Word came late last night from out Woody Creek Colorado, that journalist Hunter S. Thompson, authoring of "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972" had taken his own life at age sixty seven.
If Thompson had a literary heritage it included the likes of H.L. Mencken and Ambrose Bierce all fiercely opinionated men known for their satiric writing. Satire of course, is the roughest literary trade, the life expectancy of the skilled practioner is always unmercifully short. The Emperor Nero considered the tortured death screams of Roman satirists to be a form of sweet music to his educated ear. The Japanese used to shove satirists into the cockpits of Kamikaze planes at the drop of a hat. Ripe corn grows over the graves of satirists in Siberia.
Melancholy is therefore the occupational hazard of the breed. Ambrose Bierce having burned down the USA and Hearst newspaper chain, mounted a donkey and road off into the Mexican hills never to return, Mencken laid around Baltimore as a stroke victim for six years wishing for death. Truly and sadly, Dr. Thompson lived up to the expectations of his illustrious lineage.
Humble Elias remembers with the simplest nostalgia, Thompson's mid-1980's column for the San Francisco Examiner, one essay on child rearing "The Pro-Flogging View" remains particularly fresh even after all these years.
He will be missed.
No comments :
Post a Comment