Am I stupid or is this supposed to be taken at face value? All

>>9348487
It was the seventies, it's worth was that it was subversive. People meme it now because they watched the movie and think that liking drugs can be a feature of their personality. Spice'd

>>9348487
It's pretty good and at he's fucking telling you the themes ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

the part where they were talking about the guy who wanted to own a circus, and he ended up owning a nightclub in las vegas. that's the american dream.

>>9348568
This. Also, near the end of the book Thompson is at a diner (i think? Some kind of restaurant) and asks the waiter/employee if she knows where the American Dream is at, and she gives some response like "i think its closed"- but she doesnt know/remember

Its been a while since i read it but essentially what i got was that the American Dream has become a myth, and instead we are left to fill our lives with drugs, fun, sex, entertainment, etc

>>9348487
I read this book and didn't like it. I thought A Scanner Darkly was a much better 'drug book'
That's just my opinion

>>9349346
one of these books is fiction. the other is gonzo.

which is closer to reality, senpai?

>>9349619
I don't really care! I was just saying I preferred one over the other

>>9348756
isn't the american dream basically about being free? hedonism seems like the epitome of freedom

>>9348487
It's a book exposing the ugliness inherent in the pursuit of the American Dream, as well as a critique of the specifically hypocritical and disillusioned cultural moment of the 70s, which of course now we can see has held up as a critique of the failures of American Idealism in all its forms. He literally at times spends pages explaining this.

Yeah that's all there is to it, how can you not get that?