Books About Drinking, Fucking, and Travelling: The 70s, Bukowski, Thompson, and Theroux

After the free love and idealism of the 60s, there was the perhaps-inevitable crash into bitterness and dissolution. The three Prime Movers of Books about Drinking, Fucking, and Traveling in the 70s were undoubtedly Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Bukowski, and Paul Theroux.

(Damn, has it been three years already?  Previous entries in this series:

SOME HISTORICAL LITERARY PERSPECTIVE ON DRINKING, FUCKING, AND TRAVELING -- In which I examine THE CANTERBURY TALES, CANDIDE, and GULLIVER'S TRAVELS

MORE BOOKS ABOUT DRINKING, FUCKING, AND TRAVELING (1900 - 1950) -- In which I examine the work of Jerome K. Jerome, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scot Fitzgerald, and Graham Greene

EVEN MORE BOOKS ABOUT DRINKING, FUCKING, AND TRAVELING (SPECIAL BEATNIK EDITION) -- In which I examine the life and work of hep cats Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs.)

In 1971, Hunter Stockton Thompson was a succesful journalist who had written a book about the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang and several noted articles for Rolling Stone. Then he released FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS: A SAVAGE JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF THE AMERICAN DREAM.

It was a wake-up call for those who wished to be fucked up all the time. With his energetic, unique prose stylings, he made a couple of weekends taking drugs in Vegas hotel rooms probably much more entertaining than they would have been to actually experience. 

And in the process transformed himself from hard-hitting investigative journalist to Cultural Icon of Buffoonery. His Woodward and Bernstein soul morphed into a Cheech and Chong reality. 

He did write one more important piece of journalism -- FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL 1972 -- but that was pretty much it. The rest of his career was a fog of drugs and Celebrity and books that rehashed things he'd seen on TV and almost always reprinted things he'd written in his glory days. 

He isn't as well known for his travels abroad, but he worked and traveled in the Caribbean and South America in the 50s and 60s -- many of his dispatches from South America are printed in THE GREAT SHARK HUNT. His novel THE RUM DIARY is under-rated in its portrayal of expat life in Puerto Rico at that time. (Apparently back then the drunks and fuckups worked at English-language newspapers, rather than teaching English. I've met a few English-language newspaper writers in my travels but only a few.)

Source: Wikipedia

Hunter S. Thompson blew his own brains out at age 67 on February 20, 2005, following some health problems related to his back and skeleton. (While drugs and alcohol seemed to take a toll on his writing and his life in general, his body didn't seem to mind too much.)

And then there are those of us who prefer to sulk silently on the sidelines of life; how could we not fall in love with Charles Bukowski? 

Raised in Great Depression-era Los Angeles, Charles Bukowski is often described as the Poet Laureate of Lowlifes. He worked at the post office until he started writing full-time at age 50 (round about 1970) and he is a best-selling author in Europe but a bit less well-known in the US. Writing simply and powerfully and (perhaps most importantly of all) humorously about life on the outskirts of society, drinking hard, working crappy jobs, and living in squalid rented rooms, Bukowski's philosophy seemed to be that losers were more honest than winners and that there was some nobility in refusing to play the bulshit games of life. (DON'T TRY is written on his tombstone.)

He has written countless books of poetry -- enjoyable and readable though they are -- but he seems to be better beloved by readers for his novels. HAM ON RYE describes his rough childhood and college years; FACTOTUM describes his travels around the US living in different cities in the 40s. POST OFFICE is about his years of drunken employment at that fine institution, and WOMEN is about his final success as a writer, and indulging himself in some groupies. HOLLYWOOD describes an attempt to make a film about one of his books (which in real life was called BARFLY:)

Drinks for all my friends! Charles Bukowski died of leukemia in 1994 at age 73, successful, married, critically-lauded, and seemingly rather content. 

What's that you say? A bit less drinking and fucking, and a bit more travelling?  

Former English teacher Paul Theroux might be right up your alley.  

Source: Wikipedia

With the release of THE GREAT RAILWAY BAZAAR in 1975, Paul Theroux changed the landscape of travel writing. The book describes an epic round-trip train journey across Europe, India, the Middle East, Russia, and Asia and now instead of writing snootily about history and culture, travel writers could bitch endlessly about the filth and the discomfort. (It's a fascinating read in retrospect, as with many travel books, in seeing what's the same as well as what's different. )

He's also written a lot of novels about the ups and downs of expat life; some notable ones include 1973's SAINT JACK, about a hustling expat working as a pimp in Singapore, and 1981's THE MOSQUITO COAST about a disgruntled whacko inventor who takes his family to live on an island in  Honduras.

NEXT ON BOOKS ON DRINKING FUCKING AND TRAVELING: SPECIAL ANNOYING 90s CHICKS EDITION!