Wolfe has strong opinions about various social phenomena, interesting to read whether you agree with him or not. He seemed to think, for example, that clothes a person wore were more important than their ideas or their actions. That's all I can recall about this book so long after reading it. ( )

Somehow, Tom Wolfe takes a fascinating topic such as the psychedelic experience, and a counter culture movement, and makes it an utter chore to read. The topic is just so fascinating. I loved reading about Ken Kesey, Owsley Stanley, the acid tests, the Hell's Angels, the Merry Pranksters. Basically all the topics in this books were fascinating, but Tom Wolfe was just not a very good writer in my opinion. I was constantly aware of the writing, and not in a good way. It took me so long to read this, I finished partly out of spite, and partly because I was legitimately interested in the content, writing be damned. ( )

You're either on the bus or you're off the bus. ( )

I still constantly remind myself that art is not eternal. ( )

Kind of mixed feelings on this one. I think Tom Wolfe does as good a job as he can of describing the long, strange trip of the Pranksters, but I also think that this works against him - there were only so many attempts to describe an LSD experience I could take before I grew frustrated and wished Wolfe would just relate things in a more straightforward way. ( )