Once again my anal retentiveness may have tainted the satisfaction of a couple good books...
A particular gangbang scene stuck in my head due to its graphic nature, and then I came across it again in another book by another author. Is this a case of disdainful Tom Wolfe plagiarizing the vanguard Hunter Thompson?
Let us assume Thompson's version is the original seeing he was there in person, and his account is more detailed. Wolfe had to piece his book together from interviews, recordings, and other media. In his epilogue, Wolfe throws in a long-winded disclaimer stating, "All the events, details and dialogue I have recorded are either what I saw and heard myself or were told to me by people who were there themselves or were recorded on tapes or film or in writing." Then three paragraphs later, "Hunter Thompson made available to me several tapes he had made while working on his book, Hell's Angels, and parts of the book itself dealing with the Pranksters and the Angels were also helpful." Let's assume Wolfe read the gangbang scene from Thompson's manuscript, and it thrilled Wolfe to the point where he decided he must absolutely adapt it for additional exposure of the Angels' animosity to the intellectually liberal slice of America (his audience).
This is a controversy of novelty… the novelty of nonfiction novels. Even if the stories are not verbatim, not direct plagiarism, and this is legal in all matters of copyright, Wolfe loses some credibility by snatching Thompson's anecdote and claiming it as his own. Granted, both writers were journalists, and we know journalists simply report the facts (usually second-hand accounts or facts from other media sources desperate for expeditious reporting), so perhaps Wolfe or both authors were drawing from their primitive instincts.
"You sneaky motherfuckers! What the fuck's wrong with you? Come on over here and see what you get … goddamn your shit-filled souls anyway! Don't fuck with me, you sons of shitlovers. Come on over. You'll get every fucking thing you deserve."
As journalists, Neal Cassady's trenchant screaming at the cops across the street is explicitly reported word-for-word in both books: Thompson's Hell's Angels on page 232 and Wolf's Acid Test on page 174. The only nuance being Thompson withholds Cassady's name, referring to him as "the worldly inspiration for the protagonist of several recent novels". That's a damn strong hint.
But back to the gangbang scene, it's presented in both books as an original first-hand account. It's told through the artistic filters of our case writers, but the details and storyboard don't vary. Thompson doesn't admit the exact location of the party, but determinedly separates the setting from any typical motorcycle gang turf. Wolfe places the scene directly in Ken Kesey's backyard. Wolfe doesn't recognize this sketch's source, for he puts no quotes around it. The reader is mislead to believe this is Wolfe-originado.
This would be like stealing an anecdote from a friend, claiming it was you who turned into a misanthropic soccer-hooligan gorilla and destroyed a saloon by chucking garbage cans until every glass, mug, and tumbler was shattered. And when you heard that story from its originator, would you not feel cheated?
After this realization, Wolfe's book loses its flavor. This explains the changes in tone throughout Wolf's work. How many authentic accomplishments of psychedelic originality did he steal from how many hippies?
So without further ado and my dry whining, here's the gangbang scene quoted from both books:
Hunter S Thompson's Hell's Angels, a Strange and Terrible Saga (first copyrighted in 1966), Ballantine Books 1996 paperback edition, starting on page 191:
It was not an Angel party, but they had been invited, and twenty or so showed up for what turned into a two-day bash. Almost immediately several of the outlaws located a girl, the ex-wife of another guest, who agreed to make the beast with two backs in a small building set apart form the main house. Which she did, and happily so, with the chosen trio. But word quickly spread of the "new mamma" and soon she was surrounded by a large group of onlookers … drinking, laughing, and taking a quick turn whenever some vacancy occurred.
I keep a crumpled yellow note from that night; not all of the writing is decipherable, but some of it reads like this: "Pretty girl about twenty-five lying on wooden floor, two or three on her all the time, one kneeling between her legs, one sitting on her face and somebody else holding her feet … teeth and tongues and pubic hair, dim light in a wooden shack, sweat and semen gleaming on her thighs and stomach, red and white dress pushed up around her chest … people standing around yelling, wearing no pants, waiting first, second or third turns … girl jerking and moaning, not fighting, clinging, seems drunk, incoherent, not knowing, drowning …"
It was not a particularly sexual scene. The impression I had at the time was one of vengeance. The atmosphere in the room was harsh and brittle, almost hysterical. Most people took a single turn, then either watched or wandered back to the party. But a hard core of eight or ten kept at her for several hours. In all, she was penetrated in various ways no less than fifty times, and probably more. At one point, when the action slowed down, some of the Angels went out and got the girl's ex-husband, who was stumbling drunk. They led him into the shack and insisted he take his own turn. The room got nervous, for only a few of the outlaws were anxious to carry things that far. But the sight of her former old man brought the girl out of her daze just enough to break the silent tension. She leaned forward, resting on her elbows, and asked him to kiss her. He did, and then groggily took his turn while the others cheered.
Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (first copyrighted in 1968), Bantam Books 1999 paperback edition, page 176:
Go with the flow - and what a flow – these cats, these Pranksters – at big routs like this the Angels often had a second feature going entitled Who Gets Fucked? – and it hadn't even gotten to that when before some blonde from out of town, one of the guests from way out there, just one nice soft honey hormone squash, she made it clear to three Angels that she was ready to go, so they all trooped out to the back house and had a happy round out there. Pretty soon all the Angels knew about the "new momma" out in the backhouse and a lot of them piled in there, hooking down beers, laughing, taking their turns, making various critiques. The girl had her red and white dress pushed up around her chest, and two or three would be on her at once, between her legs, sitting on her face in the sick ochre light of the shack with much lapping and leering and bubbling and gulping through furzes of pubic hair while sweat and semen glistened on the highlights of her belly and thighs and she twitched and moaned, not in protest, however, in a kind of drunken bout of God knew what and men with no pants on were standing around, cheering, chiding, waiting for their turn, or their second turn, or the third until she had been fenestrated in various places at least fifty times. Some of the Angels went out and got her ex-husband. He was weaving and veering around, bombed, they led him in there under glare and leer and lust musk suffocate the rut hut they told him to go to it. All silent – shit, this is going too far – but the girl rises up in a blear and asks him to kiss her, which he does, glistening secretions, then he lurches and mounts her and slides it in, and the Angels cheer Haw Haw –"
We may also question if the adverse girl is from out of town, how does her divorcee happen to be partying in the same remote beatnik backwoods town of La Honda, California? Perhaps they agreed to remain 'friends'.