February 22, 2005
MORE LIKE GENERIC:
As Gonzo in Life as in His Work: Hunter S. Thompson died as he lived. (TOM WOLFE, February 22, 2005, Wall Street Journal)
In the summer of 1988 I happened to be at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland one afternoon when an agitated but otherwise dignified, silver-haired old Scotsman came up to me and said, "I understand you're a friend of the American writer Hunter Thompson."I said yes.
"By God--your Mr. Thompson is supposed to deliver a lecture at the Festival this evening--and I've just received a telephone call from him saying he's in Kennedy Airport and has run into an old friend. What's wrong with this man? He's run into an old friend? There's no possible way he can get here by this evening!"
"Sir," I said, "when you book Hunter Thompson for a lecture, you have to realize it's not actually going to be a lecture. It's an event--and I'm afraid you've just had yours."
Hunter's life, like his work, was one long barbaric yawp, to use Whitman's term, of the drug-fueled freedom from and mockery of all conventional proprieties that began in the 1960s. In that enterprise Hunter was something entirely new, something unique in our literary history. When I included an excerpt from "The Hell's Angels" in a 1973 anthology called "The New Journalism," he said he wasn't part of anybody's group. He wrote "gonzo." He was sui generis. And that he was.
In our neck of the woods we have a name for such folks: jerks. They're a dime a dozen. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 22, 2005 6:29 PM
The guy was a first class scumbag. A selfish, nihilistic, self-indulgent bastard.
I own and have read every one of his books.
Twice.
At least.
Posted by: Andrew X at February 22, 2005 7:06 PMDidn't the Hell's Angels end up stomping him good? I haven't read HST since college and I was pretty messed up at the time.
Posted by: Governor Breck at February 22, 2005 8:20 PMGiven his preference to coming at stories from odd angles in the 1960s and 70s the way Thompson did, it's not surprising to see Wolfe deliver a favorable eulogy towards the man, even though they were politically on the opposite sides of the fence.
However, the story in today's Boston Globe said that rather than his suicide being a random act, Thompson killed himself while on the phone with his wife and with his son and daughter-in-law in the next room, apparently something he had been planning to do for a while. I suppose that can be called the final act of his gonzo lifestyle, but pulling in your family to be immediate witnesses to your own death in that way makes the act even more self-centered and mean-spirited than it already was.
Posted by: John at February 22, 2005 8:39 PMThe decision, [his lawyer] said, had nothing to do with the reelection of George W. Bush or the current trend in national politics, which provided a certain grist for Thompson's mill. Nor did he have significant financial problems. With his land, archives, royalties, and other valuable possessions, [his lawyer] said, Thompson's estate is worth millions of dollars. The best explanation, perhaps, is that in recent months Thompson had chronic pain from back surgery and an artificial hip. He also broke his leg on a recent trip to Hawaii and was limping, which made it difficult for him to travel.
Translation: He couldn't face the inevitabilities of life so he died as he lived, selfish to the end.
Posted by: Gideon at February 23, 2005 2:30 AM