Renegade Journalist/Cultural Icon Dead

February 21, 2005

I'll keep this brief, despite the significance,�w/r/t literature and journalism,�of the news---

Hard-living�writer Hunter S. Thompson�has died.�

Thompson was�one of three pioneering writers (w/ Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese) who created�"gonzo journalism," wherein the journalist/writer became a central component of the story being written.�

Gonzo journalism is a style of reporting based on William Faulkner's idea that the best fiction is far more true than any kind of journalism�-- and the best journalists have always known this. Which is not to say that fiction is necessarily 'more true' than journalism�--�or vice versa�-- but that both 'fiction' and 'journalism' are artificial categories; and that both forms, at their best, are only two different means to the same end.
��~ Hunter S. Thompson

Found in his home (i.e., Compound)�in Aspen on Sunday, it appears death was self-inflicted, a gunshot-induced suicide.�

Rather than leave any words of my own (which would really only diminish the meaning of this tragedy), I leave you with his own:�

�

We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

��

��--Final paragraph, Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas

�

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The following has a decent compilation of history, works, etc., etc. of the 67-year-old Gonzo Godfather, if interested: http://www.gonzo.org/

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DRB

Related Tags: journalism, gonzo, fiction