Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey into the Heart

of the American Dream is Hunter S. Thompson's notoriously

unconventional "gonzo" novel, which blurs the narrative line between

fiction and non-fiction. It is written with the author (Thompson) as the

main character, but he uses the pseudonym "Raoul Duke" to avoid

legal repercussions and allow for more artistic license. The writing does

not represent the objective method of most fiction and non-fiction

writers but rather reflects Thompson’s own subjective view of the

world, which is often hyperbolic, deranged and hopeful but at the same

time bleak (in a word: American) . Despite the fact that the book is

subjective and not always truthful it was Thompson's belief that this

method brought out more truth than simply relaying facts; a sentiment

shared with William Faulkner who said that "facts and truth really don't

have that much to do with each other." The novel cannot be said to be

narrative non-fiction in the traditional sense and it isn't a fiction novel

either; it is an experiment in truth, an attempt to convey actual life and

emotions into a written form, and in this respect it is successful.

Hunter S. Thompson coined the term "gonzo" as it relates to

journalism. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the first time he uses the

term to describe his own work. "Gonzo" journalism can be described as

a sort of stream-of-consciousness approach to journalism with an

emphasis on immediacy and subjectivity, conducted with or without

the use of mind-altering substances (with being Thompson's

preference). The reason Thompson decided to do the Las Vegas story

through "gonzo" is not exactly clear. His assignment initially was to

write five-hundred words on a motorcycle race in Las Vegas, but in the

book he makes very little attempt to watch the race and takes frequent

trips to the bar instead. On the non-Gonzo side his assignment was to

cover the race but on the Gonzo side it turned into something

completely different and much more ambitious; as Thompson says:

"...what was the story? No one had bothered to say. So we would have

to drum it up on our own. Free enterprise. The American Dream.

Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo

journalism" (Thompson, 1). It seems that he saw the trip to Las Vegas

as a great opportunity to tackle one of his most prominent themes, the

American Dream, and why not? Las Vegas was a perfect manifestation

of the greed and depravity that he saw as plaguing America. The best

way to cover the story for him was to write it gonzo-style, this way he

would be able to grasp the full scope of the story.

Thompson mentions Horatio Alger - the great nineteenth century

American writer of "rags-to-riches" stories - frequently throughout the

novel, usually sarcastically. It becomes evident that Thompson saw

himself as a kind of drug addled Horatio Alger championing the

American dream as well as the drug culture of the sixties, which, for
him was a kind of American dream but a failed one. He says to this

effect: "...ours was a different trip [than the hippies]. It was a classic

affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national

character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of

life in this country - but only for those with true grit. And we were

chock full of that" (Thompson, 4). The obvious theme of the novel is

the American dream but not in its pure literary sense, it is rather

Thompson's own subjective view of it mingled with Alger's

conventional view. This is the essence of the novel as well as

Thompson's "gonzo" style - to throw objectivity to the wind and meld

fantasy with reality in a way that brings out the great truth of the

theme (ie. the American dream).

Along with the unconventional style of the story there are some

journalistic moral issues. Since Thompson is not striving for objectivity

his voice in the novel is supremely subjective; he describes other

people’s thoughts without having asked them what they were actually

thinking and he makes up situations and people that don’t actually

exist, all for the sake of his “gonzo” approach. Although this is all well

and good in a fiction novel, when it comes to narrative non-fiction

there are some deep issues. One example of a situation that is

obviously made up is when Thompson says: “Psychedelics are almost

irrelevant in a town where you can wander into a casino any time of

the day or night and witness the crucifixion of a gorilla on a flaming

neon cross that suddenly turns into a pinwheel, spinning the beast

around in wild circles above the crowded gambling action” (Thompson,

43). This is clearly untrue, for reasons that need not be explained, but

what kind of message is he trying to convey by being so hyperbolic? In

this particular passage the truth actually comes out very nicely. When

he says, “[p]sychedelics are almost irrelevant” he is addressing the

fact that Las Vegas is crazy enough as it is without drugs, and since he

uses Las Vegas as a microcosm of the U.S. it suggest a country gone

mad. Furthermore, when he mentions the gorilla on the cross he is

equating the madness of the world with Christianity while also

addressing animal rights. If you look closely and take Thompson’s

ramblings with a grain of salt the truth will come out, not at all times,

but there is an underlying method to his madness. In the book

Thompson sums up this out look very neatly when he says, “It made no

sense at all, but I knew it was true. Drug reasoning” (Thompson, 27).

Just as a flaming gorilla on a spinning cross makes no sense there are

sensible and profoundly true undertones to the thought of it.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas isn’t really narrative non-fiction.

As Hunter S. Thompson would have it, it is a “gonzo” novel. Although it

isn’t a conventional narrative non-fiction novel it is still a very

important book, which bridges the gap between fiction and reality. It

has been shown that, though it is not an entirely truthful account,

there are still many truths to be found it. It is not truthful so much on

the level of hard facts, but rather in the sense of it capturing the

zeitgeist of the sixties and the sentiments following from that point

onward (this being the reason it has maintained its popularity).

Therefore “gonzo” journalism is a legitimate practice if it is executed

correctly, and as the father of it Hunter S. Thompson is also the master

of it.

Book Report: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

 Brayden Benham

Submitted to: Prof. Stephen Kimber

Nov/28/08

Jour3440: Intro. To Narrative Non-Fiction