Pretty good.

Ah, really wish I like this more.

Huge fan of Thompson and his writing style, but this was just a bit dull and dense for me. While I did enjoy it, I hated it equally throughout.

Moments of razor-sharp political insight tempered with football metaphors and drunk diatribes. A fascinatingly personal journey into the nightmare of the American political system courtesy of alternative journalism's favorite speed freak.

6 Jan 2019 - I read this when I was in college - between 1973 and 77.
Hunter Thompson was booked as a speaker at my college, so I was preparing for him, or something like that. He did not show up. There were very confirmed rumors that he was often unpredictable and had a big problem with the booze.

I don't remember much about this book except it was kinda fun to read but the perspective on the candidates' positions on various issues was pretty shallow and did not really resonate much.

I do remember the author had been (or would be?) elected as sheriff of his town/county in Colorado at one point and was quite pro-gun/2nd Amendment, which was kind of unusual for journalists then and now.

Also remember his style was called "Gonzo" and kinda "out there" but not easy to describe. I remember liking a rival journalist at the time much better - Tom Wolfe, although their subjects really did not overlap much at all.

A bit of relief and a bit of fear and loathing that 50 years ago the country was going through the same kind of presidential election.

Like these quotes:
“Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?”
“the country is going so far to the right that you won’t recognize it”

The most fun I've had reading in a long, long time. Made me nostalgic for the days when political conventions meant something and political journalism got to the guts; granted, I never actually lived through either of these things but I hope to one day.

A must read in an election year! Best insight into U.S. politics I've ever read, Hunter S. Thompson's humour, wiy and intelligence is much needed in political writing.

"There's a sort of weird, junkie, addictive quality about covering a presidential campaign. It's a grueling trip, but that insane kind of zipping from place to place.... Yeah, it's one of the best assignments I can think of."

Chock full of politicos yet to have made names for themselves (not yet 40 yo Mondale, not yet 30 yo Sandy Berger, 35 yo campaign mgr Gary Hart) and behind-the-scenes You Are There stories through the Democratic primaries and the general election/landslide loss to Nixon.

Fascinating, funny, and mad cap. I am happy to have finally read this, esp since McGovern died 2 weeks ago and the 2012 presidential election is next week. So many aspects of politics remain completely unchanged from 40 yrs ago.

Imagine a book that is concise, well-written, informative, interesting, and enjoyable to read. Fear and Loathing is the exact opposite. Almost a one-star book, F&L is a rambling, incoherent, up-close look at the 1972 US Presidential election. The non-fiction novel is written from the perspective of Hunter S. Thompson, a reporter from Rolling Stone.

I could fill 10 pages with critiques but instead, I'll focus on the one aspect of the book that I actually liked: the political perspective. The '72 election between McGovern and Nixon in many ways mirrors the most recent elections of Clinton v Trump and Biden v Trump. Thompson does a great job distilling the spectacular disaster of an election into a few key insights:
1. Each generation seems to believe that the fabled youth turnout will bend the election in their favor. Spoiler, the youth turnout never materializes
2. Leaders like Nixon rise to power through extremism, strength, and passion, not policy. They know they can go extremely right without losing support since that is what the party wants. They derive their support by taking advantage of the system, bending public interests to enrich themselves. They can be totally enmeshed in scandal (Watergate) and voters still won't care as long as they see their leader as a hero.
3. Republicans have been against 'the liberal media' for decades now. Not much has changed, Republicans just have more 'news' source nowadays.
4. Elections, at least in the '70s, are run so inefficiently and haphazardly. If McGovern had a more organized campaign, he would have stood a better chance of winning.
5. So much of politics is about making deals and playing the game. Even the most idealistic candidates end up cutting deals with the party machine in order to garner support/funds/etc.

Overall, I would not recommend this book. It was an aggravating read with whole 40 pg chapters containing nonsensical, nothingness. It was a little interesting from a politics then vs now perspective, but only interesting enough to take Fear and Loathing from one star to two.

There's something to reading the words of an addict who both hates and can't live without his vices. And no, this has little to do with drugs. Hunter S. Thompson's truly tragic obsession was with the American Dream, and achieving it, in this work, through politics. And it's an utter balls up. For HST, for America, and for history as well.

It has been a very very long time since I've read Thompson. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was my only other exposure to him and that was way back in that magically punitive year I spent in Israel (2011/2012 ish?). I loved it and loved the movie. HST's voice is inimitable; it's a distinctly American mode of expression that simultaneously carries and transcends the numerous weights of intangible baggage that come with being a Yankee with even a modicum of intelligence and self-awareness. It was funny, bizarre, and ultimately a tragic Dear John letter to the ideals the 60's promised but failed to deliver.

Here, Thompson goes for broke and follows then underdog Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern on his campaign trail. What Hunter illumines is a twisting and undulating journey through the psychosis of the modern American political process. And, like the earlier Las Vegas, it's a grim road of human grotesquerie and shattered dreams. It's hilarious as well. And sobering as, throughout the whole work, I kept intoning to myself that "It only gets worse". And it has.

But, small potatoes though they be, we at least, from the trainwreck of our political machine, have a fundamentally important work about our leaders and how they come to lead and how much, and how little, we matter to the entire system. Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, Liberals, these are just shifting labels for power groups that care only for the people as a number and a percentage, to think anything else is hopelessly naive and not to the betterment of anyone in the long run.

HST was an idealist and, in his own way, a realist, depicting what he saw as the failure of an ostensibly great nation to live up to its numerous promises. And he did it all with elan. Read this if you want an insider's look at the most lachrymose and yet hopeful depiction of the American political dream. Maybe we can do better. I do know I will be voting in the next election, for what it's worth. Though, like HST, I'll probably elide sobriety before, during, and after.

Sorry about the mental breakdown towards the end there, Hunter, but this tome could have benefited from excising the interview format that takes up a significant chunk of the waning pages. Colorful, detailed chronology interrupted by half-cogent ramblings. A whimper of a conclusion to rival the McGovern campaign. Regardless, this text is an imminently important chronicle of a turning point in American politics. It possesses enough of the dark humor necessary for stomaching the sickening, cynical process of electoralism as it sinks even lower into draconian slime. Thompson’s general disregard for decorum finds it’s topical match. His irreverent tone is exactly appropriate for dissection of the political process. Stripping it of that vaunted respect reveals the contradictions and immortalities that constitute what larger American values are, and is the only correct approach to analyzing the subject. With that, numerous revelations and concise witticisms reveal themselves naturally along the way. With the right approach, even an oaf can understand the foundational principles of a crude system that’s skill lies in the masking of its function. This I believe is the virtue of Thompson’s writing as a whole. An imminently intelligent man that understands and lives through the language of the layman. There may not be a literary skill as valuable as translating the inscrutable for the casual reader. And for all the agony and time put into this work, unveiling what previously seemed unavailable may be its greatest accomplishment. How many people have been turned onto something they thought they’d never understand as a result? More than can be said of a majority of ‘journalistic’ enterprises.

I prefer the earlier writing of Hunter Thompson - his writing that came before the ego induced Gonzo journalism.

Thompson has so many moments of brilliant observations but way too much ranting and an unhealthy obsession with crime statistics and rape specifically. And when an author literally writes statements like "Now where was I?" the lack of such literary mores drown out the really insightful stuff for me.