And if we do not see his like again, well, that just adds to the legend. "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone," Thompson said, "but they've always worked for me." Indeed they did.
Thus speaketh Charles G. Hill and...Well, no, I don't think so. God knows I hesitate to disagree with Charles about anything dealing with American popular culture, and rightly so, but...no, it wasn't "drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity" which "worked" for Thompson, but the fact that he was a damn good writer, a superlative wielder of words in English. Those...subjects...were just that, for Hunter S. And true, in employing them, he became a subject himself, his own subject. But none of that would have meant a damn thing to anyone -- writer or editor or reader -- had he not deployed words the way Oscar Peterson hit piano keys. The man was a master, and he hit his stride fairly early on and kept it. Read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas if you doubt me at all.
And as for who hipped me to just how good a writer Hunter S. Thompson really, really, really was, I'm more than happy to steer you to William Zinsser.
Trust me on this: Thompson was that good.
(And Charles remains that good at writing headlines, too.)
Posted by Craig Ceely at February 21, 2005 10:29 PMThe statement of HST's I quoted, which was a response to a softball question asked by a perhaps-timid interviewer, lends credence to the oft-quoted notion that an artist tends to be the worst judge of his own work, a situation which prevails just as much down in the sub-creative community where I spew.
But the fact is, HST was what he was at least partially because of those, um, attributes, and while they're hardly at the core of his being, they can't be shunted off to the side as irrelevant either. (I reserve the right to deny having ever said this should a gonzo manuscript by, say, G. K. Chesterton somewhere materialize.)
I recognize that right, and I agree that Thompson did in fact use himself as subject matter to the nth degree, so to that extent, yes, the "attributes" are not at all irrelevant.
Chesterton was gonzo enough.
Posted by: Craig Ceely at February 23, 2005 02:15 PM