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Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews With Hunter S. Thompson (2009)

by Hunter S. Thompson(Favorite Author)

4.01 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Da Capo Press

review 1: Obviously there's a fair amount of repetition as well as some contradiction given how many interviews are contained here and how much chronological ground they cover (Hell's Angels-era until pretty near the end). Likewise, this is more or less only going to appeal to the thoroughly converted. Those two things said, there's a lot of gold in here for those who are interested, in terms of insight into both Thompson as a person and politics and journalism, as well as plenty of moments of great hilarity. He sure didn't like Doonsbury...
review 2: I'm of mixed opinion on this book. The book exclusively covers Hunter's appearance in the media -- television and the published word -- as the subject of interviews chronologically. Because like today, most media appearan... moreces were timed to releases of his own books or otherwise, you will frequently find interviews here that happen around the same time, meaning that the questions and his answers, repeat quite a bit. While that repetition means, I've got a solid understanding of Hunter's time line now, it made the book difficult to read cover-to-cover, as it felt like you were reading the same ideas over and over again. Nevertheless, there's some great stuff in here too: like how Hunter's answers change over the 30-40 years of questions, how his perception of himself (road man for the lords of karma) differs from his public image, how frustrated he was consistently by Trudeau's Hunter character in Doonesbury, and his complicated relationship to Gonzo, a term adopted by Hunter to describe his unique contribution to journalism. I recommend this one for serious Hunter fans only. It's best read in short segments -- the natural breaks in the work as you move from interview to interview -- lends itself to this approach, perhaps interspersed with a collection of his writings, like the Great Shark Hunt. less

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