comment on style / language

As a "gonzo journalist" Hunter S. Thompson approaches language in a distinctive way. His speech, for the most part casual, is both well-educated and riddled with slang and profanity. His statements are often fragmentary, relying on the inertia of sentiment to convey their full meaning, but in the midst of the chaos, he shows himself to be perfectly capable of stepping back from his more outrageous persona long enough to reminisce lyrically about disillusionment and the fall of his heroes.