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The Rum Diary : A Novel |  | Author: Hunter S. Thompson
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy Used: $6.00
as of 11/21/2009 09:11 CST details
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Seller: davidbiggs20
Rating:  142 reviews
Sales Rank: 9304
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st Scribner Paperback Fiction Ed
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.5
ISBN: 0684856476
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780684856476
ASIN: 0684856476
Publication Date: November 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
"Disgusting as he usually was," Hunter Thompson writes in this, his 1959 novel, "on rare occasions he showed flashes of a stagnant intelligence. But his brain was so rotted with drink and dissolute living that whenever he put it to work it behaved like an old engine that had gone haywire from being dipped in lard." Surprise! Thompson isn't writing about himself, but one of the other, older, aimlessly carousing newspapermen in Puerto Rico, a guy called Moberg whose chief achievement is the ability to find his car after a night's drinking because it stinks so much. (I can smell it for blocks, he boasts.) The autobiographical hero, Paul Kemp, is 30, trapped in a dead-end job (Thompson wound up writing for a bowling magazine), and feeling as if his big-time writer dreams, soaked in Fitzgerald and Hemingway, are evaporating as rapidly as the rum in his fist. In fact, Thompson was only 22 when he wrote The Rum Diary, but his fear of winding up like Moberg was well founded. What saved him was the fantastic conflagration of the 1960s, a fiery wind on which the reptilian wings of his prose style could catch and soar to the cackling heights of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Puerto Rico in 1959 doesn't have bad craziness enough to offer Thompson--just a routine drunken-reporter stomping by local cops and a riot over Kemp's friend's temptress girlfriend, a scantily imagined Smith College alumna who likes to strip nude on beaches and in nightclubs to taunt men. Thompson's prose style only intermittently takes tentative flight--compare the stomping scenes in this book with his breakthrough, Hell's Angels--but it's interesting to see him so nakedly reveal his sensitive innards, before the celebrated clownish carapace grew in. It's also interesting to see how he improved this full version of the novel from the more raw (and racist) excerpts found in the 1990 collection Songs of the Doomed (available on audiocassette, partly narrated by Thompson). --Tim Appelo
Product Description
Begun in 1959 by a then-twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. Exuberant and mad, youthful and energetic, The Rum Diary is an outrageous, drunken romp in the spirit of Thompson's bestselling Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Hell's Angels.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 142
Lost Gonzo classic November 14, 2009
H. Jin (Melbourne, Australia)
This was reportedly one of the first books written by Hunter S Thompson, when he was in his twenties, but remained unreleased for decades. I don't know why, because this is an outstanding and (at the time it was written) highly original book.
What is remarkable is that even at this early stage, Thompson's "Gonzo" approach is already well developed. Drawing on his own experiences in Puerto Rico, Thompson blends fact, embellishment, and fiction into a unique whole. In true Gonzo fashion, the narrative is less important than describing the people, the places, and the times that Thompson has witnessed. However, probably because it is one of his first books, 'The Rum Diary' is a more straightforward and coherent story than later works such as 'Fear And Loathing...'.
Thompson's description of the bums, drunks, psychos, crooks, and dealers who inhabited Puerto Rico in the Fifties is at different times funny, surreal and tragic. Some moments border on slapstick comedy, while others (such as when the hacks all gather at Al's to get drunk and reflect) are poignant and despairing. The Gonzo style really brings out the spirit of the times, chronicling those restless visionaries who scramble for a foothold in the developing market, and the frustrated have-nots who drink themselves into a stupor night after night.
It's often the case that so-called "lost classics" are inferior novels that don't live up to the hype, but 'The Rum Diary' really is deserving of that status. While it probably pales in comparison to Thompson's more innovative works, the book is still a good read. Thompson acolytes will definitely want to see where it all started for their hero, while the book's relative accessibility also makes it suitable for more casual fans who would be put off by Thompson's other works. A true hidden gem, and I highly recommend it.
 Excellent Read... October 6, 2009
Phillip D. Plevek
HST delivers a work of fiction that feels more honest than non-fiction could ever be.
Read This G**D****d Book! August 26, 2009
Lance S. Edwards
Never heard of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson? I suppose that's possible, but it's never too late to experience something useful and character shaping. Is this his best? No. Even the good doctor wanted to rewrite the thing. Like most really good writers, the more seasoned Hunter S. Thompson was visited by the spectre of hindsight, who bestowed an author's curse, a keenly felt awareness of the deficiencies of an earlier work. Is it worth reading? Do you really not want to read something that was crafted in the grey matter of the then 22 year old HST? It still reads better, and has more to say, than most of the crap that ends up on the Best Seller list. If you're a fan of HST, it's a no-brainer, read it. It's the entrance into the steaming jungle of Gonzoland. If you're not a fan, read it anyway. It's almost a short story compared to most of the overpriced door stops dropping with a heavy thud onto the bookstore shelves these days. So it won't take much of your time to read. Who knows, you might become a fan, and end up delving into his later and better works. At the very least, you should be suitably entertained in exchange for your effort, and might even find something that clicks with you. If not . . . well, there's always that Best Seller list.
Lance S. Edwards
great book August 1, 2009
Veronica Del Valle Marengo (PR)
It is not written like a typical novel, it is more of a narrative. Great characters! I found it very amusing how it depicted puertorricans being that I am one of them. Bear in mind that this is a drunken American's point of view, we are not really like that.
I had the good fortune to be able to follow the filming closely and when it comes out on film (it will star Johnny Depp; filming was wrapped in June) I can't wait to watch this book adapted into a screenplay.
Hunter S. at his best July 7, 2009
Jason Bateman (los angeles, ca)
Thompson's drug-free version of fear and loathing...just as good and with a good love story to boot
Showing reviews 1-5 of 142
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