Quite another view of Hunter S. Thompson

Stephen Schwartz, a very important writer on Islam and terrorism, takes a rather dim view of Hunter S. Thompson. I don't agree with a word of it. I don't think that Thompson can be thrown in with William S. Burroughs or Allen Ginsberg. Nor was Thompson's writing "incoherent." If he was heir to any tradition in American letters (yes, American letters) it was that of Henry Miller, who was not a "beat" writer, not of the '60s, and had little or nothing to do with the "counter-culture." Miller, like Thompson after him, made himself the the main character in his work, something that took guts, in my opinion.

Thompson was defiantly American in the way he lived and wrote. He was honest about himself, without apologies. As for his work not being particularly popular at the moment, well, what has that got to do with anything? America is famously neglectful of its writers. Herman Melville was neglected for most of his life and then some after writing Moby Dick, and F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner both got left behind before being rediscovered. Henry Miller was an old man before his best work was being read here.

I'm not claiming any rank for Thompson. He was who he was: a damned talented, exciting, funny writer. If his work came out of the much maligned 60s, he's proof that the 60s were not just about one thing. The 60s produced multifarious frauds. Hunter S. Thompson was not one of them.