdone, and, I believed, lazy. I've always thought that he sacrificed coherence for emotional effect at times because it was easier than finding something important to say. Maybe I was wrong, though: maybe the writing wasn't supposed to give us his answers, it was just his way of asking the questions that he couldn't answer. Whatever I thought of his writing on a personal level, there is no denying the effect he had on journalism and the cultural mark he made.

There is also no denying that our literary landscape will have lost some of its flavor for his passing.

Posted by zombyboy at February 21, 2005 10:46 AM

Comments

Dang - that's about the best way of expressing my feelings on the subject.

Sad to see him go, but as I've said elesewhere he was really before my time and I wasn't influenced to become a writer and reporter by him.

By Ray Bradbury - yes. and he's, unfortunately getting up there in age (88, 89?) and I think I'll cry when he dies.

I saw him once .. but that's a story for another time.

Posted by: Temple Stark at February 21, 2005 11:03 AM

The important question is, did you get the girl?

Posted by: Jerry at February 21, 2005 11:13 AM

I did. Sort of.

She ended up getting married and moving away to Wisconsin (which was really for the best). We would have been really bad for each other.

Posted by: zombyboy at February 21, 2005 11:15 AM

As to the writing, I've never read Thompson. I have know people who have and as a result he has always suffered from guilt by association. The source of a recommendation always carries more weight with me than the recommendation itself. It is no surprise to me that a fan of Thompson would also be a fan of Kerouac. Again, he suffers from guilt by association.

Several years ago (slightly over a decade, to be more precise) I had a very good friend who was a huge fan of Kerouac and all things Beat. he kept telling me that I would love those authors so I bought the Viking Portable Beat Reader (what an awesome series of books those are) and I was very disappointed. Your "messy, disjointed, confused, overdone, and, I believed, lazy" description sums up my impression of that period perfectly.

Something tells me that I wouldn't like Thompson.

Posted by: Jerry at February 21, 2005 11:22 AM

Did I know her? If so, tell me offline. When you first started the story I thought of the chick that I lived with in Boulder that one time, but it obviously isn't her.

Posted by: Jerry at February 21, 2005 11:24 AM

Zomby,

Actually, for us journalists, the reading of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was sort of a rite of passage into journalismo. The first place I worked, an outdoors reporter (!) gave me a copy of the book a couple of weeks after I started.

I have never pictured F&L as a chick book, however. That's pretty scary, now that I think about it.

Posted by: bryan at February 21, 2005 11:59 AM

The comments were head-shaking. Zomboy. Lazy? Obviously you don't know how he wrote, faxing pages throughout the night wanting feedback and then making changes. He was a perfectionist. You haven't really "read" Thompson.

Jerry! You didn't experience that time and if you did you would have understood the Beats. They broke down many barriers, not just writing. They were the first real counter-culture in a Donna Reed world. The lifestyle was so different and most of all new.

What is there now? No one is doing anything new, there is no counter-culture to speak of. Everything is blogs and those blasted iPods and almost all are the same.

Where are the new voices? The rebels? Those who dare write in a style considered not the norm? When they're found and heard they will be tomorrow's heroes and heroines and others like you will be saying what you are now because they didn't live the time.

Bryan, I was as into him as any guy. Don't assume chicks didn't dig him. You'd be surprised at a few chicks who are writing in a style so "everybody" that if they used a guy's name, they'd never be found out. Chick and Dick. Almost as fun as Dick and Jane.

/sneaks out the same way she came in

Posted by: MaryAnn at February 25, 2005 10:57 AM

I was originally going to write something snarky in response to this, but that seemed to be overly hostile. I erased and started again. The thing is, we aren't going to agree on the subject: I do think that his writing was "messy, disjointed, confused, overdone" and, yes, lazy. It's the impression he made on me and it's the impression that has stuck. I've read Hells Angels, Fear and Loathing (both of them) and regularly read things like his ESPN articles. My impression never changed.

Your answer, of course, will be that I just didn't "get it." No, I got it, I just didn't like it in the same way you did. I would say the same thing about Picasso: I get it, but I still don't like it. I even understand and accept the importance of the art, but that doesn't mean I want to hang one of his paintings on my wall.

Getting it doesn't necessarily mean liking it; there's a difference.

Posted by: zombyboy at February 25, 2005 11:21 AM