The Wild Strange Ride Of Hunter S. Thompson: Part II

One poem that might summarize the attitude of the way Hunter S. Thompson has lived, can be found in the verse and cantos of, "Lynching in Denver" by Pastor Niemoeller, a victim of the Nazi regime of the l940's. The poem recites,

"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out-- because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out-- because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out-- because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me-- and there was no one left to speak out for me." (4)

Thompson hits his reader with a perspective of anti-authority prose and perception. His style of journalism is biting and holds few barriers in topic or content. He is a writer who is not afraid to cause arguments or create controversy on the issues and problems facing the society of his age. He is not a man who is afraid to ruffle a few feathers, and he has been known to stir the placidity of his fellow observers of the political scene. His brand of rebellion, however, is intellectual. Thompson is not an anarchist, although his lifestyle has taken a turn for the rougher paths existing on the undercurrents of the fringe of society and culture. He is not afraid to live on the fringe, but rarely advises others to follow the path he has chosen. He would warn other writers of the dangers of following in his footsteps, while avoiding giving advice to the steps that they choose to take. He would rather warn others of the areas along the fringe, telling them to travel at their own risk, for such choices of lifestyle often carry with them a huge price. Sacrifice can sum up the life and world of a rebel, and Thompson is not stranger to sacrificing for the craft of his art.

After the success of "Hell's Angels" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", Thompson would soon become immersed in a new genre of high literature of his era. Known as the New Journalism, this new style of writing combines a feeling for a variety of literary themes that had never been described before, an emphatic sense for what the new generation of the sixties desired to hear, and this construction of a new form of presenting the news and the social issues of the day that had been witnessed before in literary journalism. Truman Capote was the first writer to experiment with this new form of journalism, and bring it to the mainstream

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