I want to disagree with all of the people that say you should just watch the movie instead. The movie DOES follow the book almost verbatim, that's true, but I believe that some of the deeper meaning of Fear and Loathing is lost on the big screen. Too distracted by the drug-addled antics of Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro a movie isn't long enough to ponder what Thompson is "really trying to tell us." And I do believe with all my powers of deduction that Thompson was writing more than a story about mescaline and LSD.

It's true that the off-the-wall drug-induced antics of Raoul Duke and his attorney kept me laughing out loud throughout the entirety, but this book has many, many gems of insight into the mood of the era and the status of American culture strewn throughout, if you only take the time to pick them out and examine them.

I found many of Duke's encounters especially poignant juxtaposed to today's modern war on drugs, speaking specifically of the anti-drug convention Duke and Gonzo attended. Many references are made to Vietnam as well that paint a fearsome picture in shades of sarcasm and cynicism of how Americans at large felt about their own soldiers.

Anyway, this is an extremely short read so watch the movie if you want to watch the movie, but don't discount the book -- it's just not the same, verbatim or not.

- n  Ralph Steadman's Vintage Dr. Gonzo, an illustration for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.n


THE PLOT

A journalist and his attorney set on a drug-fueled search of the American Dream . . .


RECIPE OF A NONPAREIL GONZO NOVEL :

=> Looking for the American Dream, but don't be mistaken, the real gear.

' our trip was different. It was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country - but only for those with true grit. And we were chock full of that. '
-FaLiLV, p.18

' Att'y : Let me explain it to you, let me run it down just briefly if I can. We're looking for the American Dream, and we were told it was somewhere in this area . . . Well, we're here looking for it, 'cause they sent us out here all the way from San Francisco to look for it. That's why they gave us this white Cadillac, they figure that we could catch up with it in that . . . '
-FaLiLV, p.164

Eventually, turns out there is a place in Las Vegas called The American Dream, a former Psychiatrists's Club, then discotheque, then mental joint where dopers hang out... Only it is now a huge slab of cracked, scorched concrete in a vacant lot full of tall weeds... burned down three years ago.

' They look like caricatures of used-car dealers from Dallas. But they're real. And sweet Jesus, there are a hell lot of them - still screaming around these desert-city crap tables at four-thirty on a Sunday morning. Still humping the American Dream, that vision of the Big Winner somehow emerging from the last-minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino. '
-FaLiLV, p.57

In the end, the American Dream is located in the Circus-Circus...

' The Circus-Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing on Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This is the Sixth Reich. The ground is full of gambling tables, like all the other casinos . . . but the place is about four stories high, in the style of a circus tent, and all manner of strange County-Fair/Polish Carnival madness is going on up in this space. Right above the gambling tables the Forty Flying Carazito Brothers are doing a high-wire trapeze act, along with four muzzled Wolverines and the Six Nymphet Sisters from San Diego . . . so you're down on the main floor playing blackjack, and the stakes are getting high when suddenly you chance to llok up, and there, right smack above your head is a half-naked fourteen year-old girl being chased through the air by a snarling wolverine, which is suddenly locked in a death battle with two silver-painted Polacks who come swinging down from opposite balconies and meet in mid-air on the wolverine's neck (...) This madness goes on and on, but nobody seems to notice. The gambling action runs twenty-four hour a day on the main floor, and the circus never ends. Meanwhile, on all the upstairs balconies, the customers are being hustled by every conceivable kind of bizarre shuck. All kinds of funhouse-type booths. Shoot the pasties of the nipples of a ten-foot bull-dyke and win a cotton-candy goat. Stand in front of this fantastic machine, my friend, and for just 99¢ your likeness will appear, two hundred feet tall, on a screen above downtown Las Vegas. Ninety-nine cents more for a voice message. "Say whatever you want, fella. They'll hear you, don't worry about that. Remember you'll be two hundred feet tall." '
-FaLiLV, pp.46-47


=> Fits of Funk & Paranoia :

In a place where reality is stranger than drugs, all kind of funks are bound to happen. This is the fabric of a fair part of the novel. The illustrations by Ralph Steadman offer a nice graphic counterpart to the howling incongruities experienced by paranoid Duke and Dr Gonzo the unhinged attorney.


=> Digression :

The book is packed with asides and apartes from the narrator, now remembering a past trip in Peru, now fancying the consequences that can unravel from his actions... To me, it was part of the main incentives in reading the whole book : how pleasant is it to read someone writing the same as he were speaking his mind, telling his yarn in front of you!


=> Insights on the decline of 60's counter-culture, the failure of Timothy Leary, hippies, Hell's Angels...

' History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of awhole generation comes to a head in a fine long flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time-and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened. '
-FaLiLV, p.67


=> Probing normality and the boundaries we assign to it.

' Indeed. But what is sane? Especially here in "our own country" - in this doomstruck era of Nixon. We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled the Sixties. Uppers are going out of style. This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realtities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously. '
-FaLiLV, p.178


=> And... spells of fierce humour :
A National District Attorney Convention on Drugs infiltrated by two patent drug-users, a thrilling propension to reckless driving, a sorry inclination to confuse reality with visions from dope, you name it!


RELATIONS :

n  A Saucerful of Secrets - Pink Floydn

On the Road: the Original Scroll

A Scanner Darkly

L'Écume des jours

La Nausée

When I read his work and watch his interviews, it seems to me that Hunter S. Thompson is that guy we all wish we could be, but because of our physical and mental limits we can’t be. The guy was a mad scientist who twisted and contorted journalism into his own image and not many could write in the way that he did, minus Tom Wolfe or Norman Mailer perhaps, but that’s another topic.

Hunter S. Thompson is one of those rare cases to where he was as fascinating as the books he writes, like a deranged version of Ernest Hemingway (while lacking any pretension about his talent). Thompson was also rare in how he, along with others, helped redefine journalism into something that was a little more mad and less objective. He was an outsider, always testing the limits of society and exposing the hypocrisy that he saw around him.

It's hard to say what makes Fear and Loathing so special, and it's a hard book to review due to its unconventional nature and structure. To steal from Doug Walker, it's a book that's so insane, tasteless, and creatively ugly, that it's hard not to appreciate it. It's a book that dives right into the underbelly of America with such gusto and lack of shame that it's hard to believe that this book was even allowed to be published.

Thompson is skilled as a writer, deceptively so. His skills as a storyteller shine through as the book moves along. His prose might seem to ramble on, but Thompson's vision is clear as the story moves forward. Through the seemingly inane and incoherent story, we garner a look into an America that was slowly drained of its former optimism and now in a state of chaos and depravity. Duke and Dr. Gonzo's drug fueled nihilism is shown to be a perverted reflection of the America of 1971, and in many ways rings true now. America seems to be just as lost as a nation as it was when Thompson wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

It's also one of the most uproariously entertaining books that I've ever read, with this book being one of the few that's ever had me audibly laughing consistently as I was reading it. Thompson's drug fueled adventures become so ridiculous, it seems like something that's come out of the fever dream of a Monty Python sketch (ironic, considering Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam directed the movie adaptation.) Thompson's depictions of drug fueled debauchery never ceases to be entertaining, even if it's not something you would do in your life. But I think that's why readers enjoy stories like Fear and Loathing, it lets you imagine all of the crazy shit that you would never be able to do in your own life.

I've always admired Thompson's fearlessness and the balls that he had when it came to his commentary on our society and the slow and painful degradation of the American dream and spirit, and despite his writings being of a time that's passed us by, his commentary still feels resonant today. He was someone who exposed the ugliness in America by becoming ugly himself, with no reservations.

Truly, this is a savage journey into the heart of the American Dream, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

3.5 ⭐ Rounded up.
While this was highly entertaining and interesting, I prefer the visual accompaniment of the movie.

Fear *this*, Hunter S. Thompson. Your gonzo-journalism account of a drug-addled road trip to Las Vegas is not nearly as daring or transgressive today, in the 2020’s, as it was when it was first published in 1971. At the same time, however, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas provides a valuable window into a lost, long-ago way of life, and a valuable critique of 20th-century American society as well. And what a long, strange trip it’s been.

Thompson, long a writer for Rolling Stone and other counterculture-friendly magazines, originated the concept of “gonzo” journalism – basically, wildly wide-open first-person participatory journalism, where the writer feels free to engage in what would usually be considered outrageous exaggeration, if it will help said writer lead the reader toward some higher or greater truth. And that goal – once the reader gets past Thompson’s many grotesque exaggerations, and Ralph Steadman’s comparably bizarre illustrations – is at the heart of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Thompson’s gonzo ethic serves him well in the book’s many passages of weird, surrealistic description, as in this look at Las Vegas’s Circus Circus casino:

The Circus-Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing on Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This is the Sixth Reich. The ground floor is full of gambling tables, like all the other casinos . . . but the place is about four stories high, in the style of a circus tent, and all manner of strange County-Fair/Polish Carnival madness is going on up in this space. Right above the gambling tables the Forty Flying Carazito Brothers are doing a high-wire trapeze act, along with four muzzled Wolverines and the Six Nymphet Sisters from San Diego . . . (p. 46)

Small wonder that Thompson concludes that Las Vegas “is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted” (p. 47).

Ostensibly, the reason for Thompson’s journey to Las Vegas is that “I was a professional journalist on my way to Las Vegas to cover the National District Attorneys’ Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs” (p. 100). Yet there is a strong element of situational irony in drug users like Thompson and an attorney friend attending this conference while in possession of pretty much every federally prohibited Schedule I felony-level narcotic in existence:

I ran a quick inventory on the kit-bag. The stash was a hopeless mess, all churned together and half-crushed. Some of the mescaline pellets had disintegrated into a reddish-brown powder, but I counted about thirty-five or forty still intact. My attorney had eaten all the reds, but there was quite a bit of speed left . . . no more grass, the coke bottle was empty, one acid blotter, a nice brown lump of opium hash and six loose amyls . . . Not enough for anything serious, but a careful rationing of the mescaline would probably get us through the four-day Drug Conference. (p. 100)

But before you start to assume that the book is some sort of validation or valorization of the drug lifestyle, please think again. Thompson provides one harrowing story after another, many of them taken from contemporary media accounts, of people who have done grave harm to themselves and/or others as a result of drug use. Remember that it is 1971: the Vietnam War has reached new levels of hideous violence, college students are being shot on campuses like that of Kent State University, and the gains of the Civil Rights Era have given way to a climate of racial distrust stoked by the Nixon Administration and its “Southern Strategy.” With all of that as a backdrop, in what Thompson calls “this doomstruck era of Nixon” (p. 178), is it any wonder that large numbers of young people from that grim time were turning to one form or another of self-medication?

Part of the book’s undeniable power, for all its surface weirdness, inheres in Thompson’s analysis of Las Vegas as, in effect, American free enterprise on speed. Against the dominant Puritanism of U.S. culture, Las Vegas, as a kind of unofficial but quietly sanctioned American capital of sin, works as an outlet for otherwise forbidden American desires, and as a conduit for the efficient processing of vast amounts of money. And, as Thompson points out, L.V. works that way on the basis of a strict and ruthlessly enforced set of rules, all of them centered around making sure that “high-roller” visitors keep on gambling away vast amounts of money:

The big hotels and casinos pay a lot of muscle to make sure the high rollers don’t have even momentary hassles with “undesirables.” Security in a place like Caesar’s Palace is super tense and strict….The “high side” of Vegas is probably the most closed society west of Sicily – and it makes no difference, in terms of the day-to-day life of the place, whether the man at the top is Lucky Luciano or Howard Hughes. In an economy where Tom Jones can make $75,000 a week for two shows a night at Caesar’s, the palace guard is indispensable, and they don’t care who signs their paychecks. A gold mine like Vegas breeds its own army, like any other gold mine. Hired muscle tends to accumulate in fast layers around money/power poles . . . and big money, in Vegas, is synonymous with the Power to protect it. (pp. 155-56)

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is subtitled A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream; and the book seems downright old-fashioned in the way it arrives at a final insight regarding Las Vegas as an embodiment of “American Dream” materialism. Thompson’s great moment of epiphany occurs during a bar-side conversation at Caesar’s Palace between Thompson and an informant named Bruce, a musician who plays in one of the casino’s house bands:

”When are you taking off?” Bruce asked.

“As soon as possible,” I said. “No point hanging around this town any longer. I have all I need. Anything else would only confuse me.”

He seemed surprised. “You found the American Dream?” he said. “In this town?”

I nodded. “We’re sitting on the main nerve right now,” I said. “You remember that story the manager told us about the owner of this place? How he always wanted to run away and join the circus when he was a kid?”

Bruce ordered two more beers. He looked over the casino for a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah, I see what you mean,” he said. “Now the bastard has his own circus, and a license to steal, too.” He nodded. “You’re right – he’s the model.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “It’s pure Horatio Alger, all the way down to his attitude.” (p. 191)

It is a savage journey indeed; but take away the drugs – something for which Hunter S. Thompson would not thank you – and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas remains a trenchant critique of American attitudes regarding money, success, and the pursuit of pleasure. Read it before your next visit to Las Vegas, and I can almost guarantee you’ll never see Las Vegas, or the United States of America, quite the same way again.

It's a counterculture classic, right? Every bit as good as the hype. Deliriously-vital bitingly-funny writing.

i loved this book. i didn't *expect* to love it, which is why i had put it off for two years after receiving it. i'd read bits and pieces of thompson's work, but never sat down to read one end-to-end. now i know what i've been missing.

this book is everything i had hoped On the Road would be. a wild travel adventure with protagonists i would root for. they do disgusting, off the wall, unconscionable things, but they do it with such spirit that you can't help but laugh, over and over again.

a good writer makes you love characters you ought to despise. as i was reading this, i understood why the world mourned the loss of thompson and his take on things. planning to read more of his work. a great intro- and most people say it's not his best- so i know i have lots to look forward to.

Ludi trip do Las Vegasa i kroz Las Vegas na kojem čitatelj putuje zajedno sa protagonistima romana. Ovo je puno više od priče o putovanju i drogama, ovo je filozofija jednog življenja , potraga za tim famoznim "američkim snom" uz sjajnu glazbenu podlogu koju čine Rolling Stones i ostali velikani rocka i toga vremena.
Sjajan film napravljen prema knjizi također vrijedi pogledati :)

An interesting read. It details a trip to Las Vegas by a journalist and his lawyer. Both spend most of the book high on drugs. This book left me a little cold as I failed to see the point apart from a never ending series of car crash incidents (some literal, others metaphorical) as the pair get into all sorts of scrapes. I suspect that was the point.

A few amusing passages, and the idea of them attending anti drugs convention was funny.

2.25/5

"Fui retrocediendo lentamente hacia la puerta. Una de las cosas que aprendes después de pasar años tratando con gente de la droga, es que todo es serio. Puedes darle la espalda a un individuo, pero nunca le des la espalda a la droga… sobre todo cuando la droga enarbola un chuchillo de caza afilado como una navaja barbera ante tus ojos."

Como no podía ser de otra manera, es un auténtico delirio leer “Miedo y asco en Las Vegas” de Hunter S. Thompson. Un verdadero tour alucinado y plagado de situaciones que sólo podría uno experimentar en las pesadillas más estrambóticas, especialmente si uno nunca probó drogas.
Bueno, el señor Thompson se encarga de traernos ese espectáculo surrealista con lujo de detalles en esta novela delirante y divertida.
Recuerdo vagamente el haber visto la película con Johnny Depp (amigo personal de Thompson) y Benicio del Toro y en ese momento me pregunté cuánto tenía de real y cuánto de ficción.
Finalizada la lectura del libro me doy cuenta que los aspectos ficcionales son tan pocos que el libro parece una autobiografía exacta de una parte de la alocada vida de Thompson, un periodista que supo crear un género, el periodismo “Gonzo”, que borra, casualmente como en esta novela, los límites de ficción y no ficción o de subjetivismo y objetivismo.
Thompson supo sacar partido de una época emblemática de la historia norteamericana, surgida luego del “Flower power” hippie y la liberación del consumo de alucinógenos que disparara en la sociedad el tristemente célebre Timothy O’Leary con la introducción del LSD o ácido lisérgico como diezmador de masas.
De todas manera, Thompson, que falleció en el año 2005 demostró salir airoso de ese infierno no sin haberse literalmente “quemado” en el proceso.
El conocimiento que tiene de las drogas es impresionante. Para ello basta con citar una pequeña parte del libro: "Los de la revista deportiva me habían dado también trescientos dólares en metálico, la casi totalidad de los cuales ya estaba gastada en drogas extremadamente peligrosas. El maletero del coche parecía un laboratorio móvil de la sección de narcóticos de la policía. Teníamos dos bolsas de hierba, setenta y cinco pastillas de mescalina, cinco hojas de ácido de gran potencia, un salero medio lleno de cocaína y toda una galaxia de pastillas multicolores para subir, para bajar, para chillar,… y además un cuarto de tequila, un cuarto de ron, una caja de cervezas, una pinta de éter puro y dos docenas de amyls (nitrato amílico)."
Embarcados en una aventura completamente sin sentido e irrisoria a bordo de un enorme Chevrolet descapotable al que bautizan el “Tiburón rojo”, parten hacia Las Vegas a cubrir como periodistas una carrera de motos, la “Mint 400”, aunque al llegar a la mítica “ciudad del pecado”, lo que sucederá será una serie de eventos completamente locos y disparatados.
La droga hará que lo que hagan en Las Vegas se salga de todo control y raciocinio, aumentado por desafortunados encuentros con las personas más extrañas y peligrosas posibles. La narración del personaje principal, Raoul Duke, que no es otro que Thompson mismo nos llevará experimentar situaciones totalmente voladas y sin sentido. Ambos personajes están imbuidos en una verdadera mezcla del Infierno con El país de las Maravillas de una Alicia anfetamínica.
Hago un párrafo aparte para comentar que me resultado por momentos un poco difícil leer la edición de Editorial Anagrama, especialmente por la traducción completamente española del texto original, algo que ya sufrí con la historia de otro alucinado llamado Ignatius C. Reilly en “La conjura de los necios” de John Kennedy Toole, más precisamente por esos términos tan difícil de digerir como “tío”, “chorrada”, “gilipollas”, “coño”, etc.
Espero que los lectores españoles que lean esta reseña no se enojen pero para un lector argentino es un verdadero suplicio toparse con esos vocabularios. Tal vez no sea relevante para otros, pero a mí me cuesta mucho leer este tipo de traducciones.
Volviendo a la novela, nos encontramos con que las aventuras de estos dos frenéticos personajes nunca se detienen. Apenas si comienzan a mermar cuando se les van terminando las drogas.
Lo más irónico y divertido es que en un momento, por portar credenciales falsas de policías, son invitados a la “Convención Nacional de Fiscales de Distrito de Las Vegas sobre Narcóticos y Drogas Peligrosas”, o sea, como invitar a dos comadrejas a visitar un enorme gallinero.
Las situaciones que surgirán en ese lugar serán altamente desopilantes.
Todo lo que sucede en “Miedo y asco en Las Vegas” surge de la imaginación de Thompson completamente potenciada por el uso de sustancias tan tóxicas que literalmente podrían matar a un caballa. A punto tal que el mismo autor lo afirma: "Lejos de mí la idea de recomendar al lector drogas, alcohol, violencia y demencia. Pero debo confesar que, sin todo eso, yo no sería nada."
Por favor, no intenten esto en sus casas. Ni fuera de sus casas.

4 STARS! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book was just wild. This could be a manual on what drugs not to take at one time! during a long weekend in Las Vegas

OR...

it’s a guide in how to be so bat shit crazy on drugs, while concocting stories and conversation, that you’ll avoid getting arrested.
Why and how can that be?
Because who gets that close to a lunatic who's having an acid trip that wants to buy an ape in Circus Circus while taking more drugs and booze?!

I read this book, finally, after a long fascination/admiration with/for its author Hunter S. Thompson. And although it starts off rocky, at times even weak (it felt like a 14 year old's attempt to describe to the best of his ability a wicked trip) it quickly begins to pull itself together when, ironically, everything is falling a part.

Thompson's irreverence borders on the profound as he tears down all the sacred cows not only of those he would seem normally opposed to (the sedentary American middle class, right wingers) but also those of a similar mindset to himself (junkies, former hippies, even his apparently closest friends) but with an epic and poignant message in mind, the fact that the idealism and promise of one age has collapsed and given way to the rampant materialism and false promises/rampant denial of the encroaching 'real' world upon America's flower power 1960's.

What really connected me to Thompson and this story especially after the first few chapters is that he doesn't view himself in any sort of different or elevated light or status. Raoul Duke is every bit an observer and participant in the drug addled wasteland of Vegas with his lawyer the Samoan, and shows no fear or shame in his eventual discovery of what remains, if anything, of 'the american dream'.

It's a great and I think necessary read for anyone who wants to see the dreams of an age tempered by the, odd here, realities of a following age, made even more real and meaningful by the presence and at times, necessity of perception altering drugs to get at the truth of a people in a country in a time, beneath the layers and layers of 'character' they build for themselves.

RIP Hunter S. Thompson, you were born into a world that wasn't your own, but you made it yours for a just a few twisted moments.