Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #718 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-04
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Synopsis
Stylish reissue of a classic first published in the 1970s: Hunter S Thompson's ether-fuelled, savage journey to the heart of the American Dream. 'We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold! And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas!' As knights of old buckled on armour of supernatural power, so Hunter S. Thompson enters Las Vegas armed with a veritable arsenal of 'heinous chemicals'. His perilous, drug-enhanced confrontations with casino operators, bartenders, police officers and assorted representatives of the Silent Majority have a hallucinatory humour and nightmare terror never before seen on the printed page.

Customer Reviews

The first stage for many....
As with a lot of people in my generation, i have found that H.S.Thompson is a very entertaining author. The first of his books i read was this (saw the film first, and this had too follow) and i really liked it. It's funny, sadistic, manic and totally absorbing.
The story followed in this book, is that of Raul Duke and his Attorney on a trip to Las Vegas, the purpose is to cover a story - of a bike race. In getting the job, Raul and The Samoan gain access to a large sum of cash, an expensive convertible sports car and a whole range of other "perks". With this, they travel through the desert to the flagship ideal of the "American dream" - Las Vegas. A place where you can ascend from rags-to-riches, from zero-to-hero and back again with nothing but a dollar in your pocket to start you off. This fact is epitomized and almost chastised through-out the book. Raul and The Samoan never pay a penny for anything (all the money they had access to was the newspaper's) and act like true animals wherever they go - using an absolute truck loads of illicit substances that are easily available and almost always right under your nose! No mater how blatant they are, no-matter un-wholesome they become, they are still allowed to let rip all over the city... and do so, never fettered...
"he who makes a beast of himself takes away the pain of being a man" - H.S.Thompson
This book is not one about drug's, about being twisted. It is not a giggly stoner book that pokes a rebellious middle finger at society. It is, however a look at how our society perceives itself... How some people can become rich & powerful, loved & hated, feared & revered and how this very privilege of our society can poison a person and twist their views. Raul's use of drugs has been championed extensively, and of course he does share these traits with his author, but what many people don't realize is that Thompson was a serious writer and a bloody good one at that. Fear and loathing in Las Vegas, and the Other Fear and Loathing titles all follow Raul Duke and follow this ebb of social dissection, Gonzo was not about Raul and his "diet" it was about how no-matter where you look, the world is god-less, selfish and un-forgiving, the balance (as it were) is quite obviously on the side that will not control it-self and how this lack of control (from up high or deep down) is almost always taken for granted. In such a world, passion is a mere pacifier, truth is an illusion and sobriety is nothing to aspire to...

This book is brilliant, the writing is cunning and smart and the narrative enthralling. If you liked to be challenged, and if you're capable of looking below the surface, this book is for you

ENJOY!!!

Buy the ticket, take the ride
The greatest book about the illusion of the American dream ever written. One of my all time favourite books though some people will simply not get it, not understand it at all. This is a fantastic work of literature and if you have the right kind of mind set you will thoroughly enjoy it. His words are incisive and often profound and this is a perfect introduction to a great author.

As your attorney I advise you to read this book.
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.