Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
Ratings178
Average rating4
Is there anything I can say that hasn't already been said about this book? It's hilarious, eye-opening, and a little alarming - remind me never to huff ether. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person over 16 who hadn't read it, but hey, I finally did and it was awesome.
Mostly left me underwhelmed. I didn't hate these guys, despite the obvious jackassery. I didn't really find them that funny, either. This book felt more historically important than compelling. I preferred Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly.
Rest in peace Hunter S. Thompson u wouldve loved skibbidi toilet
I don't doubt that this book is a cult classic, edgy, and captured a generation's feeling of discontent with the status quo. But in 2024, this drug fueled adventure in Las Vegas just concerned me.
I used to live in Las Vegas, so I found some of their shennanigans par for the course and darkly funny. I kept hoping to understand the deeper meaning of this book, unfortunately I never found it.
"The only hope now, I felt, was the possibility that we’d gone to such excess, with our gig, that nobody in a position to bring the hammer down on us could possibly believe it."
5 stars
Even though the subject matter of the book is quite superficial, the story and prose make up for it tenfold. For someone who has only an outsider???s perspective on drug use and wild partying (at least as wild as you can get, without a car boot full of drugs and alcohol), it was a sublime trip to walk a mile in the shoes of Raoul Duke and his attorney in the search for the real, unrefined, untamed and unrestrained American dream.
I???d recommend reading this if you like insane stories, that will still make you sweat out of anxiety and laugh at the same time, were you the one remembering said stories afterward.
It's my introduction to the Duke and it's proving difficult to live up to the advance hype. Could something like this even exist today or would he be dismissed as nothing more than another James Frey? Unfair, as it's more than just a drug fueled neon blaze across Vegas but an examination of the drug culture and the clarion call of gonzo journalism. This appeared as a two part feature in Rolling Stone and even today would be a savage swipe in a publishing world that tends to favor a grade 5 reading level. Still, I read this and think about the subsequent legion of narcotics taking, wannabe burnouts celebrating their own excesses and shudder.