Hunter S. Thompson has left for two decades now. When he came out, as the new Continuation of wonder Video on his life and work Reminds us, he did it in a very American way: with a firearm, and at the time of his choice. Even his longtime fans who respected something about the obvious agency in this choice naturally regretted that he had done so; Many of us have wanted aloud that we could read our judgments of the last twenty years of developments in American politics, culture and society, which would certainly adapt fairly well to the story of the decline he had pursued since the late 1960s.
At the same time, we recognize that Thompson lifestyle Would have hardly allowed him to live in the late 1980s (the man himself expressed his surprise for having reached sixty), and that he was inextricable in his way of writing. Which should not call it the main ingredient: as the generations of imitators have proven it, the ingestion of controlled substances and a lack of respect for the traditional narrative structure is not in itself a recipe for the “Gonzo journalism” Thompson was the pioneer. In fact, he had healthy respect for the structure, cultivated throughout his career in the report of Workaday and a self-imposed training regime that involved BACK A farewell to arms And The Grand Gatsby.
Gonzo's journalism, according to the narrator of the video, actually has a serious question to ask: “are not the particular subjective filters by which the facts and events are treated and imagined in a moment of history as relevant as the facts themselves in understanding the truth of this moment, or at least a tranche of the truth? Thompson's most read books have read Fear and repugnant in Las Vegas And Fear and disgust on the campaign of the campaign '72 Stay as two attempts to answer. But from the end of the 1970s, while his “drug companions and chaotic behavior of always nestled, the boundaries between his character larger than life in his work, his public figure and his real self began to blur.”
You could say that Thompson never recovered the deceptive clarity of his Fear and repugnant-Eer Work, although he remained prolific until the end. Indeed, there is a lot of value in his last three decades of writing for readers attentive to whom he was really. “He was not just the character he described in his work and his public life, but the man who cared enough and was quite talented, to create this character in order to explore, understand and represent a very nuanced condition of the world during his time.” It might have been better if he had at some point had removed drugs, firearms, sunglasses and paranoia and offer a new personality. What prevented him from doing it? Perhaps the notion, as it is articulated by its great Fitzgerald inspiration, that there is no second act in American life.
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Based in Seoul, Colin MArshall Written and broadcastTS on cities, language and culture. His projects include the substack newsletter Books on cities And the book The stateless city: a walk through Los Angeles from the 21st century. Follow it on the social network formerly known as Twitter in @ColinmArshall.
