The Rum Diary Post 1 Ch. 1-5

In the fiction “The Rum Diary” Paul Kemp, the antagonist is thrown into a newspaper business from the very start. He immediately realizes that news is really not news in his eyes. Which brings me to my first topic of debate. Brian, what are your thoughts on the newspaper company he is working for? In my opinion I don’t think their way of doing this is exactly right or just. Paul Kemp believes that news is news and you should tell it like you see it, which seems pretty straight foreword to the rest of society but probably not to the business side of this. There must be a reason why the head chief of the newspaper only wants to write about the bowling alleys and how great Puerto Rico is. When in all actuality people are rioting around the streets and everywhere you look people are homeless and starving. Kemp even states that “more money is going to the parking meters rather than being spent on food for these starving children in this pitiful country!” (pg. 48). Which brings me to ask another question. Brian, what kind of feeling are you getting from the beginning of this book? I’m getting a sort of “corporation run country” feeling with a touch of greed here and there. Almost like the people of the country are just pawns to the companies that own the land. To a point where it is like if the more land you own, the more people you own in the process (since there isn’t much land on Puerto Rico).  

Fear and Loathing Chapter 9 - End

I found the end of the book to be quite inspiring and surprisingly fitting to the end of the book. It was almost as if the story finally made sense after hundreds of pages of nonsense about a drug abusive author barely making it by. The time when I realized the story’s main point was in chapter 12 pg. 191, where Bruce asked Duke how he found the American Dream he was looking for. Duke replied with “‘we’re sitting on the main nerve right now. You remember that story the manager told us about the owner of this place? How he always wanted to run away and join the circus when he was a kid? Now the bastard has his own circus, and a license to steal, too.”’ Therefore in response to your question I believe the very short version of the moral of the story would be: The American Dream is exactly that, a dream. People dream of having their own business, doing something with their lives, achieve some great goal they have in mind that would make the whole of the their life seem worthy. But the reality of the American Dream is when people put pen to paper, hard work and sweat into the dream and pursue it to make it a reality. That hard work and ingenuity that has sprung up from a single idea, a single dream, is what makes America a sort of promise land. People can pursue their ideas without being held back by racial barriers or gender barriers. People are just treated as people and are given the same chance as anyone to make a change in this world, even if it’s the smallest of change. And sometimes, it takes a psychedelic drug filled adventure full of fear and loathing to envision the true American Dream. 

Fear and Loathing: End

Brian Huynh

The conclusion of this book has made me realize something...drugs can do some much more than I thought it could. Something that really stood out to me was when Duke mentions that he found the American dream. This is rather important to the book because the whole story is the author's pursuit to find the American dream. In my own words, prior to this book, the American dream is to be able to do what you want in life (i.e. work/play) and enjoy it. Also to make money off of something you love to do is also apart of the American dream. What Duke said the American dream was is quite similar to my prior knowledge of what the American dream is. He was rephrasing the story of how manager that followed his dream that he had ever since he was a little kid. So the American dream to Duke is being able to have a dream and making sure that you pursue then achieve this dream. What do you think is the American dream Kentaro? Also I have noticed something while reading this whole book. It correlates back to my first statement and it has to do with drugs. On the first page it is describing which drugs he has taken and which he has stashed in the car. Also, on the last page it also describes him taking more drugs. Just a speculation though.

Fear and Loathing Part two - Chapter 8

Chapter 2 (or rather the end of chapter 2) was a chapter worth noting with some hidden themes within. The incident about the hotel full of cops and Duke passing them all looking sluggish and getting the kindest treatment from the manager who had just turned down a chief sheriff and his wife.  I found this particularly interesting and a good view of America (or rather Las Vegas) through Duke’s eyes. In a hotel filled with policemen and anti-drug extremists comes this drug tweaked man with a brief case of every drug known to man. This man then jumps to the front of the line and gets the best service out of all of them and was sent away with a couple complimentary bottles of Bacardi and other luxuries. The book mentioned that the manager acted this way against all the policemen especially the police chief because he has had a bad past with police officers messing with him, and not it was his turn to return the favor. This type of situation I believe can only happen in America. If this happened in Korea lets say, things would be horribly different. America is the only place with free speech and free actions. It just gave me a different outlook about America and the basic concept of what goes around comes around. In response to your last post, I think throughout the book their goal was to sustain a sort of "perma-high" where they would be constantly high through their endeavors.  

Fear and Loathing: Part two

Brian Huynh

Oh Kentaro, I do agree with you that the passage was pretty heartwarming. It did remind me of a triumph of good and evil in a way. Part two of this book starts very similarly in setting wise as the beginning but it is kind of a status check. Again, Duke is driving in the desert in the "red shark" but this time he is heavily down on drugs. His inventory has been eaten up over the past adventures in part 1 of this book. "My attorney had eaten all the reds, but there was quite a bit of speed left...no more grass, the coke bottle was empty, one acid blotter, a nice brown lump of opium hash and six loose amyls." You can tell that over the expedition, Duke and his attorney has used up most of the drug stock that they had which is plenty enough. On page 100-101, I have noticed that he is worrying more about if he gets caught because he practices responses in his mind just in case he would of gotten caught. This could be foreshadowing to a later event in the future. Also I have a kinda practical questions...has he been high during the whole book? I realized that ever since the beginning when he has seen the bats until now with the slugs that he has been high the whole book. This makes me think of all the damage he is doing physically and mentally to himself. Also on page 101, he is buying more drugs so this makes me predict that knowing the past, he is probably going to remain high for the remains of the book, or run out of drugs and go crazy. What do you think?

Fear and Loathing Chapter 8-Part 2

This section of Fear and Loathing had a little bit of everything. A dash of paranoia, a handful of drugs, a teaspoon of high speed chasing and police work and even a little sprinkle of actual good literature. The main section that I really enjoyed and thought was the most deeply written thing in the book so far was near the end of chapter 8 on page 67 and 68. Within these last final paragraphs of the chapter Hunter S. Thompson takes a moment to reflect on the hippie zeitgeist. In a few hundred words the author captures the rise and fall of a movement. He mentions "You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning... The inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave..."(pg. 68). I believe this is the most heart felt passage Hunter has written so far in the book. Wouldn't you agree Brian? If you have anything else to say about this passage that hasn't already been said would you mind sharing it with me? and to answer your questions I am indeed enjoying the book. The only problems I have faced while reading is the fact that it is very hard to follow. Not in a vocabulary or complicated storyline sense, but just the plain old fact that there is no storyline to follow. Books like Freedom at midnight may be hard to read, but at least it has a story line and follows the basic graph of a normal novel (rising action, climax, falling action sort of stuff). This story is just plain everywhere, ups and downs, ups and downs. Just a bit confusing is all I have to say. Hunter S. Thompson has, to put it lightly, a very ... different ... way of writing.  

Possible Conflicts and Prediction

Brian Huynh

I agree with how you think this book is intriguing and humorous and find all of these qualities while reading the book. While I was reading the second section of the book, Duke was talking about how you can never trust a drug user. On page 56, "One of the things you learn, after years of dealing with drug people, is that everything is serious. You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug." I know this is a real life story but I can't help but think that this could be foreshadowing. I predict that maybe some kind of event is going to happen when either Duke or the "attorney" turn their back on each other and someone is going to get hurt. Like what Duke said, drug people take everything seriously and this is what might cause some major conflict in the future. From reading the book so far, you can tell that the attorney and Duke both mess with each and call each other foul names but what I predict is that in the future one of them is going to take it seriously and retaliate. Also on page 55-56, the attorney is talking about his girlfriend which just got introduced in the story. I think that in the future readings of this book, she will support a bigger role to the story. I can relate to how the attorney is think about how Lacerda has his girlfriend and the jealousy factor. It is easy to relate to the emotion of jealousy when it refers to a loved one. Some questions I have for you is how are you enjoying the book so far? Do you have any comments about any of the characters or any questions about the "plot"?

Fear and Loathing Chapter 1-7

I agree with you whole heartedly that the mind of Hunter S. Thompson is a drastically different one than what other people in society would call... normal. As Duke and his "Attorney" go on a drug binge (specifically the one binge they were scared of, an Ether Binge) they roam Las Vegas and basically try to function like normal people while having a drug orgy. I find this intriguing and quite humorous at the same time. The action these guys are taking and the reaction of the people who they interact with is just a tell tale sign of what time period they are in. As it turns out the story takes place somewhere in the 1960's to 1970's, which would explain the mass drug use (The Hendrix Period just to give a visualization of what it would look like). I also found it humorous since even though he was a "professional journalist" he still found ways to have fun like going to the circus event wasted on Ether (which makes you act like the "village drunkard in some early Irish novel" (pg. 45)). To answer your question Brian about how the drug thing all started, I remember them saying on pg. 4 in the beginning of the book that they rounded up all the drugs "in a frenzy of high-speed driving all over Los Angeles Country--from Topanga to Watts, we picked up everything we could get our hands on. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can."I also think the Attorney is not really an Attorney. I think it might just be his friend.
To answer your second question I think they just chose to have a convertible simply because they wanted to. I dont know why the tape recorder was hard to find but I do know Duke needed it for his Journalism about the races and such.