Man, was this FUN! I can't remember having had a greater time reading any other book...

Man, was this FUN! I can't remember having had a greater time reading any other book. FaLiLV discussion and appreciation thread. What did you guys think?

i like the movie

I'm not sure if I've seen it, but I heard even Thompson praised it. What did you think of the book, user?

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too weird to live too rare to die?

how could he like the film he was gay for johnny depp

It's a good book

How does the Rum Diary compare to Fear and Loathing?

It's not even close. I don't recommend it honestly. I read The curse of Lono as well, but nothing can compare to FaLiLV

Reposting what I wrote in another thread about this book and the American Dream

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is [...] a holographic eulogy delivered by a postmodern Knight of Faith in a Borgesian desert littered with the rotting fragments of the Great American Map - a voice rises garrulous and unheard, asking the shadows "Have you seen the Dream, its rotting corpse? Have you looked upon its face you necrophiliac maggots, have you ever stopped gnawing and feasting on these old lumps of flesh?". A raving prophet taking refuge in the crowded loneliness of drug hysteria,gathering the courage necessary to follow the ancient adage hastily scrawled in dreamdust across the sky - "you can be everything you want, if you're born in the U.S.A." - and yes that means be a fiend, a lunatic, a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger and an endless, palimpsestic barrage of pop-culture heroes serving their sentence in the rotating cycle of shit eating through you. A man on the move? But metaphisically so.

But honestly, read it alongside Fear and Trembling and tell me Raoul Duke isn't the last true Knight of Faith.

I'm not sure if this was written in jest or not (look at what this place has done to me), but I really enjoyed your review.

It's just what I thought of the book, written in such a way as to have fun while writing it. So not in jest but as a joke, to me and the text both.

Sadly, I know how you feel

overrated af

In my opinion
This. Two men drive around, do drugs, and shout at people. Pretty much nothing happens

A Scanner Darkly is a much better 'drug' book

does the first edition include illustrations?

This is a good question. Were they in the two issues of Rolling Stones where the book was originally published? Unless I'm getting my history wrong.

Eh, not really. It's more like a metaphysical post-apocalyptic novel than it is a road story - though I've not read A Scanner Darkly, so I may be full of shit.

It's fantastic. So many memorable moments and reminders of my own time experimenting with way too many drugs.

What I love about it is the premise- A guy goes out to LV with his friend to write a story on an offroad motorcycle race, but instead of doing that they write about their experience covering the race, drug binge and other chaos included.

Haven't read Fear and Loathing, but I thought Rum Diary was a mature and thoughtful look at aging into adulthood.

I'm generally more interested in Thompson's journalism, but I'll probably read Las Vegas eventually

Honestly I think the film does a good enough job of conveying the message that if you've already seen the movie there's no point in reading the book.

I watched the movie before reading the book, and I'm glad I did read it. In my opinion, the book is a lot funnier. I really enjoyed both though.

Rum diary was the last book i just finished, I thought it was actually better than fear and loathing. But fear and loathng is still a must read if you liked his writing

But is the Rum Diary funnier than FaL?

You missed the point

This book is he ultimate pleb detector. It's so easy to be excited and laugh about the drug infused mayhem without actually getting the point of the book.

The end of the American Dream? A whole generation whose youth ideals had been shattered? The uneffective war on drugs declared by Nixon? The fact that those assigned to combat drugs were the ones whose knowledge was the smallest?

HTS was in it.

>It's so easy to be excited and laugh about the drug infused mayhem without actually getting the point of the book.

So it's wrong to enjoy things now? It was a fun ride regardless of theme, faggot. Christ, just because someone laughed at the situations doesn't mean they're necessarily plebs. I bet it was the author's intention to make it funny, you bitch.

Yeah, Thompson was the last person to want people to read his shit stone-faced

Even Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail has a heavy trace of humor in it. If Thompson had wanted to write a treatise on the American Dream, he would have. This is a story

man this is great,

Does anyone know where to find the Gonzo Papers in pdf/epub?

DUDE

Scanner is the best anti drug book out there.

Fear and loathing isn't supposed to be about the drugs its about the moral decadence of the declining generation in Vegas.

ETHER

Bump

Interesting, I just finished Fear and Trembling a little while back and have had this weird draw to read Fear and Loathing ever since, despite knowing about it for years. Perhaps there is something to the connection.

I would say it's less funny. It's still funny though. Like the other guy said it's a more mature work- 2 of the main characters are basically 35 year old hunter and 25 year old hunter.

Do read it, I hope you'll see the connection the same way I do

i enjoyed fear and loathing on the campaign trail better desu

If you grew up interested in politics, Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72 is amazing. If you know some of the history around it, it's even better. 1972 was when American politics really started to morph into its present form.