Hunter S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
Whilst popularised a full ten years ago with Terry Gillam’s rather lack lustre film adaptation starring Johnny Depp and Benico Del Toro, the original novel paints a far more vivid picture of Hunter S. Thompson’s drug-ravaged adventures.
The novel is a fictionalised, semi-autobiographical account of two trips taken by Thompson and attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta to Las Vegas in early 1971. The imagined duo of Raoul Duke and Dr Gonzo find themselves in increasingly incomprehensible scenarios - as a result of their unrelenting intoxication - and have to resort to more devious and outlandish ways to sustain their escapade.
But underneath the miasmatic imagery and incoherent paranoia lies a deep dissatisfaction with the American Dream. As the protagonists rail against the gross consumerism, shallow ambition and conservative social convention - of which Las Vegas acts a fitting effigy - they soon come to realise that revolutionary optimism of the late 1960s is dying a horrible death, and none more so than out in the scorching Nevada desert.
A counter-culture essential.
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