I guess you'd best forget trying to understand the rationale behind Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to The Heart of the American Dream." Never mind if you don't wholly agree with him when he writes that "Every now and then when you life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in the only real cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas." Don't worry if it strikes you as odd to respond to the nightmare of certain middle-America realities by internalizing them with the aid of grass, mescaline, acid, downers, screamers, laughers, tequila, rum beer, ether and amyls….

Don't let it throw you if you can't buy Mr. Thompson's doomsday sociology about "this doomstruck era of Nixon."… Don't even bother if you find unbelievable the mad adventurers reported here. Just...