2:35 p.m. - 2007-01-20
book review of KINGDOM OF FEAR by HUNTER S THOMPSON
exercises in writing - book review of KINGDOM OF FEAR by HUNTER S THOMPSON
I bought this book because I've heard of Hunter S Thompson while i was reading some other books, but i've never actually read his stuff before, because my memory was tainted by that awful film, L.A. Confidential which starred Kim Bassinger, (which i thought was based on a book by him) and its plot about a tabloid photojournalist cavorting with a celebrity actress in old big-flashy-camera-bulbs Hollywood, with some police chasing thrown in, was a mess of un-thrilling tommy-gun noir and poorly-faked insider-reporter posturing.
But let us get away from that awful film and talk about Hunter.
In truth, Hunter had written Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, and that was made into a film with the same title. I've gotten that film but i haven't watched it yet. It's supposed to be an account of a drug-fueled, mad roadtrip across America, with a crazy actor (who looks suspiciously like Jim Carrey, and acts hyper like him) who smokes a cigarette with a long cigarette holder stuck perpetually at the side of his mouth, and whose appearance is safari hat, sunglasses, shirt, white tennis shorts with pulled up white socks and sneakers. Like a summer day on the tennis court, but have to run off because a new load of drugs and guns to offer a better time has arrived.
My memory is shot-gone.
If you ask me to name a nice passage from the book Kingdom of Fear, i really couldn't do it without cheating, like flipping the pages. I can only score if this was an open-book test.
That is why i have the book now beside me.
i love the cover. I like the picture of Hunter S thompson in an outlaw cowboyish hat (on a divergent note, it seems that cowboys have historically been the ones at the frontiers, near the wild lands, the outcasts, with different sexualities, and its not a novelty invented by Brokeback Mountain.) and his right hand held up like pointing a gun to his head(he committed suicide some time after this last book; i don't know how long it was, but don't place too much significance on this coincidence)and his left hand holding a drink, presumably alcoholic.
I like the stark painted slightly off kilter irregular words on the white background. I even bought a paintbrush with black ink so that i can do some writing like that. It has a certain beautiful wild quality in it.
i've finished reading this book and the stories and stuff inside are quite a good telling about the man himself and how his extensive resources about the law and his good lawyer friends (and actors like Jack Nicholson, & Colonel Johnny Depp [yes that actor] who brought in a load of tattoo, pornography, absinthe, & assorted paraphernalia in his luggage to visit Hunter in Cuba), have served to both helped him in his brushes with authority and also widened the public sphere on civil liberty and rather commonsensical rights, when there are vicious cruel assholes who'd like to see more people in jail.
If there's one thing that i should take away from the book and keep in mind, it is these (and actually it's not one):
1. Not all lawyers are evil and bad. Generalisation is a defect of the lazy mind.
2. "The only way for evil to triumph in this world is for good men to do nothing."
3.If something is wrong, don't be afraid to speak out.
okay, this is it, end of my book review.
