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3rd out of 71 books
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I started out really enjoying this book with its colorful locale and offbeat characters. The protagonist is a stranger coming to grips with a strange land--a middle-aged writer from the mainland who leaves behind his family and old life to start over in obscurity in Hawaii and ends up managing a second-rate hotel. The stories he tells about the people he encounters are by turns funny and tragic, and often a little twisted, which was good. Then they became really twisted, and then ultimately quit...more
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I really like Paul Theroux's style of writing-his characters are, on the surface, equal parts successful, boastful, satisfied with their state in life, but underneath it all, there seems to be an uncertainty, a deep unhappiness and unrequited desire that begs to be satiated in a foreign place, free of leering eyes and judgements. I find it interesting that he picked Hawaii, as it stands in people's minds as a placid, if non-eventful, paradise on earth. A largess of natural beauty but devoid of c...more
I sometimes find Theroux's writing annoying but not this time - highly recommend Hotel Honolulu for its insights on the characters who live in this B-Hotel in Honolulu that the writer appears to be managing but, as he points out, really manages him. Here is a review by a better writer than I:
''Hotel Honolulu,'' Theroux's new novel, deals with the theme of the near other in a different way. Inhabiting an alter ego with suspiciously familiar biographical markings, Theroux pulls certain of his prev...more
''Hotel Honolulu,'' Theroux's new novel, deals with the theme of the near other in a different way. Inhabiting an alter ego with suspiciously familiar biographical markings, Theroux pulls certain of his prev...more
Read mainly during a stint scoring Hawaii Math at one of the country's top education testing facilities, Paul Theroux's Hotel Honolulu provided a nice counterpoint to the terribly misguided papers I was reading for 8 hours a day.
I am contractually bound to keep my scoring gigs confidential, so I'll say no more. Suffice to say that after this particular gig, it was readily apparent to me that Hawaiian students--much like Texan students--are either very poorly educated or simply don't bother to pe...more
I am contractually bound to keep my scoring gigs confidential, so I'll say no more. Suffice to say that after this particular gig, it was readily apparent to me that Hawaiian students--much like Texan students--are either very poorly educated or simply don't bother to pe...more
I chose this book because I was going to be vacationing in Hawaii and I wanted to read books set in Hawaii. This book was fun. It was a collection of the stories of people who lived or worked at the Hotel Honolulu. All the stories were in one way or another about or connected to "Buddy Hanstra" the hotel owner. The stories were told by
writer suffering from writer's block who escapes to Honolulu and finds himself the manager of the Hotel Honolulu. A place where people not only visit short term, b...more
writer suffering from writer's block who escapes to Honolulu and finds himself the manager of the Hotel Honolulu. A place where people not only visit short term, b...more
Theroux shows his spurs here with a very tricky fictional proposition: the linked series of vignettes. A lot of the time when reading a book like this - which falls somewhere between the novel form and a series of stand alone short stories - you're left with the feeling that it's less than the sum of its parts. But not with this book. Instead it builds nicely and uses all the cumulative detail to great effect.
The central premise is unusual and charming as well - long time author packs in the wri...more
The main character of this book, the narrator, has written, and published a book, been divorced and
moved to Hawaii for a change. He is hired to manage Hotel Honolulu, owned by Buddy, a millionair who
is a heavy drinker, smoker, jokester. If this was a movie Danny Divito would have to play Buddy. I loved the other hotel workers, the local Hawaiians, I hated the way Buddy treated women. The book is mostly storied of the different guests (?? guests??? Buddy has let several become permanent residence...more
moved to Hawaii for a change. He is hired to manage Hotel Honolulu, owned by Buddy, a millionair who
is a heavy drinker, smoker, jokester. If this was a movie Danny Divito would have to play Buddy. I loved the other hotel workers, the local Hawaiians, I hated the way Buddy treated women. The book is mostly storied of the different guests (?? guests??? Buddy has let several become permanent residence...more
I love reading Theroux's fiction and non-fiction because they both manage to carry his totally un-PC observations of human nature and culture without being overtly offensive. I picked up Hotel Honolulu in anticipation of my upcoming move to the island. Even though it is fiction, I couldn't help but believing in his descriptions of Hawaii's rawness and paradoxical nature. It is written in short story format with plot lines that interweave through the other stories. I appreciated this aspect of th...more
This is only the second fiction work I've read by Theroux. It is a cynical tragicomedy set in Hawaii, where Theroux is a part-time resident. (His grasp of Hawaiian pidgin is masterful.) Using a shabby hotel as his base, he tells the mostly sorry tales of its residents a la "Canterbury Tales." Apparently, for many tourists, "What happens in Hawaii, stays in Hawaii," just like Vegas. I liked how Theroux tears apart the island paradise fantasy. Sex is a constant theme in all of its worst manifestat...more
The Hotel Honolulu has 80 rooms and the novel 80 stories - many which interlock, all of which are short. There is sex, death, family, and gossip. The sex makes for many of the books most difficult moments. There is some passion and some tenderness, even some love, but more often there is degradation, humiliation, and manipulation, if not outright abuse (there's some of that, as well). Indeed, there are few female characters who are not in some way prostitutes and few men who are not on some leve...more
Two real issues here: repetitiveness and the ladies.
See, Paul Theroux had a great idea here: 1 story per room for the dissipated Hotel Honolulu. The problem, though, was that he maybe didn't actually have 88 separate stories to write about it. Instead, we get a half-dozen stories relating to women who were once sexually abused and then became prostitutes, another three or four of Buddy Hamsa telling not-quite-true stories about his sexual exploits, and a couple based entirely on dialect. While M...more
See, Paul Theroux had a great idea here: 1 story per room for the dissipated Hotel Honolulu. The problem, though, was that he maybe didn't actually have 88 separate stories to write about it. Instead, we get a half-dozen stories relating to women who were once sexually abused and then became prostitutes, another three or four of Buddy Hamsa telling not-quite-true stories about his sexual exploits, and a couple based entirely on dialect. While M...more
Jul 01, 2012
Sparrowfall
added it
I strongly disliked this book. It chronicles a middled-aged mainlander's career as the manager of a lower-status Honolulu hotel and is written in as a series of artificially short, episodic "just so" stories. The only characters who were not intentionally repulsive were pretentious and annoying. Locals were described as stupid and mute so often by characters that it was hard for the reader to draw any other conclusion. There was no need for the author to make so much of the multiple episodes of...more
Having been to Honolulu 8 times now, and being an adopted son in a Hawai'ian family, in my experience, Theroux paints the locals with a very accurate brush. The book introduces many characters in short vignettes, and returns to them as some dramatic change happens, and people's lives become interwoven through the Hotel Honolulu. He manages to take people from all walks of lfe and all ethnicities, and makes them people you want to know (or avoid in some cases). The author uses many pidgin or Hawa...more
Like a couple of other books of Paul Theroux's I have read, Hotel Honolulu uses an interesting device to string together a couple dozen story/sketches. He situates a version of himself in a particular place, and stories he hears, incidents he experiences or observes, and personal reflections are all linked to this quasi-fictional narrator.
Some of the stories are 'light', some are humorous, some are sobering. So, not quite short stories, not quite a novel. As with all my favorite authors, the ski...more
Some of the stories are 'light', some are humorous, some are sobering. So, not quite short stories, not quite a novel. As with all my favorite authors, the ski...more
I can see why people liked this book and why people didn't like this book. The up side: Easy reading, short chapters needing spurts of short attention spans, sex, more sex, kinky sex, an exotic setting, a cast of "endearing" characters. The down side: the noble savages bit ie the base story line of a famous author hiding out among uneducated savants to find a little release in paradise, the numerous tales of desperate women hunting men down, men desperate to try any angle to be aroused and get a...more
Apr 25, 2013
Michael Castro
added it
The life stories of its staff and guests comprise of 80 chapters of this towering construction. Most of them only last six or seven pages. Some are exotic, many are saucy and a few are hard to swallow -- even though all of them are expertly written. However, a diet of nothing but canapés can cause indigestion. There are, apparently, 130 words for wind in Hawaii. (...) Theroux is more interested in bending ears than plucking heartstrings. And yet, for all the cartoon comedy, Hotel Honolulu is a v...more
So, I picked up this book, thinking, well, I'm not expecting too much from this, since it's written by a Haole, who is not from the Islands, but it could be interesting. The premise was promising, and I happened to have another book by the author on my shelf, strangely, but also unread. So, I picked it up. I was pleasantly surprised by the writing, and the stories drew me in, but that was just schadenfreude on my part, I do believe. I like the way the author writes; he has good flow and the hote...more
In many short chapters that work as little stories in themselves, the first person narrator, a still well-known writer, tells us about his relocation to Honolulu, Hawai'i, where he doesn't write anymore, but runs a rather shabby (in comparison) hotel: the Hotel Honolulu. A lot of local folklore comes into play - some eccentric American or Japanese guests at the hotel; the no less eccentric owner of the hotel, Buddy; the city of Honolulu and the rest of the island of Oahu, and very often the Hawa...more
I had to force myself to finish this book just so I could write a review and give it a rating. Ugh. There's only so much I can read about the sex, scandal, rumors, etc. of boring people. Another reviewer noted that this reads too much like a middle-aged man's masturbatory fantasy with sordid sex stories, older men dominating younger women (generally white men w/ younger women of color), murder, mystery, etc. Not only that, but the portrayal of the locals in Hawaii was somewhat insulting. All the...more
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"seedy"
"flawed"
"really twisted, and then ultimately quite perverse"
"disturbing"
"self-described (or narrator-described, alternately) coconut princess beach bunnies" (referring Theroux's description of women)
"over-sexualized misadventures with some seriously unappealing people"
"don't bother if you think you'll be getting any insight into local Hawaiian culture, the people, the history, etc"
These are just a few quotes from the reviews about this book that can be found on this site. And yes, I say!...more
"flawed"
"really twisted, and then ultimately quite perverse"
"disturbing"
"self-described (or narrator-described, alternately) coconut princess beach bunnies" (referring Theroux's description of women)
"over-sexualized misadventures with some seriously unappealing people"
"don't bother if you think you'll be getting any insight into local Hawaiian culture, the people, the history, etc"
These are just a few quotes from the reviews about this book that can be found on this site. And yes, I say!...more
I read this book because it was one of a few recommended in a Lonely Planet guide to Oahu intended to give an accurate flavor of life in Hawaii. That it did offer. I enjoyed the book, which was the story of a writer who in his fifties found himself managing a mid-market high rise in Waikiki mostly because he impressed the owner with the fact that he had written a book. Throughout the book I envisioned the hotel owner character as a person I had worked for years ago - an Japanese American raised...more
Okay, I have yet to finish this book. (I have a horrible tendency to read 2-4 books simultaneously. No wonder I retain so little about these books that I read for pleasure. Oops.) However, I'm close--only 100 pages from the end.
Thus far, I've really enjoyed this book. It's a fast read (started it two days ago when faced with a weekend of gray skies and the tap-tap of rain outside the window), entertaining, chock full of individualistic and creatively portrayed characters. Having never read Ther...more
Thus far, I've really enjoyed this book. It's a fast read (started it two days ago when faced with a weekend of gray skies and the tap-tap of rain outside the window), entertaining, chock full of individualistic and creatively portrayed characters. Having never read Ther...more
A writer who has lost the edge ends up in the decadence of Hawaii running a seedy hotel, and ends up writing portraits of the different visitors, characters and of himself - which form the different chapters of the book. It can also be read as a collection of short stories. I read this book in parallel with "The Curse of Lono" (Hunter Thompson) and they are companion books in some sense, as a part of the plot in the "Curse of Lono" revolves around a stay in a appalling hotel in Hawaii.
I was unable to finish this book, although it was very well written. Each chapter became more and more depressing and I could not continue. However, my sister-in-law really liked it, so it must have merit. It just wasn't my thing. I found it very dark and describing a side of human nature that was perhaps meant to be humorous or illuminating but to me seemed tawdry. Perhaps if I had finished it I would have ended up loving it--who knows?
This book is hard to put down because the writing is excellent and the stories are captivating in their weirdness and irony. It is also a difficult book to read all at once because it's morbid, the characters are unhappy or meet unhappy ends, and the narrator seems uncomfortably voyeuristic in his own fascination with the twisted sexuality and exploits of the people who pass through Hotel Honolulu. If you're seeking a relaxing and happy story about a hotel in Hawaii, do not read this book.
I really liked Theroux's Dark Star Safari. Reading that book prompted me to pick up more of his stuff. This book is a little dark and satirical - there is no denying that Paul can write (I get to call him Paul since my name is also Paul).
It's not very uplifting or cheery, but you will get sucked in. Overall, not as compelling as my first Theroux foray, but it was good enough to get me to read more of his books.
It's not very uplifting or cheery, but you will get sucked in. Overall, not as compelling as my first Theroux foray, but it was good enough to get me to read more of his books.
This novel is more of a collection of short stories about the guests, residents, and workers at the Hotel Honolulu where the narrator works as a resident manager. Athough the stories range from funny to tragic, there is an emphasis on sexual exploitation that got pretty old. The best stories revolved around the owner of the hotel, Buddy, as he is a crass guy who loves a good practical joke. At some points in the book I was tired of reading yet another tale of some young girl who has the misfortu...more
STRANGE book. In some ways it was interesting, and Theroux definitely has a talent for realistic and fascinating characters. However, these people don't live in any world I recognize, and this makes me wonder if there are any normal non-completely messed up people in Hawaii. The vignettes ultimately didn't have a coherent theme, and it got quite tiresome before the end.
Hotel Honolulu is down-at-the-heels tourist place on a back street two blocks from the beach at Waikiki, where middle America stays and dreams. Like the Canterbury pilgrims, every guest in this eighty-room hotel has come in search of something— sun, love, happiness, un-namable longing— and everyone has a story. I did not like it as much as some of his other stuff, but it was okay.
A loose account of life in a small hotel along Waikiki by an author who has stopped writing and finds a new career as hotel manager. I enjoyed the glimpses of Hawaiian life..language, expressions, relations to tourists, etc. but it was also fairly crude. Only for someone wanting to get a feel for Hawaiian life that can stomach violence, bad language, and kinky sexual situations.
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Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through East Asia, as far east as Japan, and then back across Russia to his point of origin. Although perhaps best know...more
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