w " -. w w - - qw, : 7 0 - -w u r ,.. _ ; x r 0 $ .................. .... . ........... ...... ......... ....... .. Insanity reigns The Curse of Lono By Hiunter S. Thompson Bantam Books 160 p.p., $9.95 By Glen Young P ICTURE, if you will: Upon arrival in Hawaii to cover one of the biggest marathons of the running season, you im- mediately establish yourself as a menace to the local population, and a threat to the safety of the pre-race super-joggers. When the day of the big event arrives, you and your suspect friends establish a com- mand post in a friend's yard near the finish line. You stock-pile your garrison with the likes of cases of beer, whiskey, TV sets, beach umbrellas, loud music and wild women. After you've had the opportunity to throw down a couple quick belts of your favorite Wild Turkey, the racers begin ap- pearing. Now the real fun. As the dazed, and vicious corpses drag themselves by, you begin yelling encouragement. "You're doomed, man, you'll never make it." "Hey, fat boy, how about a beer?" "Run, you silly bastard." "Lift those legs." "Eat shit and die." Then one has the strength and the audacity to bark back, "I'll see you on my way back." ,You refuse to give up your ground and belch in reply, "No, you won't. You'll never make it back. You won't even finish! You'll collapse." A bit harsh you say? Maybe, but not if you are decadent journalist/novelist Hunter S. Thompson, world-renowned doctor of the Fourth Estate. Our twisted friend the good Doctor is on- ce again alive and well; his new work, The Curse of Lono, which is centered in the Hawaiian island of Kona, marks the first novel the Doctor has published since that 1976 masterpiece of hodge-podge The Great Shark Hunt. And the man is back with a vengeance. The marathon the Doctor agreed to cover is the revered Honolulu Marathon, a most sacred event in the hearts and minds of these "body nazis" who run for religion. Running magazine commissioned the Doctor to come out of retirement and use his keen perception of the human condition to explore the whys of the running faithful. As he offers in his first correspondence to demented artist extraordinare Ralph Steadman, the Doctor sees the invitation as a wonderful excuse to spend some time shaking up the locals on some Pacific island four thousand or so miles from the confines of his front porch in Wody Creek, Colorado. Insanity reigns from the outset. Men in airplanes who ram their arm hits deep into the bowels of the flyingjmachine's toilet to retrieve unmentioned substances; a male-female team of penguins who fight for scraps of food thrown at them by patrons in the bar where they live; tran- svestite, unemployed charter boat cap- tains, and Samoan war clubs used to beat killer marlin all add to the sense of rabid reality the Doctor exposes us to. Aside from all these groovy images the Doctor conjurs up in our mind's eye, we also see he has not lost any of his ferocious bite during his respite. Back is the reckless sense of abandon we have come to expect from predecessors to The Curse of Lono. Back, too, is his insane sense of humor and sense of the absurd. But what is to be ex- pected from a man who lived with a throng of Hell's Angels back in the '60s for the sake of exploring the myths surrounding them. In the course of undertakings such as this, it helps to have a sense of humor. And the more twisted, the better. It almost seems that if not for the sab- batical the Doctor had taken, the novel would have been too reminiscent of earlier works. Because even though the edge is there, it has matured and made the move from the '60s and '70s to the predicament in which we now find ourselves. The Doc- tor says that the '80s will be ". . .avery nasty decade, a brutal Darwinian crunch." In this discourse he gets into why he returned from retirement. "That is what you miss: not the money but the ac- tion-and that is why I finally drilled Ralph out of his castle in Kent for a trip to Hawaii... there was no good reason for it; I just felt it was time to get out in the world. . . get angry and tune the in- struments... go to Hawaii for Christmas." Much to the fullness of this novel are the disturbed illustrations-of Ralph Steadman. Steadman and the Doctor have teamed-up on other occasions, but it too has been a good many years since their last collaboration. In this work, Steadman captures both the exotic wildness of the islands, and the disturbed rumblings of the mind of the Doctor. Another element which rounds out the images of present-day Kona are the ex- cerpts from The Letters of Mark Twain, Richard Hough's The Last Voyage of Cap- tain James Cook, and The Journal of William Ellis. These excerpts give both a historical reference point, and a philosophical benchmark. The Doctor, though brilliant throughout, gives his best performance after discovering he himself is the reincarnation of the god Lono, the Hawaiian god of ex- cess. It seems Lono carries some weird religious meaning for inhabitants of this little volcano in the Pacific. This love/fear of Lono ultimately has serious reper- cussions for the good Doctor. Consider if ydu will: two quarts of Wild Turkey, six joints of Kona Gold, naked blonde nymphs, loud music, and Hunter S. Thompson lounging on your front porch. The Doctor is spewing forth fragmented and frightening stories. Stories of fishing for killer marlin and dropping acid on a charter boat in the middle of a Pacific storm. Too frightening you say? Not if you happen to be cursed yourself. Stew Art - , , N N (p I : ., .. _" W (. An A lt~rnatixcpArt FInvrirrp University Artist and Craftsmen Guild VC DELTA TAU DELTA DELTA TAU DELTA DELTA TAU DELTA DELTA TAU DELTA DELTA TAU DELTA DELTA TAU DELTA DELTA TAU DELTA DELTA TAU DELTA DELTA TAU DELTA DELT^ - DELTA, TAU r DELTA TAU _ 'LTA TAU DELTA '.TA TAU DELTA TA TAU DELTA 'A TAU DELTA \ TAU DELTA Calligraphy Acrylic Painting Drawing 1&2 Ceramics Boobik ndig n rDrawingron Right Side Silk screening on Fabric of the Brain Graphic Design Weaving Leaded Glass Weavting Photography 1&2 ireDrawing JewelryKFitgu rwn Watercolor 1 Knitting scultureEnameling Sculpture Adventures in Realism Change your evening routine - Try us... Registration begins January 23. Classes begin February 6. For a free brochure call 763-4430, or stop by Room 2400, Michigan Union i "Michi an Council / for th% Arts DELTA TAU DELTA TAU[, DELTA TAU DL hL-tLTA TAU DELTA so DELTA DELTA TAU DELTA I 1928 GEDDES '7s GEDDES 1928 GEDDES 1928 GEDDES 1928 GEDDES 1928 GEDDES 1928 GEDDES 1928 GEDDES 1928 GEDDES 1928 GEDDES 1928 GEDDES 1928 GEDDES 12 Weekend/January 13, 1984