Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson - Book Review

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This little gem is like one of those drugs in the back of the Red Shark. You never know what the good doctor is going to pick up next and garble something.

I guess now I realize why people praise Hunter S. Thompson so much. He has practically introduced a lot of new phrases that have become staple material later on. Such as "Passively hostile" (passive aggressive), "in the general direction of..." (that Monty Python line) and some others.

I loved the commentary on the phasing out of Uppers and the demand of Downers (that happened along with Nixon), the few lines on general drug-life during the late 60s (I remember being amazed by that line where the doctors writes about driving to any place and still being able to find drug-addled crazy people.), and the metaphors used to describe people from under a drug haze.

My favourite line from the book, amongst others, is "In a scene where nobody with any ambition is really what he appears to be, there's not much risk in acting like a king-hell freak."

I wonder if I can say that it is a problem, but Johnny Depp narrated the book most of the time interspersed with shouts from Benicio Del Toro.

Someday, I'll read the book again and write sweat out a book proper review. Someday, I'll also visit Vegas and see if some of it still stands true as described in the book.

View all my reviews