Fear and Loathing - Fact or Fiction?

Before reading this book, I read a letter from HST in which he claimed that he didn't do any drugs while on this assignment - he wrote the story to give the 'feeling' of a weekend of heavy drug use. I tend to believe that simply because it seems impossible to do the amount of drugs they did and still be able to function.

If the ongoing drug imagery, which occupies about half of the book, was made up, what was Thompson's purpose? It seems to me that he wrote about incredibly transgressive  behavior in an over-the-top style as a contrast to the ridiculousness of ordinary society he encountered. Certainly the girl who painted Barbra Streisand portraits, the cops giving silly lectures on drugs, the self-important news reporters all seem absurd, and perhaps they wouldn't have appeared quite so strange if they weren't juxtaposed with HST and the attorney's actions.

I struggled with myself while reading this book. Some of the scenes were laugh-out-loud funny and all of it had a manic, redlining strain to it. I kept wondering what outrageousness was coming next, which I think was HST's goal. At the same time, I kept wondering how much of it was true. I had difficulty accepting the scene in which the attorney threatened a waitress with a knife, and their callous treatment of a girl they had drugged and raped was horrifying. If they really had destroyed two rental cars and several hotel rooms, these are despicable acts also. I was able to enjoy the story only with a suspension of disbelief, an assurance to myself that much of this probably didn't happen and if it did, no one apparently was hurt too badly.