Half a century on, Hunter S. Thompson’s themes of capitalism and greed, racial tension and the inadequacies of traditional journalism still resonate
“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream” turns 50 this year. Its vitriol has lost none of its satirical bite. The story begins with Raoul Duke—the pseudonym that Thompson, who died in 2005, assigned himself as the deeply unreliable narrator—and Dr Gonzo, his lawyer, hallucinating on the highway as they speed towards Las Vegas.
Reviews were mixed when the novel appeared as a single volume in 1972 . But it subsequently achieved cult status, boosted by a film adaptation in 1998. Its appeal rests less on the depraved antics of the main characters than on their encounters with other people, and its bleakly humorous dissection of the American psyche.
Half a century on, Thompson’s themes of capitalism and greed, racial tension and the inadequacies of traditional journalism still resonate.
Besides race, the novel’s main preoccupation is the failure of journalism in an era when the president openly loathed the press. “Objective journalism is one of the main reasons American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long. You can’t be objective about Nixon,” Thompson once told theIn his most paranoid and introspective moments, the narrator of “Fear and Loathing” turns to news stories so grim that they render his own sins “pale and meaningless” in comparison.
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