This taught me a lot about how American elections are run
>>252830781972 was 54 years ago, IDK how accurate it could still be
Great book, maybe his best work. Pat Buchanan cameos in it as the only Nixon guy who would hang out with Hunter and party with him. If you haven’t read it yet log off your phone go to the library and check it out.
>>25283100Surprisingly a good lot
>>25283115The more I read about history the more I realize everything remains the same
>>25283078kek I used to work in political campaigns (no, not for anyone you've ever heard of) and I still haven't read this
This book rocks. There's a couple of pages about two-thirds in where he's crashed out in a hotel room during a rainstorm feeling some kind of serotonergic despair, very relatable. Hunter and Bukowski get a lot of flack but they're never correctly recognised for the beautiful parts of their works.
>>25283812The wave passage in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to me is his most beautiful written work. >>25283322As Frank Mankowitz, it's accurate, but not truthful
>>25284088The wave passage is also good. People only think of him as a druggie but he was a genuinely talented writer. Lono has some great bits if I remember rightly and there's a short story which starts with a hysterical description of him committing suicide by swan-dive through the atrium of some 50-storey office block. Even his mid stuff like The Rum Diary is better than 99% of what's available in the average bookshop.
>>25284128Yup. And watch actual interviews with him where he ditches his persona, he had a big brain and was not a drooling degenerate. But he would do crazy shit, like eat shrooms at lunch and drive around pointing a replica gun that was actually an airhorn and ‘shooting’ people. A legendary character.
>>25284128>>25284146 Being the faggot I am, I bought a replica of his color blocked safari jacket and it's been my signature jacket ever since
>>25284162Litfags love a niche jacket. Just been to the bookstore, was appalled to find three other guys in there with special dress shirts and fancy coats like we were turned out of a CNC machine
>>25283078It is a good one but Freak Power Comes to Aspen has to be my all-time favorite. Imagine if you and your friends tried to take over the city you live in by running for office.
just finished pic related. imagine being Hunter living in comfy boomer times getting paid to travel the world and write while blitzed out of your mind. it was a simpler time.
>>25284349The fact he scared the establishment so much they had to join forces is amazing
>>25284357My personal favorite kek is when he shaves his head bald so he can refer to his opponent as 'long-haired'.
>>25284128Looking back, Lono was kinda a mixed bag, but still good. I'd love to see a film in the style of Fear and Loathing done.
>>25284128>>25284146for sure. if you've never read any Thompson you know him as the druggie gonzo journo druggy guy, but once you read him you realize that he's actually brilliant and a hell of a writer. makes you realize why he's got so many imitators but no real successor -- he's just that good
>>25284377>Hunter S. Thompson: I never said my opponent was a Novocain addict. I said there were rumors he was addicted to Novocain. And I know there's rumors because I started those rumors. another all-timer hst moment
>>25284524Jon Ronson is a quality gonzo journalist thoughbeit. His Them: Adventures With Extremists is the only book that ever made me cry.
>>25284513By the time you get to Lono he is clearly drowning under the weight of the persona he created and was out of juice. It is very much derivative of his Las Vegas/Derby. >>25283812I think even their critics admit that both Thompson and Bukowski could write beautifully when they wanted to. Just the content they disliked. >>25283078The funniest bit in this is he kept accusing one of the candidates of being high on drugs and then at the end of the book laughs that people actually believed him and didn't realize it was a running gag.
>>25284652>By the time you get to Lono he is clearly drowning under the weight of the persona he created and was out of juice. It is very much derivative of his Las Vegas/Derby.That being said, his stuff in the late 80s was a good read, especially his takes on good ol Ollie North
>>25284682Another thing in his favor is the last(?) thing he ever wrote was the perfect period at the end of the sentence of the American dream(tm). The fact it was for ESPN of all things is hilarious.
>>25284694Funny to think it'd get much worse
>>25283078>This taught me a lot about how American elections are runbut its over 50 years old.>>25284538Isn't it unnerving that the people he featured in Adventure with Extremists went from being fringe figures to mainstream actors after his book was published?His relatively recent radio programme on BBC Radio, Things Fell Apart, is worth listening to. It's decent. I expected it to be a woke-fest, but it was actually quite nuanced and dismissive of some of the dumb shit people bought into..Another good BBC podcast, similar to Ronson’s and accompanied by a book, is The Coming Storm by former Newsnight producer Gabriel Gatehouse. It centres on the Q conspiracy theory and the crazies surrounding Donald Trump during his first term. The second series is an overview of American conspiracy theories from the John Birch Society onwards. It was much more balanced than I thought it was going to be, and 4chan gets plenty of mentions.Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Just another monolingual dumb pop writer. No classical education
>>25284793Education shmeducation
>>25284793Casts a wide shadow. You can be a snob if you want but nobody cares about Canterbury Tales irl
