The Horatio Alger Myth (also mentions references in Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger_myth
"In Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, Horatio Alger is mentioned as what could be interpreted as a guide for the protagonist: "How would Horatio Alger handle this situation?" (70). The novel itself is focused around a week-long attempt to discover the American Dream through drugs, degeneracy, and honest curiosity. Thompson references Alger in other scenes, but is most profoundly referenced in the very last sentence of the novel: "I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger ... a Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident."
Hopefully Thompson visualizes himself as a reincarnation of Horatio Alger due to the fact that in the novel he is in a drug induced manic frenzy. I prefer Miller's comment, below, from his book Moloch. The quoted phrase is in reference to a request by one of his bosses at Western Union requesting he write a Horatio Alger novel about the lowly Western Union Messengers Miller hired and fired at his job there.
Every day now the Horatio Alger myth grows more ironic. Or at least the way the myth is taken - in terms of the American Dream.
Reference from Henry Miller:
http://cosmotc.blogspot.com/search?q=horatio+alger
I will give you Horatio Alger, as he looks the day after the Apocalypse, when all the stink has cleared away”
Horatio Alger Wikipedia Entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger,_Jr.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
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