The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time by Hunter S. Thompson Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time
Book Review: Hilarious and very perceptive
Summary: 5 Stars
It is a pretty rare experience for me to find an author who can make me feel as though I actually understand the culture the author is describing. Many authors are perfectly capable of explaining a culture or a period in time, but I don't find many who do it simply by describing their experiences, but Hunter S. Thompson does so in this book.
This book covers a lot of American culture in the 20th century. Now, I am not a US citizen, nor have I read much US history, but I found Thompson's stories very perceptive and entertaining. Even his coverage of something that sounds as dull as Richard Nixon's presidential campaign and fall are just brilliant. This is one of those few books that has made me laugh out loud.
What I fundamentally love about this book is that it really makes me feel like I'm standing beside the author, in his stories as he tells them. Thompson has a wicked sense of mischief, which goes very well with his "Gonzo" style of journalism. I think that "Gonzo" journalism helps his stories become so vivid because Thompson makes sure that he is not separated from what's going on. In fact, Thompson is often central to the story and yet that doesn't result in the kind of ego-centric story telling one might expect.
If you have any interest in US culture, from 1960 onward, and a love for very perceptive, though often drug addled lunatics as protagonists, then I imagine that you will love this book.
Book Review: History repeats itself
Summary: 5 Stars
"When the going gets weird, the weird go pro."-Hunter S. Thompson
In a time of political peril and rancor in our countries capitol this book speaks volumes.
Hunter S. Thompson provides many snapshots into the American political system with this book. It is not a complete narrative. Rather this book is filled with high lights of Thompson's journalistic works. It is a collection of articles written for the "Rolling Stone," and various other publications.
Due undoubtedly to my youth, I have found the current state of America to be very disturbing. Reading this book has given me a chance to take a deep breath because the problems our country is facing are not new. They are just the same old problems we have always had.
If you are a person that likes to "Bush Bash," this book will give you plenty of new ammunition. Thompson's rants about Nixon are very similar to the things I have heard said about President Bush. Unfortunately, for all of us, the parallels are mostly negative. If President Clinton was a new John F. Kennedy, then "The Great Shark Hunt" has led me to believe President Bush is a new Richard M. Nixon.
Book Review: Incredible Collection
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is really amazing. It spans, not chronilogically, throughout most of Dr. Hunter S Thompson's early/middle stages of his career. It is satirical and hilarious and straight to the point. Straight to the point meaning he does not bite his tongue, especially when speaking about "that twisted beast of a man" Nixon. Sometimes the writing begins getting off on a tangent, but if it didn't then it wouldn't truly be gonzo journalism. This book is incredible!Book Review: Like Hemingway, a prisoner of his era
Summary: 4 Stars
HST, in his essay (included in this book) "What Lured Hemingway to Ketchum?", talks about how Hemingway reflected the Zeitgeist of his time, and as that era faded, Hemingway faded as well. After World War II the world changed, but Hemingway could not, and Hemingway eventually ended his life with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. I was struck, in reading that essay, by how much his observations could have been about Thompson himself. An outrageous, self-indulgent and wild creature of the Sixties, this book captures the height of his creative power and instinct in symbiosis with the memetic explosion of the Sixties. But as the world changed, HST was, like Hemingway, trapped by that declining Zeitgeist. The further the Sixties slid into history, the less relevant Thompson became because, like Hemingway, he was unwilling to adapt. Thompson, like Hemingway, lived the last years of his life in a remote cabin with the few people he still understood. Thompson, like Hemingway, ended his life with a gun.
It's difficult, however, to criticize HST cognizant of how much of our contemporary culture was created or made possible by him. A parallel can be seen in Hunter S. Thompson's contemporary Timothy Leary. It's in vogue among psychedelic people to call Leary, Nixon's "Public Enemy Number One", the worst thing that happened to the psychedelic experiment of the 20th century. Perhaps, but these men, Thompson and Leary, created our world. It's tough to imagine how they, as creative individuals, could have been anything but mirrors of the Zeitgeist. If Thompson had not been a crazy, weird, irresponsible, self-indulgent rogue, what would he have been? He would have been just a failed Air Force sports writer. I firmly believe the same thing of Leary - these men were created by the Sixties and really had no choice about the role they had to play. They had to play the clowns, because the era was a circus.
At least Leary continued to engage the fin de siecle world and strove to stay relevant, for example by being an early pioneer in the personal computer revolution. Thompson narcissistically and lazily rode the wave only until it ebbed, then gave up. Hunter S. Thompson never tried to understand the strange new world that grew around him as the century ended. To our continuing loss, he took the easy way out.
Book Review: Present At the Creation
Summary: 5 Stars
Revised September, 2009
Most of this review of "The Great Shark Hunt" the master journalistic work of the late Hunter S. Thompson, a man much missed in these quarters by this reviewer originally appeared in a review of one of his latter, lesser books, "Songs Of The Doomed". Most of the points made there apply here as well but I want to add some additional comments concerning specific articles which you NEED to read to know what mad man journalism in search of the truth, some truth anyway, was all about.
"Generally the most the trenchant social criticism, commentary and analysis complete with a prescriptive social program ripe for implementation has been done by thinkers and writers who work outside the realm of bourgeois society, notably socialists and other progressive thinkers. Bourgeois society rarely allows itself, in self defense, to be skewered by trenchant criticism from within. This is particularly true when it comes from a known dope fiend, gun freak and all-around lifestyle addict like the late, lamented Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Nevertheless, although he was far from any thought of a socialist solution and would reject such a designation we could travel part of the way with him. We saw him as a kindred spirit. He was not one of us- but he was one of us. All honor to him for pushing the envelope of journalism in new directions and for his pinpricks at the hypocrisy of bourgeois society. Such men are dangerous.
I am not sure whether at the end of the day Hunter Thompson saw himself or wanted to been seen as a voice, or the voice, of his generation but he would not be an unworthy candidate. In any case, his was not the voice of the generation of 1968 being just enough older to have been formed by an earlier, less forgiving milieu. His earlier writings show that effect. Nevertheless, only a few, and with time it seems fewer in each generation, allow themselves to search for some kind of truth even if they cannot go the whole distance. This compilation under review is a hodgepodge of articles over the best part of Thompson's career. As with all journalists, as indeed with all writers especially those who are writing under the pressure of time lines and for mass circulation media these pieces show an uneven quality. However the total effect is to blast old bourgeois society almost to its foundations. Others will have to push on further.
One should note that `gonzo' journalism is quite compatible with socialist materialism. That is, the writer is not precluded from interpreting the events described within himself/herself as an actor in the story. The worst swindle in journalism, fostered by the formal journalism schools, as well as in other disciplines like history and political science is that somehow one must be `objective'. Reality is better served if the writer puts his/her analysis correctly and then gets out of the way. In his best work that was Hunter's way.
As a member of the generation of 1968 I would note that this was a period of particular importance which won Hunter his spurs as a journalist. Hunter, like many of us, cut his political teeth on one Richard Milhous Nixon, at one time President of the United States and all- around political chameleon. His articles beginning in 1968 when Nixon was on his never ending "comeback" trail to his demise in the aftermath of the Watergate are required reading (and funny to boot). Thompson went way out of his way, and with pleasure, skewering that man when he was riding high. He was moreover just as happy to kick him when he was down, just for good measure. Nixon represented the `dark side' of the American spirit- the side that appears today as the bully boy of the world and as craven brute. If for nothing else Brother Thompson deserves a place in the pantheon of journalistic heroes for this exercise in elementary political hygiene. Anyone who wants to rehabilitate THAT man before history please consult Thompson's work. Hunter, I hope you find the Brown Buffalo wherever you are. Read this book. Read all his books."
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Beyond the Nixon-related articles that form the core of the book there are some early pieces that are definitely not Gonzo-like. They are more straightforward journalism to each a buck, although they show the trademark insightfulness that served Thompson well over the early part of his career. Read his pieces on Ernest Hemingway, the non-student left in the 1960's, the impact of the `beats' and about the `hippie' invasion of San Francisco. The seminal piece on the Kentucky Derby in 1970 which is his `failed' initial stab at "gonzo" journalism is a must read. And finally, if nothing else read the zany adventures of the articles that give us the title of the book, "The Great Shark Hunt", and his `tribute' to his friend the "Brown Buffalo" of future legend, Oscar Acosta. Those are high water marks in the great swirl of Hunter S. Thompson's career.