Remembering Hunter S. Thompson, the writer not the caricature

"No More Games," Thompson wrote in his suicide note. "No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax -- This won't hurt."

At the top of the note, scribbled in black magic marker were the words, "Football Season Is Over."

It was a tragic turn of events—perhaps more for those who clung to his words (and, of course, for his family) than for Thompson himself. He'd been pushing the edge since he was able to walk on two feet, and for decades had been obsessed with his own demise, even planning his own elaborate funeral, during which his ashes would be shot from a giant cannon (a twisted black comedy of a fantasy that was strangely beautiful and triumphant when it actually went down according to plan after he died).

Thompson's death wish only got worse in the late '70s when he became disenchanted with the way his alter-ego, Raoul Duke—a character, a literary device—began to grossly overshadow his true self in the eyes of the media and general public. He felt he'd become a caricature, a cartoon, and that it was hurting his work. It haunted Thompson. In this 1979 clip, one of the most naked and honest I've ever seen of him, his deep pain and frustration about all of this is tangible, and the foreshadowing of his suicide chilling:

So much has been made of Thompson the eccentric celebrity and pop-cultural icon, that the real reason for his greatness - his brilliant writing - is often strangely forgotten. 

The best way, then, to remember him on this, the fourth anniversary of his death, is to look at his work. To read his words. Here are some classic excerpts:

Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles—a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other—that kept me going.

- The Rum Diary (written in the early '60s, first published in 1998)