The brutal odyssey of an American journalist began here

Hunter S. Thompson's dead.  Shot himself.  Don't know if there was a rhyme or reason to it yet.  I suspect that all that anger and disgust he'd been projecting out into the world finally found the shark it had been hunting for all the time.  Story in today's paper about his suicide describes him as "an acute observer of decadance and depravity in American Life."

Well, yeah, he observed it.  Doesn't mean it was really there to observe.  I don't mean that all the drugs and booze had him seeing spiders and bats where there were no spiders and bats, although they did.  I mean he wrote fiction and knew he was writing fiction.  All of his characters were imaginary, he just named them after real people, including the one he called Dr Hunter S. Thompson.

"Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist," he said. "You have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it."

Or:

Whatever degradation and depravity he actually observed, he augmented, instigated, and avidly participated in, and in a way he was a performance artist and his books were chronicles of his performances.

Or:

He wrote an extremely introspective and solipsistic form of existential memoir, like Kierkegaard, but like John Bunyan he allegorized his self-examinations, symbolizing his demons in the form of human beings that he named Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, the Hell's Angels, and Raoul Duke.

An early stage in Thompson's savage journey into the heart of the American dream was passed near here.  His first civilian job as a journalist---before that he was a sports editor for an Air Force newspaper; he finished up as a sports writer too---was at the newspaper where the blonde works.  Thompson worked there before the blonde was born.  He wrote his novel The Rum Diary while living in an unheated cabin in the woods.  He didn't wear shoes in the news room.  He worked at the paper for two years.

One day he beat up a vending machine.

This is from a letter he wrote to a friend:

Several weeks ago I outraged a long-time Record advertiser by sending a meal back to his kitchen for immediate consignment to the garbage can. This consequently resulted in a rather ugly session between me, the advertiser, and the Record's editor and publisher. The judgment was definitely not in my favor and I was told that my job would henceforth rest on very thin ice.

Several days ago I was instrumental in the looting of an office candy machine. I had put two nickels in the thing without getting anything out of it. I then gave it a severe rattling which rendered the coin slot obsolete. Word got around in the backroom – notably the managing editor. I was fired the next day.

(Story courtesy of the Times Herald-Record.  You may have to register.

Other takes:  Jason Chervokas delivers what will probably be the best eulogy I'll come across.  Nance tells about how reading Thompson helped her learn that writing journalism could be fun.   Ken Layne met the man once and is still moved by the memory.  Digby comes through with the perfect extended quote from Generation of Swine.  Tom Watson offers up a bunch more good links.  And Roxanne has a few more, plus the way to the really important stuff, the man's own words.)

Comments

[denisdekat]

"I suspect that all that anger and disgust he'd been projecting out into the world finally found the shark it had been hunting for all the time."

He was also about fun, freedom and irresponsible youth. Did you read his books? It does nto surprise me he killed himself... Much like Mishima but american style really in my opinion. Some writers dream of the dramatic death...

[Lance]

Denis,

I read all the books he published before 1990. I was a fan. Am a fan. I read both Fear and Loathings when I was 19 and Hell's Angels when I was 22, 23. I missed the celebration of youth and freedom messages. But I picked up on the paranoia and self-destructiveness. Whatever else he was about, he wasn't kidding when he named his books. Anger, fear and loathing drove the man.

His response to Garry Trudeau's Duke? "If I ever catch the little punk, I'll rip his lungs out."

[denisdekat]

Sorry for my tone :D I should have known you did read it. I did not see him as negative but rather much like Henry Miller, a big noise maker. Sort of fun when you are a kid... I did not feel he was all about anger and such, though there was much of it...

[Lance]

What tone, Denis? All I heard was a passionate fan standing up for a writer he admires and respects.

[denisdekat]

Thanks :) I was a tad accusatory :(

[mac macgilicuddy]

Not exactly Arthur Miller...