So I'm reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas again. I think this is the fourth time. It's not a particularly difficult tome, hell Hunter S. Thompson was a reporter and it shows with his intentionally accessible style, but I noticed a few things last time I read it and it got me thinking.
See, a good way to read it is as a spirit journey. For the very first thing, the subtitle is 'A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Dream', so it's said there right on the cover they're moving through a dream. Doctor Gonzo is apparently Thompson's spirit guide, instructing him on how to behave, what he should do next, drawing him back when he tries to leave. They're constantly taking mescaline. Their first encounter is with a character that doesn't come with them, but one that Thompson runs into when he tries to leave, a gate-keeper of sorts. Animal similes are used to describe nearly everyone. We get pigs, snakes, a bulldog, the lobby full of lizard people. Thompson and his lawyer never give their real names, which would give anyone power over you in the spirit world, instead using the aliases Raoul Duke and Doctor Gonzo.
I'm reading it again and I'm noticing more. But the main point of a spirit journey is to do something, to get fire and bring it back or wrest a secret from the dead, and all they do is see where they failed.
Anyway, I really shouldn't read it. Reading it's like having a bucket full of bad ideas on my head while rolling around in a bathtub of chaos: perfect monster medicine. I'm not sure that's what I need right now.