Wired Mesh

The Hunter is a Lonely Heart

I never really understood Hunter S. Thompson. That''s a remarkably stupid sentiment, of course, especially from somebody who never met the guy, read only samples of his books, and didn't live in the '70s. But what I mean to say is that I never entirely grasped his appeal. I suppose you have to have a natural taste for madness -- and I have a pathological terror of it -- to understand exactly why he summoned his muse with violence and drugs. (Lots of drugs.)

I respected his work, certainly. His eulogy for the American counter-cultural movement is the best evocation written about watching a glorious moment fade into a haze: We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark---the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. But I never quite sniffed out the overpowering appeal, what separated him from Hemingway and Kerouac and all those others who wrote when they were dead stoned. (For that sort of thing, I always preferred Bangs.) I think I read him too late, or too self-seriously, or during times when I was too much of a Republican to appreciate him. I'll probably say the same thing if I'm around when Salinger dies.

Tom Wolfe has a fine appreciation in the Wall Street Journal today; he describes the young Thompson as "one of those tall, rawboned, rangy young men with alarmingly bright eyes, who more than any other sort of human, in my experience, are prone to manic explosions." I've only met a few of those men -- one of them writes humor for the Pulse -- but that seems as perceptive a encapsulation as any. I'm always a little afraid of that sort of energy, but I'm impressed by it too, and I'm truly sorry to hear that we've lost one of America's bravest writers. Here's to you, Duke. We lift our Wild Turkey glasses to you.