The Red Shark and the White Whale
The Red Shark and the White Whale
Att’y: Let me explain it to you, let me run it down just briefly if I can. We’re looking for the American Dream, and e were told it was somewhere in this area . . . . Well, we’re here looking for it, ‘cause they sent us out here all the way from San Francisco to look for it. That’s why they gave us this white Cadillac, they figure that we could catch up with it in that . . .
Waitress: Hey Lou, you know where the American Dream is?
Att’y (to Duke): She’s asking the cook if he knows where the American Dream is.
Waitress: Five tacos, one taco burger. Do you know where the American Dream is?
Lou: What’s that? What is it?
Att’y: Well we don’t know, we were sent out here from San Francisco to look for the American Dream, by a magazine, to cover it.
Lou: Oh, you mean a place.
Att’y: A Place called the American Dream.
Lou: Is that the old Psychiatrists’ Club
Waitress: I think so
Att'y: The old Psychiatrist’s Club?
Lou: Old Psychiatrists Club, it’s on Paradise . . . Are you guys serious?
Att’y: Oh, no honest, look at that car, I mean, do I look like I’d own a car like that?
Lou: Could that be the old Psychiatrists’ Club? It was a discotheque place . . .
Att’y: maybe that’s it
Waitress: It’s on Paradise and what?
Lou: Ross Allen had the old Psychiatrists’ Club. Is he the owner now?
Duke: I don’t know.
Att’y: All we were told was, go till [sic] you find the American Dream. Take this white Cadillac and go find the American Dream. It’s somewhere in the Las Vegas area.
Lou: That has to be the old. . .
Att’y: . . . and it’s a silly story to do, but you know, that’s what we get paid for.
Lou: Are you taking pictures of it, or . . .
Att’y: No, no--no pictures.
Lou: . . . Or did somebody just send you on a goose chase?
Att’y: It’s sort of a wild goose chase, more of less, but personally, we’re dead serious.
Lou: That has to be the old Psychiatrists’ Club, but the only people who hang out there is a bunch of pushers, peddlers, uppers and downers, and all that stuff.
Att’y: Maybe that’s it. Is it a night-time place or is it an all day . . .
Lou: Oh, honey, this never stops. But it’s not a casino.
Duke: What kind of place is it?
Lou: It’s on Paradise, uh, the old Psychiatrists’ Club’s on Paradise.
Att’y: It that what it’s called, the old Psychiatrists’ Club?
Lou: No, that is what it used to be, but someone bought it . . . But I didn’t hear about it as the American Dream, it was something like, associated with, uh . . . It’s a mental joint, where all the dopers hang out.
Att’y: A mental joint? You mean like a mental hospital?
Lou: No, honey, where all the dope peddlers and all the pushers, everybody hangs out. It’s a place where all the kids are potted when they go in, and everything . . . But it’s not called what you said, the American Dream.
Att’y: Do you have any idea what it might be called? Or more or less where it might be located?
Lou: Right off of Paradise and Eastern.
Waitress: But Paradise and Eastern are parallel.
Lou: Yeah, but I know I come off Easter, and then I go to Paradise . . .
Waitress: Yeah I know it, but then that would make it off Paradise around the Flamingo, straight up here. I think somebody’s handed you a . . .
Att’y: We’re staying at the Flamingo. I think this place you’re talking about and the way you’re describing it, I think that maybe that’s it.
After more confusion regarding the location of the old Psychiatrist’s Club, which is never verified as being called the American Dream, Duke and his attorney find the burnt foundation. Duke is searching for the American Dream, not a physical structure but the myth of the American ethos with which anyone, through hard work, can go from rags to riches.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson. It was originally released as a serial for Rolling Stone Magazine, which follows the escapades of Raoul Duke1, accompanied by his lawyer Dr. Gonzo, through a violent escapade as he attempts and fails to cover the Mint 400 race and the National District Attorney’s Drug Conference while searching for the American Dream, fueled and filtered by alcohol and a pharmacopeia of illicit drugs. Due to its composition, the chapters are only loosely connected which, as a whole, creates an unwieldy series on non-sequiturs to form a non-linear plot. This excerpt is from what later became chapter 9, part 2, titled Break Down on Paradise Blvd. It is the only section which was not written by Hunter S Thompson himself; instead it was written verbatim from a recording made by Thompson. As such, it contains no commentary or description of the events, merely objective dialogue.
This roman a clef is a subject recounting of two separate trips to Las Vegas with Oscar Zeta Acosta. The first trip offers the two an excuse to escape the racial tension in Los Angeles following the murder of Ruben Salazar.2 Though this was the impetus behind the trip, it is not present in the novel. The Mint 400 and the Drug Conference were assignments given to Thompson by Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone Magazine respectively. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is what Thompson produced from these two assignments which, though failing to meet his obligations to cover the two events, captures a moment in time in which one cultural movement is completed and another begins.
The novel opens abruptly with two unnamed characters racing through the desert in a red convertible, suffering hallucinations from unnamed drugs with an unnamed purpose:
“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like ‘I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . . .’ And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: ‘Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?’”3
It offers no introduction or background to the characters. The opening paragraphs are focused on the outrageous quantities of drugs and alcohol, which will shape the exaggerated reality and fantasy that are the hallmarks of Thompson’s style.
The vehicle which the narrator procures is indicative of the mood of the novel. The first car is named the Great Red Shark after a predatory animal. It is a highly visible car, unusual in Las Vegas, foreign to it. Thompson brings it with him from California, the cite of his continual reveries of the hippy era. In Part 2, Duke exchanges the Red Shark for the White Whale, which brings to mind Moby Dick and the failures of a mad man searching for the impossible which has already maimed him and which ultimately destroys him.
With the advent of the hitchhiker, Duke begins to narrate the events leading up to the present, but not as a means of background for the reader. By introducing the hitchhiker, the scene in Los Angeles when Duke receives the assignment becomes foreground, the present telling that occasion rather than a recounting of the past. We, the readers, are kept in the narrator’s present moment, hearing the story spoken. Even later, when the narration is consciously looking backward to events past, the narration does not travel back in time to what Duke is feeling or thinking or experiencing in the past; the narration follows Duke’s feelings and thoughts of experiencing those events in his memory (or of his failure to remember them).
Although the opening chapter tries to address the topic of the text, the impetus behind the story, the narration is constantly side-tracked, lost to the whimsy of whatever drugs are momentarily affecting the narrator. The plot veers back to the race and away again. After the initial starts of the first few dozen bikers, Thompson does not document any of the facts of the race. The story details his failed attempts to complete the story as he wanders through the desert dust trying to find the racers but the race has gotten away from him. The narrative constantly loops to and away from the race and, later, the drug convention.
Chapter 7, Part I, describes a series of events revolving around a scene in an elevator between Dr. Gonzo, Lacerda and an unnamed woman. The narrative opens after the Duke and Dr. Gonzo return from Circus-Circus to their hotel room. Duke discovers that Dr. Gonzo has stolen the key to the photographer’s room in response to an event in the elevator which had occurred hours earlier. After recounting the episode, the narration moves back into the present where that previous event has taken on an added significance. The recounting is not a mere flashback to inform the reader of current references; it is present in the mind of Duke as his attorney rants about Lacerda. As the narrative wanders toward and away from the magazine story, so too does Duke’s mind toward and away from the present, rediscovering the past as it relates to the here and now. The past is not merely re-presented but fulfilled.
This occurs both on the micro level, such as in the scene just described, and on the macro level. The majority of the narrative is concerned with the events unfolding in the narrators present, 1971. However, it often describes events during the hippy epoch from 1965-1969, not only reminiscing about those times but evaluating them according to what has happened in response to those situations. These musings are not mere recollections of a golden past, they are ghosts which haunt the present not only of the narrator but the entire zeitgeist of the 60’s counterculture.
Over and over, Duke ponders how he ended up in these situations: “How could it happen?”4 “What the fuck was I doing out here?”5. “I recognize this feeling: three or four days of booze, drugs, sun, no sleep and burned out adrenalin reserves--a giddy, quavering sort of high that means the crash is coming. But when?”6 While his questions obviously pertain to the situation at hand, they also lend themselves to the social commentary that intersperses the plot. Thompson is describing the savage world in which he finds himself--not only the gaudy lust that is Las Vegas but the horrific reality of the fallout of the 60’s. The narrative not only captures Duke’s exploits in 1971 Las Vegas, but encompasses all of America in that moment from the vantage point of Las Vegas. We are reminded of the Manson Family murders (which many declared the end of the 60’s), Muhammad Ali’s defeat by Joe Frazier, the Kent State shooting, the Vietnam War, the paranoia and hostility of Richard Nixon toward the hippy generation--all ruptures in the culture of peace, exploration, sexual freedom and equal rights. These events of the 60’s and early 70’s are present in the thoughts of the narrator who is trying to grapple with the reality he finds himself in, aware that he is a relic of a past era. These experiences, these thoughts, doubts and feelings, are the crystallization, the figural fulfillment of 1971, the disillusionment felt by the counterculture and the inability to deal with or even comprehend their failure.
Alongside social commentary on the transition from the 60’s to the 70’s, Thompson describes in vulgar and grotesque rhetoric his experiences. In Fear and Loathing, the ambiguity of reality and fantasy is pushed to the limit where it is obvious at many points that what is recorded does not represent what truly occurred. However, it is never clear what is an accurate portrayal of Duke’s drug experiences and what is a complete but mad fantasy included to intensify the reality that is already distorted and exaggerated.
“The Circus-Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This is the sixth Reich. The ground floor is full of gambling tables, like all the other casinos . . . but the place is about four stories high, in the style of a circus tent, and all manner of strange County-Fair/Polish Carnival madness is going on up in this space. Right above the gambling tables the Forty Flying Carazito are doing a high-wire trapeze act, along with four muzzled Wolverines and the Six Nymphet Sisters from San Diego . . . So you’re down on the main floor playing blackjack, and the stakes are getting high when suddenly you chance to look up, and there, right smack above your head is a half-naked fourteen-year-old girl being chased through the air by a snarling wolverine, which is suddenly locked in a death battle with two silver-painted Polacks who come swinging down from the opposite balconies and meet in the mid-air on the wolverine’s neck . . . Both Polacks seize the animal as they fall straight down towards the crap tables--but they bounce off the net; they separate and spring back up towards the roof in three different directions, and just as they’re about to fall again they are grabbed out of the air by three Korean Kittens and trapezed off to one of the balconies.”
It is obvious to any reader that there were no wolverines flying on trapezes, but it is difficult to discern if this is what Thompson saw through the ether or an intentional and conscious exaggeration of a flamboyant circus act or a sober and entirely fictional element added to exaggerate the preposterous and grotesque carnival atmosphere maintained at Circus-Circus.
Thompson’s style alternates between a rapid depiction of scene, persons, dialogue and thoughts assaulting the reader with information and eloquent social commentary. The former belongs to the realm of fiction, the latter to journalism. However, these elements are not distinct in Thompson’s work, they blend and collide, making it unclear to which genre his works belong.
Thompson belonged to the school of New Journalism. New Journalism was a response to traditional journalism which presented events in removed objectivity. Writers of New Journalism felt that this method of journalism no longer properly represented reality.7 It diverged from traditional methods by incorporating elements of fiction within non-fiction works. New Journalism is concerned with a humanist approach, what the subject was thinking and feeling.8 Tom Wolfe named this style in his 1973 anthology, The New Journalism. His style included “famously experimental vocabulary, alliteration, phrases from pop culture, long sentences, and unusual punctuation contribut[ed] to the feeling that we are in the mind of his characters and convey an immediacy and spontaneity of expression.”9 New Journalism did not efface fact and objectivity from journalism, but rather added the subjective effects reality had on individuals.
Thompson’s previous book, Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga, included all of these elements but broke through the confines of journalism. Fact and fiction are blurred. Thompson admits within the book itself that the members of the Hell’s Angels disputed much of what Thompson wrote. He defends the authenticity of his story, claiming that every incident occurred as he wrote it and asserting that the Angels denied some of the events or the extremity of their actions to defend their reputations and keep themselves out of jail. Despite this, the ambiguity remains as neither source can claim reliability. To further compromise the position of both parties, drugs and alcohol were frequently involved in the Angels’ gathering which may account for the distortion of reality on behalf of both the cyclists and the author.
However, Thompson’s main breakthrough is not in his combination of grotesque reality alongside fantasy in journalism but his introduction of his own point of view. Hell’s Angels is a first person narrative in which Thompson attempts to enter the horrifying world of motorcycle outlaws in order to accurately portray their activities, thoughts and feelings. While he attempts to maintain a certain distance from the events, he is ultimately drawn into them, either by the events, the angels or himself. He was incapable to mere observation; participation was necessary to gain the trust of his subjects and his participation became part of the narrative, part of the story he was covering.
Due to the first person narrative of Fear and Loathing, the process of journalism becomes part of the story itself. The assignment, his coverage the event, Thompson’s experiences while covering the event, his writing processes are woven into the narrative as part of the integral experience of the journalist. For Thompson, method bled into style. Present in the text are references to his method for collecting information later to be recorded for publication.
“Saturday midnight . . . Memories of this night are extremely hazy. All I have, for guide-pegs, is a pocketful of keno cards and cocktail napkins, all covered with scribbled notes. Here is one: ‘Get the Ford man, demand a Bronco for race-observation purposes . . . Photos? . . . Lacerda/call . . . Why not a helicopter? . . . Get on the phone, lean on the fuckers . . . Heavy yelling.’
Another says: ‘Sign on Paradise Boulevard- “Stopless and Topless” . . . bush-league sex compared to L.A.; pasties here-total naked public humping in L.A. . . .Las Vegas is a society of armed masturbators/gambling is the kicker here/sex is extra/weird trip for the high rollers . . . House whores for winners, hand jobs for the bad luck crowd.’”
Chapter 6, (41). These notes were not edited or expanded into full events. These jotted thoughts, as the recordings of his thoughts in situ, are the remains of his true experience and thus the only authentic recording he can provide. Thompson wrote in the moment, attempting to record what occurred, how he felt and what he thought as it was happening.
As that is not always convenient or even possible, he also employed a recording device to capture what was spoken and later copied transcripts of his recording to aid his compositions. These recordings are what made our original excerpt part of the book. Thompson was notorious for withholding his manuscripts to prevent them from being edited, fact checked or censored before going to print. However, as in the case with our excerpt, Thompson also failed at times to meet his deadline, giving rise to hasty and innovative compilations and articles which suited his style. Thompson wanted his works published with “no alterations in the darkroom, no cutting or cropping, no spotting . . . No editing.”10
This style of journalism, while falling within the bounds of New Journalism, was something else altogether: Gonzo Journalism. This style of writing was Thompson’s great innovation. He does not stand idly and passively by, observing his “story” objectively and detached. Instead, he participates and engages with the events and people, actively shaping and experiencing the story.11 While this is more true or part two of Fear and Loathing, it is present from the beginning:
“But what was the story? Nobody had bothered to say. So we would have to drum it up on our own. Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism.”12
Duke has not received instructions or a guide for the contents of his article, only the event. He thus elects to create the story and decide for himself what is relevant, what will be included, what will be privileged. This is further developed at the Drug Conference:
“It [National District Attorney’s Drug Conference] was going to be quite a different thing from the Mint 400. That had been an observer gig, but this one would need participation . . . .”13
True to form, Duke infiltrates the conference, impersonating a private investigator, manipulating the other attendees with heinous lies. The White Whale, a Coup de Ville, becomes his mode of transportation. Like Duke, it blends in to the Las Vegas scenery, granting him the ability to experience the Drug conference from within, participating without appearing aberrant.
Secondly, Gonzo Journalism, to a certain degree, abandons fact over rhetoric. Thompson based this on Faulkner’s idea that “the best fiction is far more true than any kind of journalism.”14 This is the driving force behind his style. For Thompson, fiction was not “more true” than journalism but “both ‘fiction’ and ‘journalism’ are artificial categories; and that both forms, at their best, are only two different means to the same end.”15 Style is equally important to accuracy in representing reality. Writing subjectively in first person, recording his own thoughts and feelings, manipulating events, detailing the hallucinations and distortions of the various drugs which influenced his perceptions-all these taken together recreate not the cold, dead “facts” but the impression of them on the writer. Gonzo Journalism is, in a sense, impressionist literature. Lines and boundaries are distorted, objects are blurred capturing only their essences, but the reader is indelibly imprinted with the sense of being there, in the moment, looking out through the eyes of the journalist. There is a hard reality to the story, but it is the singular reality of the individual narrating the story.
“The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” an article Thompson wrote for Scanlan’s Monthly, is the first article which Thompson labeled “Gonzo.”16 His coverage of the Kentucky Derby focused on the spectators rather than the race, which Thompson was unable to see from the press stand. It is a record of the drunkenness and lewdness of those present at the Derby, in which Thompson and artist Ralph Steadman actively participated. Thompson spent much of the article searching for a caricature image of the spectators which he discovered in the mirror reflection of himself at the end of the story. This article combined his memoir style of narrative, active participation in his journalistic endeavors, and unruly, drug fueled behavior that became the hallmarks of Gonzo Journalism and Thompson’s style. Thompson was unable to piece together a coherent, polished article to submit and instead sent in whole pages of his notes which were then published.
Hunter believed this novel to be a failed attempt at Gonzo Journalism because it was edited. Fear and Loathing weaves together events that took place in a span of months into a couple of drug fueled days, creating an artificial narrative of excess. He was thus unable to realize fully his innovative style. However, if Fear and Loathing was a failure of Gonzo Journalism as a radical attempt to change the way reality was experienced, then it was the failure of the 60's counterculture to realize this same dream. Just as Ahab chased his White Whale to his destruction, so too did the hippy generation realize their own demise when, chasing their dreams of peace, equality and understanding, they ran against the gross monstrous reality awaiting them.