Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson - ★★★★

More in finishing up old audible audio books that I bought and listened to most of but never finished. I listened to the last hour and a half or so of songs of the doomed. And I still don't know if the Gonzo papers really translates all that well to audio audio books, and if it's a good way to listen to Thompson as well as the book brags about being narrated by Thompson himself, but actually he only narrates some small sections. As I think it was very difficult to get Thompson to read his own work aloud. And when it really comes down to it, I don't think he want Thompson reading his own work. It's actually not the best experience. His voice is not the most easy to understand, despite the brilliance and strength of his prose, which comes out over almost any other reader, even so, the Gonzo papers as a mess of random things read by random people comes through in the end with a powerful closing story, reminding you of the genius of Thompson, as the author says something like after having a fight with the bartender who was angry over the Pulitzer family and their mistreating of the locals, and the Pulitzer divorce case With apparently Thompson was in Palm Beach to cover. And Thompson says something like, and I quote, and I had to get up and I got my and I had my newspaper and my mail and my drugs and my whiskey and my leather satchels full of evidence and photographs and weapons. It's just it was so many hands. It was just so beautiful to see all the things that he had and to imagine it all laid out over the table, as you see in so many of the films, and you can picture in your eyes the way that he used to set up a desk with newspapers and notebooks and leather satchels and limes and grapefruits and all these things. And he would work out these fantastic pieces, these Rolling Stone articles, these Sports Illustrated articles, these things where hunter would think and talk and show us the future. And that in this story, he would do that and quickly walk out to his red Cadillac convertible, which was still full of two foot of water from the night before. So while I am mixed on the idea of Hunter S Thompson reading his own novels, and I did think that the Gonzo papers were difficult to get through in audio book form, and you are talking to someone who has read all of the volumes of the Gonzo papers, as well as all of Hunter S Thompson's letter books that he released, which were actually quite good in the end, they're better probably in the book form, even though you still hear the Thompson voice in your head, the Johnny Depp simulated Thompson voice. that you hear in your head is probably a lot clearer than the reality of the Thompson himself. Still HST forever. Great book, great man, great work always down for st Thompson.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai