One interesting thing about Thompson […] is that much of his work could almost be assigned to the field of religious literature. This is not just because he suffered occasional demonic hallucinations under the influence of brown acid and ibogaine. Setting the drugs aside (“Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man”), there is a certain ascetic, unworldly quality to his work. He seems to have had a quasi-Augustinian horror of the greasy, hairy human body, and a strong distaste for squirming, brawling, lumpy, dumb man-apes in all their mass manifestations. His career-making Scanlan’s piece, “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved”, is really an indictment of humanity as decadent and depraved — and that remains true insofar as the subject of the piece is Thompson himself and his Hobbesian preoccupations.
Colby Cosh, “Q: Where’s Cosh?”, ColbyCosh.com, 2005-02-21
