Customer Reviews

Ancient Gonzo Wisdom

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Thompson's shining Gonzo Intellect is displayed here with humor and insight. Thompson was a seer, a visionary, an immovable force of which our culture will have to contend with for decades to come. His interviews read like his prose - evidence that what you read in print was the Good Doctor himself without pretense, without a mask. The earth's axis has shifted since his departure and we are all at a loss with his absence.

This collection of Dr. Thompson's interviews over a period of several years reflects his essential, irascible attitude. His widow, Anita Thompson, who assembled and edited this important work, has unique insight into the real Hunter behind the Gonzo image.
Highly recommended!

There are no writers like Hunter. There are fewer who have lived and died like the man. This is a good collection of thoughts and words put together to get a glimpse of the Doctor, yet in order to touch on him read his books. It was a bit too repetitive and maybe i was looking down the barrell of an empty loaded weapon. There was not enough kick as a Wild Turkey or not enough speed as a chopper tearing thru the lonely highway.

About 85 pages from the end, wishing it had been kept to about 300 pages, or at the very least, the ED. would've not repeated so many identical questions, responses, off handed remarks...programmed questions & memorized, sometimes expanded responses...typos, & why define for us in every interview who Ken Kesey was? A. Ginsberg? D. Halberstam? P. Buchanan? B. & H. Clinton? Nixon (!)? Der Fuhrer!!! Honestly? Every interview, everybody has to be introduced, title's mentioned in interviews have to be expanded below...I just don't get it. Any one w/ any idea who this man was knows who these other people are & if not, if they are interested in learning more, let them do the research. What would've taken 5 seconds to google has now slowed down the pace of this book to a handicapped crawl...

Three stars is probably one too many, but can't hold the format of the book against the power of the words.....

Actually...I think I can. This is a two star book.

If only these interviews would've been edited by those that worked w/ him throughout his life & when he was in control of what went out & what didn't, we'd all be better off for it.

In the long run, H.S.T.'s writing has & will always stood alone & uncompromised & there's no reason to think that will or should change now, no matter who gets their hands on the rights to his literature.

And I was so damned excited to get this book...

Always interesting and often funny, Hunter Thompson rations answers to helpless interviewer's and public forum's questions giving insight to his writing, lifestyle, philosophies and opinions from the 70's till just before his passing in 2005. A wealth of nutritional info and sages for our times included as well.

This book is fabulous the Interviews allow one to see his genius though his eyes not just his published work

Your pleasure or displeasure in this book will depend entirely on your liking for and tolerance of the late Hunter S. Thompson.

I happen to have enjoyed most of Thompson's writings but considered him just another ill-mannered, self-absorbed and self-referential celebrity of the dawning of the age of celebrity. The times favored Thompson with his let it all hang out style: open drunkenness and drugs, outrageous commentary. But he had keen powers of observation and turned in craftsman like sentences and had a devilish wit. He was also opinioned and, in my opinion, dead wrong.

In any event, for those who are interested - and the interested are the only ones who will appreciate some of these interviews - Thompson's widow has collected and edited 48 interviews of Hunter S. Thompson spanning the years 1967 through 2005. Like Andy Warhohl, Thompson kept the publicity machine whirring for a long time, fueling it with an endless succession of weird episodes.

Some of the interviews are hilarious with self-revering interviews who are - in their own mind's eye - great public intellectuals approaching the Great One. Needless to say, these interviews are trite: "Do you still live life at a fast pitch?" "Due to your hedonistic misbehavior, do you find it hard to discipline yourself to write?"

Other interviews have more depth.

Does this collection add only to the wealth of Thompson's estate? Or does it add to our understanding of Thompson?

I think the latter, but only in the sense that Hunter S. Thompson understood better than most that publicity was good and that publicity about being the "bad boy" was even better. Do we gain insight into the mind and character of Hunter S. Thompson? I don't really think so.

But this collection of interviews to a someone like myself who is a mild fan of Thompson Is still interesting and an enjoyable read.

Jerry

I put off buying this for so long, mainly because of the embarrassingly awful title ... but of course I eventually cracked and bought the damn thing. Within 10 minutes of it arriving I realized that I should have trusted my initial instincts and stayed clear of this cash-in garbage.

Never mind that fact that the book is full of typos, editing errors and the most patronizing footnotes imaginable ... the interviews themselves are so mind-numbingly dull and predictable that reading through this collection became a chore, not a pleasure.

1 star .... only because you can't give zero.