Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga by Hunter S. Thompson Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga
Book Review: Fascinating look into an underworld
Summary: 4 Stars
Hunter holds himself back and lets the story tell itself. That's is both good and bad. I am a big fan of his Gonzo-style and must admit I missed it. In "Hell's Angels" his writing style was supplanted by the lifestyle he adopted for a year in order to journalize the "trips" of the notorious California Motorcycle gang. Unless you were previously exposed to some (true) stories of the Hell's Angels, much of this book will be eye-opening for the gang did and didn't do. I hadn't been and only knew the myth perpatrated by the media. Hunter does his best to expose the NY Times, Time Magazine and others for their taget-picking, fear-baiting, if-we-printed-it-it-must-be-real style of reporting and de-myths many of the groups exploits. Hunter focuses his story of two or three "runs" the Angel's take. He captures the anti-social attitudes and behaviors of the gang without judging and relates the booze, pills, sex and thuggery stories without embellishment (or so it seemed to me). Read this book if you've ever wondered what the gang life was like for this group of misfits '60's drop-outs. Read this book if you enjoy HST and his eye for the real story.Book Review: Gonzo Boingo Baddo Booko
Summary: 1 Stars
Everyone else can applaud this Hunter Thompson if they want. I read this book with no preconceived notion regarding its author, and I can state with no hesitancy that it reads as little more than a star-struck tribute. Mr. Thompson takes great pains to show how misunderstood these fellows are, and how a few random rapes and assaults are misportrayed by the multitudes of journalists who are less insightful than he. Although the Hell's Angels are outdated and tame by today's Crip and Blood standards, there remains a chilling message: bad people exist and bad sycophantic writers exist to worship them.Book Review: Gonzo Goes Hog Wild
Summary: 5 Stars
Roll up your sleeves boys and girls, if you read Hell's Angels the Doctor is going to inject you with a dosage of Outlaw Reality and Hog Rage as it were. The Hell's Angels are the last vestiges of the American Outlaw, 1%'s they're called, outside the outside, committed to a life of Freedom, punctuated by violence, booze, barbituates, indiscriminate sex and of course cruising the Amercian Wastelands on their Great Metallic Steeds, stripped down Harley Davidson's known affectionately as Hogs.
Hunter S. is in his own right a one percenter. This book shows the Dr. of Gonzo's journalistic zeal, as he braves the world of the Angels, driving not a Hog as he should but a Dark Shadow. This is only too perfect as Hunter is the dark specter following the dastardly deeds of these bastard bikers. This book displays Hunter's ballsy journalism, as well as allowing him to focus on a central theme that would go on to pervade his other works: the outlaw and his importance to American society, a society that is dredged to the hilt with phonies, gutless wonders, souless greedmongers, hypocrites, cowards, politicians and other scum, capitalisitc, bureacratic, pig-like and otherwise. Hell's Angels is the journalistic calm that precedes the storm of hallucinagenic brilliance that was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. So one way or the other let the Doctor of Gonzo vaccinate your mind from the mindless surge that makes up the money grubbing, TV watching majority of this Great Country of OursBook Review: Good, ,
Summary: 4 Stars
I love his style, its different, unique, I think its wonderful, this is a very enjoyable book.Book Review: Gripping portrait of the counter-counterculture
Summary: 4 Stars
Hell's Angels begins: "California, Labor Day weekend . . . early, with ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw motorcyclists wearing chains, shades and greasy Levis roll out from damp garages, all-night diners and cast-off one-night pads in Frisco, Hollywood, Berdoo and East Oakland, heading for the Monterey peninsula, north of Big Sur... The Menace is loose again, the Hell's Angels, the hundred-carat headline..." With a start like that how could you help but be hooked? This is Hunter before Gonzo.
Hunter Thompson's Hell's Angels is a fantastically written profile of the outlaw motorcycle club from their postwar origins to their explosion on the public conscious in '64-'65. It begins with the Angels gaining nation-wide attention via a fumbled rape trial and follows the surreal path that led to their interactions and then clashes with Ken Kesey and the counter-culture movement.
Hunter takes an odd stance here. He seems to oscillate between respecting their rebelliousness and really looking down on them as worthless losers. This sort of Yin-Yang of the Hell's Angels follows through the book. They are both repellent and attractive and Hunter does a very good job of sussing out why this is in writing that is compelling and often brilliant. Liberally sprinkled with quotes of contemporary articles, song lyrics and scraps of poetry that fit into the text without distracting.
Hell's Angels is a gritty, classic slice of reportage that manages to entertain in the way good fiction entertains with a gripping narrative and larger-than-life characters.