Cormac McCarthy on Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"

How did Cormac McCarthy feel about Huner S. Thompson? We will hear from McCarthy himself about his thoughts and then discuss "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" 's impact on literature.
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[@ryang7759]

I was nineteen when I read Fear and Loathing. enjoyed it so much that as soon as I finished I started a second read.

[@garyspence2128]

Fear and Loathing is a great book. I still have my little, beat up old copy from college days. I read it every couple of years just to immerse myself in that time frame. Thompson really captured something about that era, and its absurdity. Speaks to today's confusion as well. Just a funny, wild ride. Depp's movie was good as well. Especially with Benecio Del Toro as his sidekick. But the novel is a classic!

[@masterofallgoons]

As much as Johnny Depp cemented it with the movie, it's really Terry Gilliam who should get most of the credit. He got that book on screen in ways i never would have thought possible.

[@slickbishop]

Fear and loathing is one of a kind. The language, the themes, a meta beat novel, the invention of the gonzo genre. It tackles psychedelics so singularly by suggesting they spiritually awaken humanity to the understanding that we are spiritually alone and just awful beasts.

[@TheGoldenCapstone]

You act like psychedelics awakened a truth. No it just enforced a pessimistic opinion.

[@slickbishop]

@@TheGoldenCapstone this is my take on the novel. Not my take on psychedelics or metaphysics. The novel i think is quite pessimistic

[@dylcor]

Just discovered your channel, keep up the great work man!!

[@willwhitman717]

Hi, Ian. I lived in Tucson for a couple years and I wish I had been aware of its connection to Cormac Mccarthy and David Foster Wallace

[@LawOfOpposites]

I have never cared for Hunter Thompson but I enjoyed this video notwithstanding. Perhaps I will revisit his work.

[@FrankOdonnell-ej3hd]

read fear and loathing when it was first serialized in rolling stone and was knocked out by it. But I'm very surprised a writer like maccarthy not only read it but also generally liked it.⚛😀

[@buddypng31]

You know a lot about cormac mccarthy. There is a really good podcast called Reading McCarthy, you should be a guest

[@WriteConscious]

Email him and tell him to have me on! Love that show, and I reached out a year ago and never heard back!

[@jeffreymeyer1191]

Great video. You make me want to read Hunter S Thompson now. I watched a documentary about him and he just seemed like such an obnoxious person that I didn’t want to read him. But maybe I will now. Love your analyses on Cormac.

[@xaviarstowe9745]

Shoutout to Musashi on the shelf!

[@Theomite]

Thompson's use of comical hyperbole becomes poetic stream-of-consciousness as both manifesto and memoir--it's both descriptive and elliptical. I think that's what stood out to McCarthy if you consider how he approaches exposition, especially in his later work. This is what James Wood referred to as 'afflatus' , a lyrical, drawn-out run-on sentence style that has an eerie, hypnotic flow to it. Irresistible and probably influential to McCarthy as much as anything else. Thompson captures the subtext of madness underlying the mundane occurrences of the American everyday and that makes it surreal without becoming UNreal. Very difficult to do and nobody has done it better than Thompson ever since. I mean, there's lines in that book that are better than *entire books* in some cases. "We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold." belongs up there with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

[@psychicdriver4229]

One of my favorites along with slaughterhouse 5. They couldn't be more different than Cormac that's for sure.

[@anuma6217]

Hunter S Thompson is a genius, The Curse of Lono is extremely underrated, it's basically Fear & Loathing in Hawaii lol

[@coltgar2465]

You should make a couple videos on Hermann Hesse sometime.

[@garyspence2128]

Yes...try Magister Ludi/The Glass Bead Game, which I had on my bookshelf for years before actually getting around to reading it during pandemic time. It's outstanding. Not what you're expecting, but really moved me. Different from Steppenwolf, but worth your time. Seems very modern, but timeless just the same. Won't try to describe it....just check it out.

[@coltgar2465]

I've got to read it now. I really want to. I've read and loved Narcissus and Goldmund, Beneath the Wheel, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha and Journey of the East, but I've heard that above all Magister Ludi is his masterpiece. Maybe that could be said about them all, though. @@garyspence2128

[@coltgar2465]

@@garyspence2128 Just bought a copy.

[@Ernesto_the_Caffiend]

F&L in LV is a 10. The least boring book I've ever read, re-read it yearly

[@sardonicsisyphus]

I have a numbered Suntup Press edition of Blood Meridian.. And a signed numbered copy of Curse of Lono. Two of my most treasured books.

[@eglspl425]

I think a lot of the more modern work he read and enjoyed is findable in Stella Maris and The Passenger. Delillo and Pynchon for certain, maybe even some Foster Wallace. I think the performative distaste for modern literature was both part of his curmudgeonly disposition and a necessary part of the "anxiety of influence". I sometimes think of the stylistic shift after Blood Meridian as an influence shift from the 19th the 20th centuries. Dude was done with Melville and moved on after BM. I'm glad you included Suttree in talking about his humour because that novel is absolutely hilarious. The weird obsession with women perpetually disappoints me in great male writers. Great women writers don't make a big show of their sexual adventures in the same sadly embarrassing way. Get over it, lads, there's work to do.

[@jesuscampos8136]

I loved fear and loathing so much i started sniffing lighter fluid 🤯

[@JHimminy]

Out of a sarmich bag?

[@jesuscampos8136]

@@JHimminy an empty butterkrust bag😎

[@goodnightvienna8511]

I’ve got a feeling this guy likes Blood Meridian 😂 and there is nothing wrong with that as it’s on my favourites of literature

[@masterofallgoons]

So is it just me that thinks Child of God is a dark comedy??

[@MyEnemy]

I concur. "Oh, Bobby!"

[@stevenguevara2184]

I tried reading that "Kool Aid Acid Test" book it was garbage

[@fanpandatastic]

Crazy that you think anyone cares

[@DistantLights]

I liked it a lot, it really shone a light on the issues of 60s drug culture and how phony it was

[@wjomal3]

That was by Tom Wolfe

[@MichaelLisk]

McCarthy was being generous. Fear and Loathing sucks beginning to end.

[@personanongrata987]

I read HST's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" over a quarter century ago, and it was my introduction to Gonzo journalism; try to imagine what that reading experience was like. I thought it was funny in places and not so much in others, overall very poorly constructed and confusing, and that he tried too hard to come across as a piercing, insightful critic condemning American culture and society. Overly pretentious. The depiction of drug usage seemed vastly over-the-top to me--but his devoted fans would probably defend it as one of the book's central points and oh hey his drug use really wasn't so extreme when you stop to think about it. And then about a year later Terry Gilliam's movie version came out and I saw it and fell in love with it. --

[@larrylicavoli]

The book's overall theme is "holy shit, you used to get away with that back then?" It's right there the whole time. People who focus on the drugs also think the judge is Satan.

[@reaganwiles_art]

Mccarthy was a great entertainer. I hope he is forgotten. He never managed to translate the eternal. His books have no spirit within that can open out to the reader. At least no White Stag ever stepped out of Mccarthy's words into my heart as through Faulkner. No Chicago preacher talking the language of the heart to a Southern Negro congregation ever dipped my heart in the "recollection" and cleansed me in the blood in Mccarthy's world as Faulkner's world made real.

[@goodnightvienna8511]

Wow that’s an interesting statement. Your favourite Faulkner…let me guess “As I lay Dying” ?

[@reaganwiles_art]

@@goodnightvienna8511 I like it but not my favorite. Really it's the whole thing especially all the Yoknapatawpha story, Flags, Sound and the Fury, Go Down Moses, etc. and the great short stories.

[@goodnightvienna8511]

@@reaganwiles_art thank you for your reply. Do you like Dostoevsky?

[@reaganwiles_art]

@@goodnightvienna8511 I have as a goal to read Brothers K. I've begun. I read an abridged copy once where that was all I could get, and I've listened to it on audiobook. I've read the other big books and most early and late small novels and stories; although I've never read Poor Folk.

[@goodnightvienna8511]

@@reaganwiles_art ok 👌 I like Bret Easton Ellis and Elroy too . Bye 👋

[@TH3F4LC0Nx]

As much as I love McCarthy I think he was so wrong about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Legitly one of the worst and most overrated books I've ever read. It's just a catalogue of jackassery that pretends to be some grand societal critique. And the writing isn't anything to write home about either. People just like it because they think Thompson was some kind of rebel when really he was just a douche who was so much more dislikable than any of the squares he derides in the book.

[@plaguepandemic5651]

It was never a societal critique, FaLIiLV is about 1960s counter-culture and the hippie-drug-movement. If you thought the point of the book was "hey, society sucks, don't be a square, do lots of acid instead" then you kinda missed it.

[@TH3F4LC0Nx]

@@plaguepandemic5651 The subtitle of the book is literally "A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream". Which it in no way is. It's just Thompson being an insufferable twit and passing his antics off as profundity. It's false advertising.

[@pastorpresent7774]

@@TH3F4LC0Nx In your opinion. McCarthy liked it, so perhaps sometimes people have different points-of-view?

[@TH3F4LC0Nx]

@@pastorpresent7774 Well, I don't know how much a matter of opinion it is that doing copious amounts of drugs, destroying other people's property, and endangering the wellbeing of others does not constitute an exploration of the American Dream, but yes, people's tastes can differ. As I said in my original comment, *I think* McCarthy is so wrong about the book.

[@coltgar2465]

It is entirely a matter of opinion. Everyone will receive the same book in different ways. Your last reply is rather narrow minded, no?

[@jamescareyyatesIII]

Hunter S. Thompson was a better writer than McCarthy. Shoot me. McCarthy"s work is too precious and guarded to be great.

[@charold3]

Well ok. Did not know that. Precious, eh?

[@anthonymusto3537]

Gollum is that you😂

[@patrizios9699]

@@charold3yeah, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean either 🤔

[@nl3064]

I am a huge fan of both (both of them, amongst my five favorite writers) so I won't fight you, but it seems like your complaint is not so much McCarthy, but his fan base (if I'm reading that right? Your comment is a little too broad). If you feel the fan base are obnoxious, why are you taking it out on McCarthy himself?

[@nl3064]

@@DoctorFreckles ah, I thought I misunderstood his comment. Yeah, the "precious and guarded" part doesn't even make enough sense to laugh at. They're both top-notch in their respective form, let's leave it at that. It's like comparing Joyce's stream-of-consciousness to Shakespeare's playwriting.

[@ViralBitsdotcom]

Fear and Loathing is brilliant and very funny. Unfortunately the material didn’t translate into a very good movie.

[@goodnightvienna8511]

Agreed. It’s impossible to convey some novels into film- Two examples- War and Peace and Naked Lunch. Utter failures each . However, Dr. Zhivago is a triumph of human endurance put to film . One of the best . Also To Kill a Mokingbird . Blood Meridian was will be, is impossible to film and grasp the fear that you have as read. However, No Country for Old Men is an excellent example of a successful transition to film- I just wish more people read the book as they are missing out on Anton Chigurghr’s philosophic / McCarthy’s output. Let me know if you like any books to film ?

[@timyoung8935]

Hate me for saying this but writers from the South rule. Like H S Thompson.. Anyway always found CM`s stuff to be soulless.

[@WriteConscious]

Lol, you disproved your own comment. Cormac lived in TN until he was 41 and was far more southern than Hunter. That's why he is a way better author!

[@timyoung8935]

@@WriteConscious you you should not ranked authors anyway don't care to type using microphone I don't care where my car keys from he's still so less and I never said where he was from not car keys anyway take care

[@goodnightvienna8511]

I like the author of Winters Bone, sorry I forget the name , excellent film also . In the Southern Gothic Tradition. I See McCarthy as a Border writer / Texas : Mexico .