SECTION FIFTEEN
sm
COLUMN
NINETY, MAY
1, 2003
(Copyright © 2003 The Blacklisted Journalist)
BOOK REVIEWS
Kingdom of Fear,
Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American
Century
By
Hunter S. Thompson, Simon & Schuster: 358 pp., $25.
The great satirist Terry
Southern once stated that the writer's duty is to astonish the reader. Hunter S.
Thompson reliably fulfills this mandate with audacious and finely crafted
storytelling, and one simply marvels in astonishment. Inhabiting a
one-man's-land that blurs journalism and fiction and precludes nothing, Thompson
creates no finer collections of written word. Such is his latest random memoir, Kingdom
of Fear.
Southern also drew a
distinction between an artist and a professional: "That is the difference
between a party girl and hooker." An artist "does it for fun, but a
hooker ... does it for money ... I'm a party girl." Technically, Southern
was a professional party girl, in that he paid the phone bill by writing but
insisted on determining the content delivered. And so is the case with
Thompson---a professional party girl but never a whore. Hunter grabs and pulls
you across the tightrope along with him in a sheer rush so visceral that lines
between participant and observer become obliterated in the style dubbed
"gonzo."
It's astonishing to note
that if he'd started out his career as a writer now, he'd be relegated to 'zines
and blogspots. It's not a profitable time for mavericks. Today's world is run by
behavior modification illiberals, allowing entry to paid positions when the only
position available is flat on one's stomach, at the mercy of the narrow
needs---to call it desire would be too passionate---of the paying customer.
These days, such writers do
not generally make it past editors to print. Without the gift, work ethic and
luck to pay the phone bill on their own terms, mavericks end up broke, in jail,
crazy, dead or---worse---as whores. Thompson had the elements lined up at a rare
time in history. He recollects pre-Reagan America: "You could afford to get
mixed up with wild strangers in those days---without fearing for your life, or
your eyes, or your organs, or all of your money or even getting locked up in
prison forever. There was a sense of possibility. People were not so afraid, as
they are now ... nobody called the police on you, just to check out your credit
and employment history and your medical records and how many parking tickets you
owed in California."
"Kingdom of Fear"
is more than a series of essays; it's an extremely literate scrapbook. Party
girls tend to have attention deficit disorder, and the more disorderly the
order, the more fun doth the girl have. Different fonts and type sizes are used
to differentiate among the shortest of stories and traditional narratives with
beginnings, middles, ends and interviews with and newspaper articles about him
and letters from him to Jann Wenner and Johnny Depp and photos of the adventure
called life. The "loathsome secrets" include his 1970 run for sheriff
on the Freak Power ticket in Aspen, the last days of failed American
regime-maintenance in Saigon, coverage of our invasion of Grenada, his
night-manager gig at the Mitchell Brothers adult theater in San Francisco, and
legal victory over dope, assault and weapon charges.
There are also tall tales
of a mad, booze-fueled, gun-wielding judge who became the lone African American
on the Supreme Court, and love letters from an 8-year-old girl whose
"father owns the main banks in Turkey" (more from this series cannot
be disclosed in a family newspaper). Although some may suspect the veracity of
the latter two accounts, a central tenet of gonzo is that imagination can
capture the substance of the truth better than raw fact. Thompson's soaring
prose renders such distinctions meaningless. He has a seasoned journalist's eye
for fine detail and a mythopoet's passion for the iconic. One envisions the
now-sexagenarian trickster gauging your reaction as he spins the yarn,
manipulating your senses and laughing as he watches your astonishment. He also
pokes at the bourgeois Beast---no, it's not hip to be square---by taunting it
with unspeakable acts designed to give it a coronary.
As befits any veteran
consciousness traveler, prescience is a byproduct of his multileveled lucidity.
He predicted on Nov. 19, 2000---a year before 9/11---that "there is an
eerie sense of Panic in the air, a silent Fear and Uncertainty that comes with
once-reliable faiths and truths and solid Institutions that are no longer safe
to believe in." Speaking of current time, he writes that the Bushes
"are only errand boys for the vengeful, bloodthirsty cartel of raving
Jesus-freaks and super-rich money mongers.... Their ideal solution to all the
nation's problems would be another 100 Year War .... Freedom was yesterday in
this country. Its value has been discounted. The only freedom we truly crave
today is freedom from Dumbness."
What can the truly free of
spirit do in so craven an era? As Orwell suggested in 1984: Fall
This insight, reminiscent
of Terry Southern's self-metaphor, causes Thompson to reflect on his ability to
survive what would have killed a thousand other men. "I have learned a few
tricks along the way, a few random skills and simple avoidance techniques--- but
mainly it has been luck, I think, and a keen attention to karma, along with my
natural girlish charm."
This review first appeared in the Los Angeles Times and appears here with the pemission of the author. Copyright © 2003 Los Angeles Times. ##
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