Much to the chagrin of my inner beatnik, I stumbled upon the lesser known works of Hunter S
Thompson’s The Great Shark Hunt surprised by the very human element that fundamentally lies at
the forefront of this work.
The Great Shark is a collection of his printed works that have appeared mainly in 1970’s Rolling Stone. The self-styled king of gonzo-journalism takes aim and shoots high at the Nixon campaign, and all his establishment buddies, taking no prisoners along with him. Though his well documented drug use is in the background of his writing (“he was confronted by a with a 6ft blue black serpent slithering rapidly up the stairs”, hmmm) it does not lie at the forefront of his thinking.
This book should be dipped into every so often, as Hunter S Thompson is at his superhuman and scary best. His article on the plight of the Incan Indian (He haunts The Ruins of His Once Great Empire) is as fresh as if it would have been written by any journalist today. Thompson isn’t afraid to chew up the facts and spit them out all over what he believes to be the American nightmare. His devastating portrayal of an ageing Mohamed Ali is of the most poignant examples of a fallen idol in American literature.
It is a pity then, as when I referred to my inner beatnik, that one person should so remember for getting high. Depictions in cinema, such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas have done nothing to help this (but he probably didn’t care as he featured in a cameo in the film).
This is a Where the Buffalos Roam kind of book, smart, funny, and achingly human. It is not only essential Hunter S Thompson, but essential reading.
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