Country: USA
Genre: New Journalism/Narrative Non-Fiction
Pages: 273
I like Hunter S. Thompson, because he too, doesn't do anything like the others. I'm not trying to say I have a special bond with a legendary writer here, but rather that if normality would be a highway, we would both be extremely bad drivers. Needless to say, his homicidal driving is done in a Hummer as I'm driving my tricycle behind, trying to keep up. What I'm trying to say here with clumsy imagery is that I'm looking up to the guy. Hell's Angels is his fourth book I read and I was tipped by many other Thompson fans that it's one of his best.
The first thing I could observe (it jumped in my face with obnoxious ferocity) is that it's not Gonzo or it's Gonzo at an embryonic stage. Hell's Angels is the one year journey of Hunter S. Thompson alongside the infamous motorcycle gang. The story is seen through the eyes of Thompson and the bears the signs of his aggressive and colorful style, but the psychedelic corruption of Gonzo is absent. As any good mainstream journalist would do, Thompson erases himself from the story and leaves the place to the now legendary crew of Ralph "Sonny" Barger. Hell's Angels offers a neutral but deep and observational critic on the exploits of the outlaw gang....and exploits they are!
Thompson relates the structural problem that causes the outlaw image of the Hell's Angels with the authorities and the winds of panic they create wherever they seem to go. Thompson's book central theme is this love/hate relationship with their self-created infamy and their aggressive, yet human yearning for acceptance within their circle as they elevate themselves against the validity of outside social structures. The complexity of the idea that Thompson tried to communicate, juxtaposed with his fiery, over-the-top style, gives Hell's Angels:A Strange And Terrible Saga a taste that you will no find in any other work, not even his own.
As the Gonzo edge would have turned Hell's Angels into an absolute barn-burner of a book, a reader used to Thompson's incendiary style will have restraints against his quiet treatment of the infamous outlaw gang. Sure he leaves the room for the outlandish achievements of Ralph Barger's soldiers, but there's a missing piece in his thoughtful and amusing description of events. Him. It's his first journalistic essay and at the time, it was his first publication, so I guess he was discovering what works and what doesn't for him, but for a reader, it's frustrating to admire the possibilities that Hell's Angels swims in.
Hell's Angels is a unique work (for a lack of a better term) and an immensely strong journalistic effort, but unlike Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas it's not a quintessential American classic that serves a purpose greater than the writer would've thought. It's a great, seemingly unbiased look on the Hell's Angels and an amazing display of Thompson's literary talent, but when you close the book you won't be prompted to open right away again.
