The Rum Diary : A Novel | Hunter S. Thompson | Yo Ho Ho, and several bottles of rum

The Rum Diary : A Novel | Hunter S. Thompson | A great way to remember Dr. Thompson.

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The Rum Diary : A ...

	The Rum Diary : A Novel Hunter S. Thompson Simon & Schuster, 1999 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 130 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Yo Ho Ho, and several bottles of rum

Hunter S. Thompson's 'The Rum Diary' is equal parts Fitzgerald and Kerouac in its tone....soaked in booze, and wallowing in despair from time to time.

The author's first novel, 'lost' for many years, puts the protagonist, Paul Kemp, on a plane for 1959 San Jaun, Puerto Rico, to write for the San Juan Daily News, an English language publication struggling to stay afloat.

Kemp aligns himself with several motley characters upon arrival...the bitter and cynical Robert Sala,; the hard drinking, abusive, and combative 'Fritz' Yeamon, and Chenault, the girlfriend of Yeamon, amongst others. Kemp, no stranger to the bottom of a rum bottle himself, remains privately 'detached' from these island denizens, as much as he can, while trying to find his place at the paper and in his new home.

Over the course of several months, through rumor after rumor of the paper folding, due to financial difficulties; through Sala's jaded view of anyones' longevity with the paper and on the island, through Yeamon's and Chenault's numerous altercations due to Yeamon's rising jealousy and bitterness over being fired from the paper, Kemp finds that what may have looked like a 'tropical paradise' from the sky, is far from it when his feet are planted on the ground.

Robert Sala sums up the course of events in this book best when he declares to Kemp that (paraphrased) 'we keep on drinking and things keep going from bad to worse'. Kemp's involvement with the paper, and its employees, and with far too many bottles of rum, takes several characters on a downward spiral, reminiscent of Fitzgerald's protagonist in 'The Beautiful and Damned'.

A decidedly good first novel (and admittedly the first Thompson novel I've ever read), I liked this book mostly for the 'Kerouac' tone it had to it..which perhaps only existed in my own mind, as an avid fan of Kerouac, and due to the substance abuse of this protagonist as well as Kerouac's. Whatever the case, this slim (200 page) novel was enjoyable and easy to digest...probably far easier than all the rum consumed by the characters between the covers.

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A great way to remember Dr. Thompson.

After Hunter's passing i got this and it was worth it, a fun book that shows alot of raw emotion. I would recommend this book to all of my friends and to you as well. It's not too long as has a great rythim to it.

Smoldering Ineptness on Tropical Island

1959 - San Juan, Puerto Rico. Before the Cuban Missile Crisis, before the tumultuous Civil Rights movements of the 1960s, before the massive, commercialized Caribbean vacation developments (i.e. "The Atlantis"), there was the subdued, laid-back, pink finned Cadillac cruising, rum and cigar infested image of tropical 1950s Puerto Rico. Through his forays with ravenous police, drunken bar encounters, and corruptly swindling system-cheaters, Thompson portends his future romps through Las Vegas, the Hells Angels clan, and numerous journalistic missions through the drug infested South American landscape. This is a great read showing the young emerging prose and writing talents that would become world famous for his rampaging gonzo-style portrayal of off-beaten, skitish encounters. Ahead of his time in rabid intensity, ostentatious debauchery, and brave audacity, the Good Ol' Doctor will be greatly missed. What a writer he was.

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Little Fear, Less Loathing, But a Lot of Words

I love Thompson's work and usually finish his books within a very short period of time. However, it took me almost a year to finish The Rum Diary, even though it's one of his shortest works. This book is slow, so slow that the minuscule chapters seem to drag on for weeks, each sentence stretching infinitely to a place you don't really care to go.

Although some symptoms of Thompson's style are already present, the book is also filled with a lot of triteness. It almost feels like a sequel to something HST would've written, done by an entirely different human being.

I suppose it could be argued that the style for The Rum Diary went with the plot, that since the protagonist, Paul Kemp, was given little to do but waste his life idling, drinking, and working for a sub-par newspaper that there needed to be an according structural prototype to allow us to feel Kemp's pathos. However, depicting said pathos does not necessarily lead to boring one's readers into a coma.

If The Rum Diary got its much-needed rewrite, it could've been shaped into a tight little novel about fear, loathing, and all those things we have come to love the Good Doctor for. As is, though, it's only worth three stars of my adoration.

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