Proud Highway (Fear and Loathing Letters) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

As the years go on the more this book became more interesting. Between following all over this country we follow him to South America were some of his best articles came from. I have read Hell's Angels and The Great Shark Hunt and found this to tie in with those books. Through his consumption of Old Crow and god only knows what else, we see letters to LBJ, various magazine editors, and Mr. Semonin and start to see the Hunter we all know and love to come out. The thing that makes him "likeable" is his blunt honesty, since he calls them as he sees them. He is intelligent and knows a lot about everything. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read Thompson!

If anything this book offers a chance to see what makes this amazing mind tick!

Thompson is the creator and sole practitioner of "gonzo journalism." One dictionary defines "gonzo" as "exaggerated, highly subjective, and unconventional in style, esp. in journalism." A more accurate definition might be "any writings, shaped under the influence of controlled substances, esp. by Hunter S. Thompson."

And those writings are taken quite seriously. Modern Library, those arbiters of literary good taste, recently validated Thompson's work by issuing his seminal 1971 work Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as a world classic.

Now comes The Proud Highway, a collection of Thompson's early correspondence. Since these were dubbed "The Fear and Loathing Letters, Volume 1," we can assume his more recent correspondence will eventually make it into bookstores, also.

Thompson is the writer's writer; he honed his craft on booze and sleepless nights spent writing letters during his stint as sports editor for an Air Force paper, the Command Courier. In those early letters, the voice we've come to know and love (or hate) steadily emerges: strident, incisive, charming. His first missives are fired at friends and family. But as time passes, he writes to an increasingly larger circle -- incompetent manufacturers, pesky creditors, editors, and various literary giants, including William Faulkner, Tom Wolfe, and Norman Mailer.

Thompson lives his life with uncommon relish, and as his friend William J. Kennedy has said, "Life happens to him in ways alien to most mortals." If his defining characteristic is his maverick style, his rare philosophical musings reflect that style. An ardent fan of Ayn Rand in his 20s, Thompson isn't just individualistic; he's a conscious adherent to the philosophy of individualism. After reading Rand's The Fountainhead in 1957, he writes a friend, "Although I don't feel it's necessary to tell you how I feel about the principle of individualism, I know that I'm going to have to spend the rest of my life expressing it one way or another." Thoughtful words for the man often dismissed as "that substance-abusing gonzo journalist."

Two years later, he distills his philosophy in terms more familiar to his readers: "I damn well intend to keep on living the way I think I should," he writes. Thompson has unquestionably remained true to that informal creed. He has always refused a license to wield his unruly intelligence.

Ironically, at one point, Thompson writes that he's "always thought that letters were a very poor medium to convey any sort of serious meaning." Readers may disagree. Aspiring writers will appreciate The Proud Highway for chronicling one young writer's unorthodox ascent. Fans will appreciate the letters for what they are: vintage Thompson.

--Robert Stribley (9/13/97)