Londons Falling

Maybe better for baby boomers?

Rating: 3/5
Comments:
Rarely have I seen a book with so many glowing reviews, so most will disagree with me but here goes. Having read it today, it is mostly a drawn-out description of being high (to the point of near-death), and all the carnage that ensues. I wasn't really offended, but I didn't find it terribly funny or insightful either. I am giving it three stars for being 'colorful.'

What disappointed me was the unfulfilled promise of insight into the American Dream. I am open to questioning it, if I could be convinced that such a thing exists. (The quest for material comfort and meaning isn't it; that's almost universal). But I didn't find much insight into anybody but the two main characters, with whom I didn't identify. Nor do I identify with the straight-laced 50's culture they despised. Granted, Las Vegas seems a soulless place, even today, but didn't we know that already? I'm sure the indictments of Nixon and the Vietnam War were much more prescient in 1971. I do care about those things, but I've heard it all before.

I just don't identify with the characters enough (on either side) to feel either vindicated or indicted. Is it because I'm in Gen-X, and never shared the hope and excitement of 60's counter-culture?

Largely Pointless

Rating: 2/5
Comments:
I put Hunter S. Thompson on my reading list this month, since I haven't read anything book-length by him before. Sadly, I found Fear and Loathing to be mostly pointless. Undoubtedly, Thompson is a gifted writer; in the hands of a lesser talent, Fear and Loathing would be ridiculous rather than merely pointless.

The plot, such as it is, has been noted in other reviews so I won't attempt to recount it here. Fear and Loating reads like a poor man's Tom Wolfe. Thompson and his lawyer run around Vegas getting outrageously stoned and doing crazy things. Near the end, there's a fairly laughable attempt to make serious sense of the 60's drug scene, with some sort of quasi-justification of Hell's Angels founder Sonny Barger.

Is Fear and Loathing really bad? Not really. There's just not much of a point. It's another hopelessly dated, overhyped drug era entry praised by the same critics who still think Pynchon's relevant.

"Gonzo" would be an understatement

Rating: 4/5
Comments:
I'd already seen the movie (and couldn't have been happier with the casting of Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro), so I knew approximately what to expect, but as is often the case when books are adapted for the screen, what movies gain in literal representation they lose in flavor of language. And that, I would say, was the best part of this book: Thompson's rollicking, piquant wordplay that both lives up to and brings to life the outrageous escapades described over the course of 200 breathlessly rambling pages.

If Thompson and his nameless attorney consumed even half the drugs he says they did, it must've been a bender of frightening proportions, that much is clear. But amidst the staggering amounts of illegal substances, boorish behavior, and assorted misdemeanors, what comes out through it all is Thompson's keen eye for human nature, mordant wit, and ability to turn one colorful phrase after another. Countless times I wanted to reach for my pencil to make a note or copy down a particularly choice quotation, but instead let myself be carried along by the rushing, post-Kerouackian current of Thompson's prose, figuring that blasting along without stopping was more in the spirit of the thing anyhow.

Kids may not be reading it in school 100 years from now (in fact, I hope they're not!), and anyone looking for character development or serious philosophical reflections is looking in the wrong place, but for sheer joy of language it has lessons that a lot of writers could learn from.