Hell's Angels : A Strange and Terrible Saga

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Summary: An entertaining and funny look back at a different time
Review: Hell's Angels is a Thompson classic. It is a tale that not only covers the Hell's Angels from the inside, but also an expose on irresponsible reporting that drove America into a frenzy over the outlaw motorcycle group. While the book is dated as a whole, I feel that Thompson's depiction of the American response to the Hell's Angels is very relevant today. It showed me that our society that is seemingly ruled by fear, uncertainty and doubt has indeed been present for quite some time now.

Overall, Hell's Angels is an amusing, funny and at times shocking read. Highly Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Good, ,
Review: I love his style, its different, unique, I think its wonderful, this is a very enjoyable book.

Rating:
Summary: Before Altamont, An Amazing Chronicle
Review: The complete history of the notorious motorcycle gang up to 1965. This is an amazing achievement and in my eyes one of the greatest works of non-fiction in twentieth century english literature.

Thompson (R.I.P.) was one of the greatest journalists of our time, but more than that he deserves the same respect as Ginsberg and Kerouac in regards to his contributing to America's reputation as a home for people with an insatiable hunger for human experience.

Unfortunately, he left us when perhaps we needed him most. As second hand human experience (i.e. the voyeristic tendencies of a culture hypnotized by "reality" T.V.) has become almost more important than the first hand variety.

"Gonzo" journalism was all about becoming involved. It was raw enthusiasm and gusto, not that Hunter didn't do a lot of research as well. This is his ultimate work, though I would never discount "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", but it worked better as a memoir than a piece of journalism.

"Hell's Angels" will always be my favorite by Thompson, it is an amazingly penetrating analysis, where the reporter really get's under the skin of his subject. What makes it so entertaining is the great sympathy Thompson feels for the Angels. I'm sure he had much more respect for their brazen and amoral ways than he ever had for the zombies that inhabit the cozy living rooms of the American comma ward known as the heartland.

Who will fill the shoes of this giant, and those of his mentors?

I know not.

Rating:
Summary: Thompson stole an adjectival phrase from Fitzgerald
Review: Regarding that tagline: "A strange and terrible saga". For what it's worth (not much, admittedly, but feel free to congratulate me nevertheless), I just discovered that the phrase "strange and terrible" didn't originate with Thompson. But rather with one of Thompson's favorite writers.

From THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "His memories of the Boston Society Contralto were nebulous and musical. She was a lady who sang, sang, sang, in the music room of their house on Washington Square---sometimes with guests scattered all about her, the men with their arms folded, balanced breathlessly on the edges of sofas, the women with their hands in their laps, occasionally making little whispers to the men and always clapping very briskly and uttering cooing cries after each song---and often she sang to Anthony alone, in Italian or French or in a strange and terrible dialect which she imagined to be the speech of the Southern negro."

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Summary: underestimated
Review: The book was very interesting and so intrigueing. Where can I read more about where this book left off? Better yet, what other books are there that relate the early history about the Red and White or the one percenters? I love the 60s especially ideas and trends that were pushed underground and that the status quo desperately tried to ignore or tried to relegate to obscurity. Those trends had real meaning and artistic value. But it is precisely why this book was so fascinating to me. I guess the status quo's intentions backfired in a major way. This book also demonstrates how the outlaw bikers actually set off certain trends like tattoos and piercings which are quite popular among the "artists" and "art" of today...actually quite boring and predictible like today's "music". The attached chains on the wallets, tattoos, and piercings had already been done by a more interesting subculture in the late 50s and early 60s which were totally rejected by most people. This book offered a glimpse into something I really had little knowledge about. Today's youthful culture think that they are doing something original and interesting with tattoos and piercings but they don't even come close to the counterculture of the late 50s and 60s, particularly the outlaw culure.

As for the Hunter S. Thompson's other famous book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,...what a bore. I disagree that it's a better book than this one that I'm reviewing. In fact, it's totally the opposite. Hells Angels left me with more hunger to gobble up more material related to the Red and White and outlaw bikers in particular. I had to almost force myself to read Fear and Loathing. Drugs can sometimes have the opposite effect on creativity, and it seems that drugs and writing were not a good mix for Hunter S. Thompson when he wrote Fear and Loathing.

Rating:
Summary: Hunter S. Thompson is an a$$hole.
Review: This guy is a self-inflating ballon. No one and nothing is as important in his eyes as he is. His opinion of himself and the world around him is all that really matters. His ability to cunningly insinuate himself into the minds of others dramatically increases the danger he poses. If you have the misfortune to be assigned one of his books in a college class, lament that no one has made "Cliff Notes."