As your attorney I advise you to read this book.
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I have read this one six or seven times and it still makes me laugh. Virtually every page has something on it to make you laugh out loud. The way he uses italics to emphasize the humour is just brilliant. This is a man at the top of his game. There is a lot of drug abuse and a lot of swearing, and some things I could not mention on a site such as this, but I assure you, good reader, that you should just strap yourself in and enjoy the ride. For me, the funniest book ever.
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fabulous!
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i first read this after surfing round the internet and bought it on some recommendations from various online journals. I have now finished reading it for the fifth time.
the quotes are one of a kind, the detail into the drug trips are A-Class and you can almost feel that you are sat in the same room as Raoul Duke as he trips on various drugs.
God bless Hunter S Thompson for sticking it to the masses with this book.
RIP.
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the gonzoest of them all
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The good doctor may have reached the peak of his literary prowess with this book, at least in the sense that here he was willing to be his most funny and fun. There's actually a streak of sadness and depression that runs through this work, as was surely the case in Hunter's actual life, but for the most part it's a heck of a lot of fun and wackiness. The protagonist is trying to find the American dream and never quite tracks it down, but he does manage to get his hands on a whole lotta illegal substances, as well as a few legal ones, and some 1960s-like drugged out madness ensues! One of the more memorable scenes takes place between the California highway patrolman and the doctor near the middle of nowhere. It's also amusing when they attend the drug conference. If these events really had taken place exactly as written, it would've made for an interesting magazine article to say the least! Author of Adjust Your Brain: A Practical Theory for Maximizing Mental Health.
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Dr Fonzo?
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The only way this book could be any cooler would be if the Fonz himself played a part in it. Sadly he doesn't. I hope I haven't spoiled it for you....
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A MYTH IN THE MAKING, A TRUTH IN THE TALE
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Just like to make a little correction to the comment made by D. Hale, 9 May 2006, about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas being "often written under the influence of mind-altering chemicals". It wasn't. If there are any that doubt this, then I'll leave it to the words of the man himself to clear this up: "You know it was absolutely clear to me reading Las Vegas I that you were not on drugs," said in a letter to Thompson by Jim Silberman, Thomson's book editor at Random House. To which, the man replied, "This is true ... Vegas I was a very conscious attempt to simulate a drug freakout. ... All I ask is that you keep your opinions on my drug-diet for that weekend to yourself. [If others are convinced that we] went out to Las Vegas for a ranking freakout, ... it makes it all the more astounding, that I could emerge from that heinous experience with a story."
The above quote is taken from pages 405 & 406 of Fear and Loathing in America, the second volume of Thompson's private correspondence (from 1968-1976), a great read incidentally, whether on a cultural level, or as an insight into the mind of a writer/artist.
However, that's not to distract from the book at all. The man lived it liked he wrote it, even if he wrote about that living at another time in this case. If you're looking for the real deal, THIS IS IT! Other than the correction, I can only endorse what D. Hale said. Intelligent and enlightened in his own way, and not afraid to say it how he saw it and walk the way he talked. As with anyone not afraid to speak and live their truth, there's a lot that we can learn from this man: you only get one life (sorry, it's true) and you can be afraid, but not of yourself!
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