“Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

 

Hunter Stockton Thompson loved to shock his readers. His raw, personalized writing initially alarmed and confused and eventually humored generations in the 60s and 70s. His timing to enter the writing fray with his unorthodox, new journalism style was perfect — just weird enough to be rebellious and just knowledgeable enough to be well-received. Some say he was the only twentieth-century equivalent of Mark Twain. Others say the timing of Thompson’s point of entry into the publishing world was karma; still others may declare God’s will.

Thompson intertwined his writing and personal life, self-consciously living to be outrageous, humorous, and purposely strange in his writing. He liked it that way. He often included a cryptic paragraph on his books’ back flap that divulged little personal information and promoted an enigmatic image. This one was mysterious and unveiled a smidgen of his humor: “Hunter S. Thompson lives in a fortified compound near Aspen, Colorado.”

From the beginning of his published work to his final sentence, Thompson (HST) used humor as a literary device to move a story forward to the benefit of other devices—scene, characterization, tone, setting, and the creation of satire, among others. His snarky sarcasm makes readers laugh-out-loud or, at least, puts a snarky smile on their faces,too, smiles generated by his outrageous treatment of social issues, people, and places, often through witty, personal (reflections.

It is important to note that HST was vital in developing several new genres of journalism: New Journalism (NJ) and Gonzo Journalism, which beg definitions. In traditional journalism, the writer is invisible and reports the facts as objectively as possible—or dies. While Thompson did some writing in this style in the 60s, he and others weren’t satisfied by its constraints, and so developed New Journalism as a way of infusing themselves and their perspectives into their work. Unconventional at the time, it featured a subjective perspective, more like long-form nonfiction, which allowed reporters to immerse themselves in stories they wrote in the first-person. It was the forerunner to contemporary creative nonfiction, which adheres to the facts but uses the devices of fiction writing to bring true stories to life.

Like NJ, in that the writer is a protagonist in a piece, Gonzo journalism allows the writer to reveal personal feelings and mindsets as the story evolves, and “tell it like it is,” again, similar to NJ. Yet, Gonzo is what the word connotes—weird, frightful, occasionally mind-blowing. It can be profane, scornful, socially critical, and self-satirical. All these devices found their way into HST’s 1970 article about the Kentucky Derby, about which a Boston Globe editor, Bill Cardoso, coined the phrase “pure Gonzo” to describe the writing style of the piece. To South Boston Irish, Gonzo is slang for the last man standing after an all-night drinking marathon. Gonzo fits HST professionally and personally.

Lastly, in this vein, HST commented to an editor at Knopf that his Gonzo journalism and his fiction writing don’t need to be differentiated: “Fiction and Gonzo are a bridge to the truth that traditional journalism can’t reach. Facts are lies lined up.” HST became unconstrained when he let loose Gonzo’s potential in his fiction pieces, works that bristled with a smaller pretense of accuracy and abounded with absurdity.

In his fiction, HST humorously portrayed himself and his colleagues as rudderless druggies while advancing his outrageous opinions on critical social issues, political figures, and sports icons with text that lived somewhere between fact and fiction. His novels and magazine pieces both alarmed and amused critics and readers. Through his use of humor, Thompson helped both to see his points of view and made them squirm, if just a little, from his reckless lifestyle. HST was an avant-garde comedian, a shrewd observer, and a scarce and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

For this piece, two of Thompson’s books, The Rum Diary and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, are the resources. The featured literary device is the subhead for each quote.

The Rum Diary

Characterization through Humor

Paul Kemp, the anti-hero of The Rum Diary, an alter ego of Thompson’s, was a writer for the San Juan Daily News. Bob Sala, the paper’s photographer, and Kemp became unlikely friends. When they talked casually at the office, Sala had a habit of leaning back in his chair to contemplate the ceiling.

. . . scratching his wiry head from time to time and apparently drifting off to some happier land where there were good restaurants and no thieves. He looked out of place here—more like a ticket-taker at some Indiana carnival. His teeth were bad, he needed a shave, his shirt was filthy, and his shoes look like they came from the Goodwill.

This passage is typical of Thompson’s use of humorous characterization to establish relationships. As in this example, the author employs simple, straight-forward diction to characterize actors in his novels. He paints Kemp as an attentive onlooker, noticing tiny details and sizing up people in a flash. In this quote about Bob Sala, he employs direct and indirect characterization in his narrative.

From direct description, the reader comes to know Sala’s hair type, his bad teeth, and his need for a shave and a clean shirt. To Kemp, Sala looked as if he wandered in from the street after a long bout of binge drinking and thought that he was better suited as a county fair barker, hawking tickets to see the five-legged pig, than being in a journalistic snake-pit like the Daily. The humor here emerges from juxtaposition—we don’t expect a news photographer in San Juan to be compared to a county fair barker. The unlikeliness of HST’s descriptions were one of the sources of his effectiveness as a humor writer. And Kemp actively surmises that Sala’s shoes came from a bin in a thrift shop. He “looked out of place” among his co-workers. A reader knows from other text that Kemp, too, felt out of place with his button-down shirt and dated, paisley tie, his ill-kept hair, and his fascination with drink.

Indirectly, there are hints that Sala likes food, is paranoid about his safety, and that he seems to drift off into an imaginary world, a “happier land,” where he seeks a fantastical detachment, if only for a few seconds, like a junkie takes advantage of a quick snort.

Bingo. On many counts, this character is tailor-made for Kemp. Both seem to be slovenly, low self-esteemed, and fast approaching their hump in life, maybe even men on the “brink.” Kemp strikes up a friendship with the photographer. Again, the humor comes from showing such low regard for Sala, yet they become fast-friends.

*

Kemp also struck a friendship with Hal Sanderson, a dashing man who hosted cocktail drinking on his patio overlooking the ocean. Not all the partiers that showed up at Sanderson’s received rave reviews,  and so became victims of Kemp’s vicious and witty characterization.

Zimburger was more beast than human—tall, paunchy and bald, with a face out of some fiendish comic strip. He never got over being a captain in the Marines, wore his uniform on Wednesday or Mondays or Fridays—usually on some flimsy pretext. Once he wore his pistol belt and holster, he had to leave his gun at the base—from time to time, he would slap leather and bark at some imaginary foe outside the door. It was a pitiful sight, and I was always glad when he left. For my money, Zimburger should not only have been penned up like a dog but shot like a mad one. It became obvious to everyone that the man should be strapped up and rolled into the sea like a sack of waste.

Just the name “Zimburger” reminds one of an offensive, smelly, and somewhat cheesy mass. Thompson is at his sarcastic best when he describes this unusual, invented character, a man he loathes as much as any in his literature. The humor of this characterization makes a reader feel a closeness to the oddball, a feeling of sadness for the elephant in the room, hoping all the while, “God, I hope I am not a “Zimburger.” While the use of a word associated with the butt of cheese jokes softens the impact of his nasty observations,  HST’s continued rage toward the former captain in subsequent segments is uncommon to his usual style. In this case, though, perhaps because his anti-military stance jaundiced his view, this characterization seems to go beyond harmless indignation.

Sarcasm through Humor

 

Kemp spent much of his time at Al’s. The setting of the usually crowded café-bar was fertile ground for Kemp to chuckle at the patrons, to loath them in his thoughts, drench them in his condescending sarcasm. Here is his description of the bar’s patrons:

Around us were people I had spent ten years avoiding—shapeless women in wool bathing suits, dull-eyed men with hairless legs and self-conscious laughs, all Americans, all fearsomely alike. These people should be kept at home, I thought; lock them up in the basement of some goddamn Elks Club and keep them pacified with erotic movies; if they want a vacation, show them a foreign art film. . . there was an awful suspicion in my mind that I’d finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn’t feel tragic at all, but only weary, a sort of comfortable detached.

Contemptuous sarcasm is a frequent Thompson device that silently flogs others, as well as his protagonist. Kemp often enjoys his creation of disparaging, cutting thoughts of those around him. By denigrating others, he extricates himself from his unhappiness, removes himself from the harshness of his reality. This complex sentence segment’s syntax is structured with a dash, several semi-colons, eight commas, and an ellipsis, creating the narrative’s rolling nature with no breaks for the reader. The length of the sentence heightens the punch of the sarcasm.

Furthermore, the use of aggressive phrases that emphasize his points would be hurtful if said aloud to the group. Inventive phrases like “shapeless women, dull-eyed men, hairless legs, self-conscious laughs, and fearsomely alike” defile the character of those Kemp looks down upon at happy hour. Raging with contempt, he continues his stream of insults aimed at the bar patrons; “should be kept at home, lock them up, pacify them with erotic movies and a foreign art film for a vacation.”

Yet, this quote also shows the protagonist aiming his sarcastic tone inward, as Kemp comes clean about the possible reason for this burst of negative thoughts. He considers that he silently lashes out because of his fear of impending uselessness. His confused thoughts embody phrases such as “using suspicion, over-the-hump, weary, and comfortably detached.”

When a comedian on stage pokes fun at himself, it endears the artist with the audience. If the humor centers on making fun of others only, the crowd may think the performance is mean-spirited. HST’s self-loathing brings the humor back on himself and makes his deprecation of other characters more acceptable.

 

Cynicism through Humor

 

As a writer for the Daily, Kemp attended swanky cocktail parties with more opportunities for him to loathe more people, ones he considered greedy and cheap. His cynical thoughts add to the tone of the book.

What passed for society was a loud, giddy whirl of thieves and pretentious hustlers, a dull sideshow full of quacks and clowns and philistines with gimp mentalities, it was a new wave of Okies, heading south instead of west and in San Juan they were kingfish because they had literally taken over. They celebrated with an orgy of rum about the opening of a new bowling alley; so many that it was horrible to ponder the meaning of it.

In this humorous excerpt, Thompson pans the business culture of San Juan, and shows deep cynicism regarding those who control much of the city’s commerce. They were a collection of “Okies” and “kingfish,” Kemp calls them; the latter actually refers to the King Mackerel, a fish that satisfies his carnivorous hunger by migrating in swarms to sup upon unsuspecting innocents. Kemp further shows his dark opinion of them by calling them “quacks and clowns.” He shows contempt for their mental acumen too, insulting them as “gimp mentalities.” Kemp’s negativity continues with his adverse view of others in the room, calling them “philistines”—unrefined masses who are hostile or indifferent to culture and arts that moved onto the island and are hostile or indifferent to the culture of San Juan.

These are not optimistic observations; instead, they reflect the author’s generally antagonistic outlook on human life. The cynicism extends to himself. He loathes himself for regularly attending these parties, an “orgy of rum,” celebrating such events as the opening of a new bowling alley—so trivial as to be laughably ridiculous.

HST uses “Okies” as a slur against the newcomer’s “bowling alley” business mentality and his low opinion of them as ignorant, inelegant, and just-off-the-farm immigrants. The use of this reference to Oklahoma farmers reminds us of the thousands who suffered from a different kind of bowling, the Dust Bowl of the Depression Era that threw only gutter balls but knocked down all the pins. The contempt drips with shock and awe humor that hints we’re all capable of deception, pretense, and guile. Different than run-of-the-mill cynicism, HST’s is part of a larger distrust and/or critique of authority, or of society in general.

 

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Tone through Humor

 

In HST’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Raoul Duke, a favorite Thompson alter ego, and his attorney, a 300-pound Samoan character called Dr. Gonzo, take a trip to LV. Their rental car’s trunk contained a drug arsenal for their assault on the city and their search for the American Dream.

We were driving somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert at a hundred-miles-an-hour with the top down when the drugs began to take hold. I was feeling lightheaded. And suddenly, there was a terrible roar all around us, and the sky was full of huge bats. My attorney, Dr. Gonzo, had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with Spanish wraparound sunglasses. “Man, this is the way to travel,” said my attorney. He turned up the volume on the radio, humming along and kind of moaning the words: “One toke over the line Sweet Jesus…One toke over the line…” Jesus, I thought, wait until he sees the bats swarming.

Thompson frequently inserts some of his psychedelic lifestyle into his writing, patterned after actual experiences, like this drug-infested nightmare trip to Las Vegas. This quote is the lead paragraph and typifies the writer’s use of drugged-out humor to create a ludicrous tone in this novel. Thompson wants the reader on-board right away regarding the tone and tenor of his upcoming narration. He lays out the ludicrous escapade of the two careening across the desert as a primer for the forthcoming portrayal. The author wants to convey that Duke and Dr. Gonzo are off the rails and don’t intend to get back on anytime soon. He wants the reader to unhook their safety belt and open a cold six-pack. It is not a statement about their vision of the world, it is a joy ride into hell, and they could care less. This segment also betrays the informal and addled tone of conversation and scene that both characters embrace. Dr. Gonzo pouring beer on his chest and the hallucination of bats swarming the car adds to the surreal humor.

The tone of this Las Vegas citing gives some insight into the protagonist’s destructive emotions, attitude, and overall perspective of life—skepticism and contempt for the concept of the American Dream. The contemptuous, ironic, playful tone draws one into the story and embraces the outrageous protagonists.

This smattering of text also implies that Raoul and Dr. Gonzo know there is bad stuff going on in the world, and they don’t see it getting better, or they don’t care. As they continue their non-stop path of destructive behavior, the reader may either embrace the absurdist tone, tolerate the protagonist’s concepts of living on the wild side and see the humor in the situations, or put the book down after the first paragraph.

 

Scene through Humor

 

Driving around Vegas in the Shark—their name for the red Chevy rental, his attorney propped up in the passenger seat like a mannequin of Elvis, Duke wonders what people are saying in their cars next to him. “But the shotgun mic [pointing this microphone at a target picks up only the noise from that target and eliminates hearing everything in all directions] was in the trunk, and he decided to leave it there” for fear of someone thinking it might be a bazooka. Instead, Raoul slipped into euphoria, “feeling fine, extremely sharp.”

Turn up the radio. Look into the sunset up ahead. Roll the windows down for a better taste of the cool desert wind. Ah, yes. This is what it’s all about. Total control now. Tooling along down the main drag on a Saturday night in Las Vegas, two good old boys in a fireapple-red convertible. . . stoned, ripped, twisted . . . Good People.

Driving along a busy street, it seems common for a driver to imagine what those in cars next to them may be saying. Yet without notice, HST produces unexpected humor by having Duke speculate about the shotgun mike in the trunk, and then decide to leave it there; “it would look like a bazooka.” This careless yet amusing scene places a propped-up, Elvis-like passenger in a drug coma several feet away from a smacked-out maniac behind the wheel, feeling “fine and sharp.” The world is his oyster, but deep down, he knows it is not; he is escaping for a while. He feels euphoric about the sunset, the desert wind. It is a hilarious scene of someone feeling on top of the world, just having a good time, not hurting anybody—just yet. The casual mention of weaponry adds a thrill of menace, so absurd it reads as funny rather than frightening.

 

Satire and Hyperbole through Humor

 

After seventy-two hours of near-death living, the humor of the moment turns to satire and hyperbole. Although it is time for Raoul and Dr. Gonzo to make their escape, they’ve run into many problems: no surprise by now. Raoul takes a look around their hotel suite and, as if seeing it for the first time, he sums up a description of their Vegas room and gives a sense of his paranoia of dealing with the hotel manager and, worst of all, the cops.

The bathroom floor was about six inches deep with soap bars, vomit and grapefruits rinds, mixed with broken glass. The nap of the mottled grey rug was so thick with marijuana seeds that it appeared to be turning green. But what kind of addict would need all these coconut husks? Would the presence of junkies account for all these uneaten French fries? These puddles of glazed catsup on the bureau? No; these were not the hoofprints of your normal, godfearing junkie. It was far too savage, too aggressive. It could only be described as a montage, a sort of exaggerated medical exhibit, put together very carefully by twenty-two serious drug felons, penned up in the same room.

This description is indirectly a satire of the hotel room inhabitants. Sure, the passage ridicules Raoul and Dr. Gonzo, but more directly, the satirical humor lies in the scene they caused. The light-hearted comedy makes a point about the evidence of dangerous action. This is an absurd situation that Thompson uses to punch up the satire with hyperbolic statements about their surroundings. Hyperbole serves a variety of purposes. In this Las Vegas scene, rather than intending to describe the room’s dishevelment, the writer has made exaggerations to make a strong impression. Hyperbole lurks in the use of over-dramatic adjectives or phrases like “six-inches deep with soap bars, vomit and grapefruit rinds,” “puddles of glazed catsup,” and “hoofprints of your normal, god-fearing junkie.”

 

Characterization through Humor

 

Thompson uses biting humor to characterize people. And the folks in Vegas are prime for description.

Now off the escalator and into the casino, big crowds still tight around the crap tables. Who are these people? These Faces? They look like caricatures of used-car dealers from Dallas. But, they are real. And, sweet Jesus, there are a hell of a lot of them—still screaming around these desert-city crap tables at 4:30 on a Sunday morning. Still humping the American Dream, that vision of the Big Winner somehow emerging from the last-minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino. Big strike in Silver City. Beat the dealer and go home rich. Why not?

Raoul knows that his sarcastic loathing of others in the casino also describes himself—after all, he was present at the casino at 4:30 am as well. He’d stopped at the Money Wheel just then, laid a Thomas Jefferson $2 bill—”the straight Freak Ticket”—on a wild bet, thinking maybe he would hit the big time, finally. No. Those around him, he thought, were wondering the same thing about him. “Where’d he come from?” He was afraid he was no different. The lack of respect and paranoia that he reserved for those he felt unworthy were intricate parts of his own fabric as well. Looking at others, he knew he saw himself. HST chooses the word “humping,” which is hyperbolic and outrageous. It makes the point that all these people, including his stand-in, Raoul Duke, are Americans on the make in a particularly desperate and unattractive way.

 

**

 

The value of humor and its many vestments open literary opportunities for Thompson to entertain readers, outrage, and shock readers out of complacency and add resonance to his narratives. HST utilizes humor to set the tone, describe a scene, characterize actors, develop relationships and instigate loathing—in particular, a scathing look at mid-century Americans seeking deluded, materialistic dreams. Humor can be a mask for a writer to play out internal feelings of inadequacy or self-loathing in a narrative about observing others. Humor is a far-reaching literary device, and Hunter S. Thompson provides a world of writing lessons using various humor styles.

 

 

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