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The Rum Diary

by Hunter S. Thompson

3.89 · rating details · 11,961 ratings · 837 reviews

Hunter S. Thompson worked in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a reporter for a variety of publications, notably The Nation, the National Journal, and the well-received stories, but he really wanted to be a novelist. As such, he created The Rum Diary, a roman-a-clef about a drunken young journalist in the tropics. Now, with Thompson's reputation at an all-time high, this n...more

Paperback, 204 pages

Published September 20th 2011 by Simon & Schuster (first published 1998)

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Aug 12, 2011

Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: literature

I guess I should explain the rating to those of you who would argue that this is Thompson's weakest work, and therefore undeserving of praise...

*This novel catches Thompson before he is wrapped in the arms of fame and can get away with anything he wants. In this particular story, he still has to worry about going broke, getting stuck somewhere without hope or help, and potentially watching his dreams smash against the rocks like a heavily polluted ocean wave. Though much of this na...moreI guess I should explain the rating to those of you who would argue that this is Thompson's weakest work, and therefore undeserving of praise...

*This novel catches Thompson before he is wrapped in the arms of fame and can get away with anything he wants. In this particular story, he still has to worry about going broke, getting stuck somewhere without hope or help, and potentially watching his dreams smash against the rocks like a heavily polluted ocean wave. Though much of this narrative is fiction, the situation (career, location, finances) of the protagonist come from HST's own experiences in Puerto Rico. Thompson articulates within the pages of this story the mindset of the hopeful lost, the starry-eyed cynics of the world, the trouble-making peace hunters like myself, a section of society whose collective voice he succinctly captures within this quote:

"Like most others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going."

*This novel is frequently hilarious. Never mind Thompson's hands-off approach to people and their petty squabbles and emotional outbursts (his will to survive in relative comfort taking precedence over social niceties, which can make him seem like a stone-cold bastard sometimes), and disregarding his mumbled and grumbled asides about what Nazis poor drivers and Puerto Rican policemen are, the man just has this way of describing people (in groups or individually) that is akin to taking a surgical knife to everything that they stand for. He's a psychoanalyst from hell, and he's damn funny while he's at it:

"He was trembling and I offered to drive. He ignored me. 'Man, I'm serious,' he said. 'I've got to get away - my luck is running out.' He has said the same thing before and I think he believed it. He was forever talking about luck, but what he really meant was a very ordered kind of fate. He had a strong sense of it - a belief that large and uncontrollable things were working both for and against him, things that were moving and happening every minute all over the world. The rise of communism worried him because it meant that people were going blind to his sensitivity as a human being. The troubles of the Jews depressed him because it meant that people needed scapegoats and sooner or later he would be one of them. Other things bothered him constantly: the brutality of capitalism because his talents were being exploited, the moronic vulgarity of American tourists because it gave him a bad reputation, the careless stupidity of Puerto Ricans because they were forever making his life dangerous and difficult, and even, for some reason I never understood, the hundreds of stray dogs that he saw in San Juan."

*Thompson knows how to inspire your sense of adventure without fooling you about the fact that any journey worth embarking upon will be riddled with bullshit that you must be ready to dodge at every step of the way (this books is mostly about troubles in paradise, in fact). However, when he does find a brief bit of bliss through his travels, he knows how to illustrate his location with simple words, yet in a way that takes you there and makes you lust for it all the same. Here he is describing Vieques Island:

"Finally we came over a rise and I saw the Caribbean...My first feeling was a wild desire to drive a stake in the sand and claim the place for myself. The beach was white as salt, and cut off from the world by a ring of steep hills that faced the sea. We were on the edge of a large bay and the water was that clear, turquoise color that you get with a white sand bottom. I had never seen such a place. I wanted to take off all my clothes and never wear them again."

I immediately proceeded to run a GIS of Vieques. Thompson's travels gave me a burst of inspiration to get up, prioritize, and to take care of whatever necessary nonsense that I must endure in order to one day see a place such as this for myself. Wanderlust. Sometimes I really like being ordered to get off my bottom by the books that I am reading. Human eyes (mine?) taking in rapturously humbling landscapes after following a knobby path with very little resources? I'll take that trade any day. I'm not sure if this book is technically as good as my experience reading it was, but I respect it regardless. Also, I always hear Thompson's voice when reading his work, which is its own source of amusement. Yep.(less)

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Aug 27, 2008

A.J. rated it

Shelves: fiction, literary

Hunter Thompson's original ambition was to be a novelist, and he wrote two unpublished novels, Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary, before he became a star of New Journalism and abandoned fiction for good. Prince Jellyfish has not seen the light of day, except in a short, forgettable excerpt, but The Rum Diary did, well after the fact.

And it's not very good. It opens with an uninteresting passage of description that attempts to set up the narrator and characters as larger than life. T...more

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Dec 27, 2007

Mike rated it

Journalist with bad attitude get a job in Puerto Rico working with other ill-tempered men. By the end of the story he has landed a beautiful girl who is simultaneously innocent and whorish. In between there are several rather pointless episodes of newsroom politics, and a stint at the Carnival which is climaxed by the girl dancing naked at a party: exposed to a pointedly non-white audience she clinches the narrators sympathy.

Fans of HST may wish to read this for a look at his writing ...more

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Nov 13, 2011

Jim Lawrence rated it

· review of another edition

Thompson wrote this semi-autobiographical novel in his early twenties but put it aside, regarding it as a failure. Nearly forty years later, apparently with the encouragement of his friend Johnny 'The Colonel' Depp, he dug it out and got it published.

This is the Hunter S. Thompson of his pre-gonzo-journalism callow youth, displaying some obvious influence from Fitzgerald and Hemingway - specifically The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises, I would suggest. And yet the tone and the pr...moreThompson wrote this semi-autobiographical novel in his early twenties but put it aside, regarding it as a failure. Nearly forty years later, apparently with the encouragement of his friend Johnny 'The Colonel' Depp, he dug it out and got it published.

This is the Hunter S. Thompson of his pre-gonzo-journalism callow youth, displaying some obvious influence from Fitzgerald and Hemingway - specifically The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises, I would suggest. And yet the tone and the prose are recognisably his own; as a devotee of HST I was fascinated to note just how set his style already was. There is a certain cadence, a recognisable turn of phrase, that is distinctive. He often hits an elegiac strain that melds wounded idealism with a despairing acceptance, and in these phases he reveals his ethical and emotional character in a touchingly poetic mode. There are passages here which point forwards to the sad-beautiful 'wave' riff in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, that paean to a moment forever lost when the generation of idealistic youth gave way to the generation of swine.

The story, such as it is, tells of Paul Kemp, a disillusioned journalist in his early thirties who has moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to work on a local newspaper. The atmosphere is perpetually booze-soaked, frequently desperate and, in the end, utterly brutal. The cavalcade of drifters and losers comprised of his fellow journalists provides much comic relief and not a little pathos. Ultimately their chaotic lives seem diminished, their 'liberation' from the banality of conventional life consisting of alcoholic stupor, emotional blindness and a defeated directionlessness. Kemp begins the story in a mood of optimism - he is free, at the tail end of a ten-year period of wandering and decadence; but he ends it in a kind of limbo. There is love out there for him, in the shape of the beautiful but rather sketchily characterised wild child Chenault, and it seems he might take that path; but maybe not. He has to run, but it is unclear to him, perhaps, and to the reader, where he should run to.

The Rum Diary is not a profound book, and indeed it is difficult to discern any real point to it (no doubt this is what HST felt on finishing his manuscript): the comic aspects do not sit comfortably with his attempt at a Fitzgeraldian emotional sweep, and the hints of a sociopolitical critique of the US presence on the island seem as if they could be part of a different, much better novel. Yet it is an entertaining read nonetheless, and not necessarily for Thompson fans only.(less)

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Jul 16, 2009

Misha rated it

Recommended to Misha by: book club

Shelves: 2009, newspapering, novel, loved-it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Five decades ago, Thompson wrote what is probably the best summary I've seen of how I feel about the newspaper industry now.

I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top.

At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension b...more

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Jan 23, 2008

Hunter rated it

Recommends it for: Lovers, Drinkers

Shelves: fiction, journalism, gonzo

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 24, 2007

Paul rated it

Recommends it for: HST Fans

This is my first foray into Hunter S. Thompson's work. Ashamedly, I have not read any of his legitimate Gonzo journalism, and I understand that this is not an appropriate representation of his more psychedelic work. However, from the standpoint of an everyday novel, this is one of the best non-crime fiction, non-science fiction, non-Vonnegut mundane fiction that I have read in a long time.
I don't anticipate all of Hunter's work to resonate the same way this work has, but I don't want to ...more

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Feb 18, 2009

5 rated it

So passive, despite a fair amount of action, that it feels like nostalgia for a place you've never been... I can see why it was never published, at the time. And ultimately is only likely to be of interest for fans, or the curious, interested parties in the development of a sometimes powerful writer... For the descriptive prose in this piece is fantastic, even if the feel is of a large engine still trying to find its way out of second gear... I hear this is going to be a movie soon, and I have i...more

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Jan 24, 2012

WrigleyFielder rated it

I knew I was going to have problems with a novel where the only female characters are trophies to be fought over, traded around and then forgotten even adjusting for the cultural setting of 1950's Puerto Rico. I kept waiting for the main target of this physical & emotional abuse, Chenault, to have an epiphany but no such luck. She merely trades one abuser for the next, the narrator Paul Kemp who is supposedly a journalist who freelances for the New York Times.

The reader gets hints dro...more

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Jan 03, 2012

Lucy rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

I struggle to get more enthusiastic about this book than to say it was fine.

Its a typical tale of directionless male, drinking with buddies, living a life with no responsibilities, getting into scrapes, fixing scrapes (usually because he is a white, middle-class, male) and discussing the futility of life. It reminded me very much of J.D. Sallinger, John Steinbeck and a host of other gringy tales of pseudo-angst, but it wasn't as good.

I am never very sure if these novels are...more

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Dec 02, 2011

Josh Duggan rated it

This was the first time that I've actually ventured into the works of Hunter S. Thompson. I was immediately taken by how immensely readable it was. I had the misguided preconception that it would have been more difficult as a result of his historic substance [ab]use. Concerns were quickly alleviated, and following Thompson's presumed alter-ego to San Juan, Puerto Rico, proved to be an interesting ride.

Despite The Rum Diary having been the first novel Thompson wrote (it was mostly writt...moreThis was the first time that I've actually ventured into the works of Hunter S. Thompson. I was immediately taken by how immensely readable it was. I had the misguided preconception that it would have been more difficult as a result of his historic substance [ab]use. Concerns were quickly alleviated, and following Thompson's presumed alter-ego to San Juan, Puerto Rico, proved to be an interesting ride.

Despite The Rum Diary having been the first novel Thompson wrote (it was mostly written in 1959 but not published until 1998), it dealt heavily in lamentations on aging and yearning for another man's woman. What really made this novel, though, was the colorful cast of supporting characters in a Puerto Rico that was as much a new frontier for Americans as anything else.

Knowing that a film adaptation was being made, it was hard not to insert Johnny Depp and Amber Heard into the roles of Paul Kemp and Chenault, respectively, because they were the two casting decisions I remembered having read about. I suppose this could have been worse*, but it is a little odd for me as a reader, as it is not often that I read stuff that has been adapted**. It is also somewhat baffling that the newspaper angle has been dropped altogether, and the volatile but vital character of Fritz Yeamon is said to have had his character doled out to other characters.

*I think my appreciation for Amber Heard has to be on the record somewhere...

** The early books in the Dennis Lehane Kenzie/Gennaro series are the only loose exception I can think of immediately.

Back to the book, though, Thompson pens a novel in which the protagonist sits back watching those around him act erratically. Paul Kemp, while self-serving to be sure, more often than not finds himself beholden to morality. While he pines for Chenault, he does not act upon these desires until she has left the drunken abuser, Yeamon. And while he drinks a lot, everyone at the paper drinks incessantly, so he doesn't come across as being particularly debaucherous.

In Kemp, he imbued the novel with a relatable protagonist. As far as initial forays into the Hunter S. Thompson catalog are concerned, this one went off without a hitch. It would seem that it was penned before Thompson embraced what I imagine his gonzo style to incorporate. It is rum soaked to be sure, but the other substances for which he was to be known to use seem all but absent here. The prose suffers no lack of clarity for it, and combined with the book's length (a scant 200-ish pages) makes for a readable, episodic novel that does not show the inexperience of the author. Perhaps most importantly, I can certainly say it likely will not be the last time I read him, so it is a recommendation in that regard.

I can say that despite the reports of rampant Heard nudity, I am very worried about the upcoming adaptation, which seems to have made a lot of changes to the novel--something that seems wholly unnecessary. The novel is very good and had more than enough story to adapt into a nice little island film.

Originally reviewed at http://inconsiderateprick.blogspot.com/2...(less)

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Nov 17, 2011

Jools rated it

If you’ve heard of Hunter S. Thompson, the plot of The Rum Diary will come as no surprise: a hard-drinking immoral reporter stumbles through a series of wild adventures. Thompson creates a ‘trouble in paradise’ story and shows no shortage of skill in building a gripping, entertaining and believable story which portrays the tensions between the Puerto Rican community and the ex-patriate journalists of the San Juan Star. The Rum Diary was ‘lost’, buried in Thompson’s house and only published forty...moreIf you’ve heard of Hunter S. Thompson, the plot of The Rum Diary will come as no surprise: a hard-drinking immoral reporter stumbles through a series of wild adventures. Thompson creates a ‘trouble in paradise’ story and shows no shortage of skill in building a gripping, entertaining and believable story which portrays the tensions between the Puerto Rican community and the ex-patriate journalists of the San Juan Star. The Rum Diary was ‘lost’, buried in Thompson’s house and only published forty years after it was written and Thompson was established as the Gonzo hell-raiser in chief.

The Rum Diary is seen as a a roman-a-clef and I think that’s pretty accurate since Thompson himself said:

‘Fiction is based on reality unless you’re a fairy-tale artist, you have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you’re writing about before you alter it.’

Paul Kemp, the protagonist of The Rum Diary, arrives in San Juan in the late 1950’s, when tourism is beginning to boom, a town where all the beautiful girls are willing to have sex with anyone but him and his would be stellar career is being pulled into the quicksand of a failing newspaper. He falls into a life of hard drinking, finding free rum easy to come by at the copious press parties, trying to delay the contemplation of being over the hill at thirty-something. Kemp’s pursuit of journalistic hedonism is a great party to crash but deep in his side is the thorn of the knowledge that the newspaper he works for is terrible and could quite easily fold, leaving him practically destitute in a foreign country. There is a sense of drunkenly mellow passivity, that Kemp feels like he has failed and is now at the top of a downward slide. That’s not to say that this book isn’t funny, it’s laugh out loud funny (I had many odd looks on the bus while reading this). The Rum Diary contains more stamina, imagination and passion than some of Thompson’s later work.

It seems at first to just be a decadent romp is actually much more, and those who dismiss it with in the first few pages will certainly lose out. It’s a tale of the outsider, like a lot of Thompson’s work is but this in particular has a truth to it that is hard to shake unlike some of the more extreme situations that can be found between the covers of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. It was written at a point in Thompson’s life where he did face the prospect of being utterly broke and friendless.

Is this a modern classic? That very much depends on your opinion of Thompson. He’s like Marmite: you either love him or loathe him. For me, The Rum Diary is a classic example of a great first novel but it is not a firm classic. Basically, this is a borderline case. I would recommend it cautiously: if you are likely to be upset by reading about someone who is living Kemp’s decadent lifestyle then this book really isn’t for you. On the other hand if you are interested in an intriguing and wryly amusing life of an outsider coming to terms with the consequences of his choices then crash his party and enjoy.(less)

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Nov 15, 2011

Eli Didier rated it

One thing I love about Hunter S. Thompson was his ability to write "in the moment," stream-of-consciousness scenes in his stories. His pacing is fast and exciting, spurring the reader on throughout The Rum Diary and emphasizing the intensity of the moment. Thompson doesn't mince words when he writes, "It was a rotten night in the middle of January, but I wore a light cord coat. Everyone else had on heavy jackets and flannel suits. The last thing I remember is standing on the d...more

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Oct 28, 2011

Devin Asaro rated it

The Rum Diary is a book that I find myself wishing wasn’t written by Hunter S. Thompson. Reason being that I actually like it quite a bit. Thompson’s cult status makes me wary of him, as I try to be (try being the operative word) of any writer who is painted as a sad saint in the wake of his suicide. David Foster Wallace is another one those — again, double emphasis on the predicate try.

It’s been seven or so years since I read the novel, but I remember it fondly, and several of its mor...moreThe Rum Diary is a book that I find myself wishing wasn’t written by Hunter S. Thompson. Reason being that I actually like it quite a bit. Thompson’s cult status makes me wary of him, as I try to be (try being the operative word) of any writer who is painted as a sad saint in the wake of his suicide. David Foster Wallace is another one those — again, double emphasis on the predicate try.

It’s been seven or so years since I read the novel, but I remember it fondly, and several of its more ebullient (beautiful word, isn’t it?) descriptions still pop around in my head sometimes. One paragraph resonates particulalry, a description of Thompson’s ingenue (and manic pixie dream girl), Chenault. I’m thumbing for it now:

“She was wearing a white bikini and her hair fell down to her waist. There was nothing of the secretary about her now; she looked like a wild and sensual child who had never worn anything but two strips of white cloth and a warm smile. She was tiny, but the shape of her body made her seem larger ; not the thin, undeveloped build of most tiny girls, but a fleshy roundness that looked to be all hips and thighs and nipples and long haired warmth.”

Reading it now, it feels a bit childish and overly sexy, but I think that’s actually what I like about it. Amber Beard’s portrayal of Chenault bored me to death, but that’s hardly her fault. I blame either the editor, for reducing her to a merely peppered-in sexual object, or myself, for expecting her to be anything more than that.

As Paul Kemp, the novel’s protagonist, Depp broods a bit much for my taste, but the brooding gives him leverage to showcase Kemp’s youthful naivety, which he might not otherwise have the physicality to pull off. (What is he now, sixty?) He brings savage complexity to the role and he doesn’t over-sell it. For his previous role in Fear and Loathing, and his long-standing relationship with the late author, Depp has certainly achieved a sort of “Thompson tenure.” While Johnny Depp is alive, can anyone else really play Hunter S. Thompson?

In the novel, Kemp is, for Thompson at least, a rather un-Thompsonian character; He holds to ideals that seem innocent and honest, as though their author could, or might, actually believe in them. The novel was written when Thompson was a youngish man, and Kemp, at least ostensibly, is made to reflect the young Hunter S. You can certainly imagine the youthful and idealistic Kemp (who, don’t get me wrong, is still by anyone’s standards a violent alcoholic) maturing into the paranoid maniac Raoul Duke, of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Sure, we can tack it up to their both “being” Thompson, but let’s not be boring about it, shall we? If for nothing else, Thompson’s prose is meaningful as a cultural barometer; the character himself is stagnant. History moves around him, and profound cultural criticism sticks to him, just from his being there, as muck clings to an unmoving twig stuck in the bottom of a river bed. (Please, pardon the similie.)

I feel that I simply must mention that the film includes an almost obligatory LSD scene to remind the reader that Yes, this is a Hunter Thompson movie, though I’m fairly certain that the only drug in the novel is alcohol, and copious amounts of it. It feels a bit contrived, but hey, I like it. The director, Bruce Robinson gives us a splendid aural display, which effectively quells any of my criticism regarding the scene’s hokiness.

The movie itself is beautiful, and its tone and atmosphere are what sells it for me, at least in terms of its “living up to the book.” It would have been very easy to make the tropical paradise of San Juan into a Corona ad, but Bruce Robinson steers clear of that, giving us very few panoramic shots of expansive ocean and endless white sand. Too many hotels, I think is the point.

Instead of paradise we see dingy walls, sweaty tourists, and profoundly disgruntled locals. The unexpected awfulness of the locale is certainly romanticized, but it works. And, true to Thompson’s Gonzo philosophy, every scene makes the viewer want to be accomplice to the mayhem, to live with such unflagging ideals, and such blatant disregard for how perfectly impossible it is to actually stand for anything. If only we could all be so lucky.(less)

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Oct 28, 2011

Adrienne Boudreau rated it

Recommended to Adrienne by: Mark

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. In the Rum Diary, Hunter S Thompson proves to me he can organize a novel, albiet not well, and yes, one could argue it was a loose story to reflect loose chaarcters and blah de blah. Hunter S Thompson does what he wants and I'm not here to discuss my personal feelings about him, I'm here to write down my thoughts on this partcular book.

Anyway, so, the general premise is a bunch of drunk, ashshole, male journalists live in Suan Juan just as it was becoming the tourist trap it is toda...moreIn the Rum Diary, Hunter S Thompson proves to me he can organize a novel, albiet not well, and yes, one could argue it was a loose story to reflect loose chaarcters and blah de blah. Hunter S Thompson does what he wants and I'm not here to discuss my personal feelings about him, I'm here to write down my thoughts on this partcular book.

Anyway, so, the general premise is a bunch of drunk, ashshole, male journalists live in Suan Juan just as it was becoming the tourist trap it is today and bully Puerto Ricans. On their journey of bullying Puerto Ricans the protagonist, Paul Kemp, comes to some sort of realization of self discovery of how he is becoming old and craves stability. Which is a theme I can relate to, as someone who wants more than anything, a normal life and a bed to go home to and someone to warm it. The writing itself can be distracting as Thompson decides to empahsize weird details but when you start one of his works you know exactly what you're signing up for. I mean compared to Fear and Loathing, The Rum Diary is a well structured story where everything is compleatly logical.

The characters don't run very deep but the novel moves so fast it's understandable that there really isn't time for much development. Yeoman is by far the most intresting character as a massive, unyielding power. He is Howard Roark with more emotions, an anger problem and a drinking problem, a talent who refuses to compromise himself what-so-ever. Paul, the protagonist, is a very dark character and the only time I think he is actually happy in the book is when he realizes he just wants stability. He tends to not get involved in things but usually just observes from the sidelines. The rest of the time he is just wasted and brooding in a corner wondering what has become of him?

What I like to think I got out of this novel is the idea that you can set up all the goals you want and live an as crazy and exciting life as you want, but that there is nothing better than being able to count on something or someone at the end of the day. (less)

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Oct 07, 2011

Anney Ryan rated it

There was a lot of drama at the San Juan newspaper where Thompson worked while he wrote this memoir. I had a hard time following it; that's just not where my brain goes. Instead, I gravitated to how he wrestled with his inner self. At twenty, he describes himself as meandering and lost, trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. I found his self-conscious insecure worries endearing. How often do we get that from Hunter? I also kept reading to find out if he was going to bed his pal'...more

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Sep 13, 2011

Michael Cunningham rated it

My first night in Saigon; I was approached by a blind lady who was selling counterfeit books. Even though she had glazed pupils and was talking to the tip of my head, I was really taken by her bright personality and attractive face. So I decided to actually have a look at her selection rather than shoo her off like I did everyone else. She mostly had garbage travel books and lonely planet guides, but I did spot The Rum Diary in the corner of my eye, being a huge Hunter S. Thompson fan I realised...moreMy first night in Saigon; I was approached by a blind lady who was selling counterfeit books. Even though she had glazed pupils and was talking to the tip of my head, I was really taken by her bright personality and attractive face. So I decided to actually have a look at her selection rather than shoo her off like I did everyone else. She mostly had garbage travel books and lonely planet guides, but I did spot The Rum Diary in the corner of my eye, being a huge Hunter S. Thompson fan I realised this was the perfect opportunity to read his first novel. I also bought some weed off the woman before parting ways. I read this book everywhere: I read it in my shoe box hotel room (I use the word room lightly), I read it in the sun, I read it on the bus, I read it on the toilet, I read it on the sand and I read it while drinking rum… lots of rum. The word ‘rum’ gets thrown around so much you become fixated on it; before you know it you’re slamming rum and cokes down like glasses of water! The Rum Diary is a solid little book and a very enjoyable read. It’s a bit slower than Hunter’s other novels, but it was also his first and was a groundbreaking entry into the world of writing. The review excerpt on the front cover puts it perfectly: “Crackling, twisted, searing, paced to a deft prose rhythm… a shot of Gonzo with a rum chaser” – San Fransisco Chronicle. The story follows journalist Paul Kemp (Hunter S. Thompson) in Puerto Rico, as he tries to make it in the hot and isolated world that he has escaped to. I won’t say any more, but if you’re a fan of Hunter S. Thompson, you owe it to yourself to read this before the movie comes out in October 2011. Judging by the trailer, the movie looks shit (don’t watch the trailer before you read the book). If you’ve never read anything by Hunter S. Thompson, then you should start by reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his best work by a long shot. The book was also made into a movie, and is one of three films that have actually given the book justice, the other two being Apocalypse Now (Heart of Darkness) and Clockwork Orange (Clockwork Orange).(less)

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Aug 15, 2011

Y. rated it

Gosto muito quando tenho a oportunidade de ler um livro antes da sua adaptação cinematográfica, e neste caso isso aconteceu por pouco.

Tinha-o na prateleira há algum tempo, e acelerei a sua leitura assim que notei que The Rum Diary vai estrear no ano que vem, com Johny Depp mais uma vez à cabeça de um filme originário de um livro de Hunter S. Thompson, depois do alucinante Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

A história é relativamente simples e, como de costume, em parte baseada na...more

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Mar 22, 2011

Abdul Q. Bastian rated it

I just spent more than an hour and a half finishing The Rum Diary. I wanted to stop and hit the sack but something inside me whispered to go on. It was when I realized that nothing actually happened in the book. Large portion of the book was very descriptive; it’s like reading a strong-opinionated newspaper article about Puerto Rico and its appalling inhabitants.

The Rum Diary opens very promising, with snippets of office politics, masculine desperation and one’s search to find the m...more

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Mar 06, 2011

Emma Knock rated it

Shelves: favourite-books

This is quite possibly one my favourite books by Hunter S Thompson- it was written prior to his venture into new journalism and 'legit' Gonzo. The story revolves around journalist, Paul Kemp, who relocates to Puerto Rico to work for the Daily News. From there on out he enters the world of vagrant journalism, lust, idle tension and of course, rum. It is witty, desperate, hopeful, depressing...a love story. There is nothing of surrealism about this book, yet it somehow manages to make one's life s...more

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Feb 02, 2011

Alex Nguyen rated it

The book I read for quarter 2 was The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson. He retells a journey that first began in 1959 by a twenty-two-year old Hunter S. Thompson through the span of ten years. He first moves to San Juan to make a living and adventure out of it, but soon he began to realize that it was a mistake to come. Without revealing too much, he meets a bunch of crazy and drunk people in the San Juan Daily News. He lives the life of a man that slowly becomes insane. Everyday he does the same...moreThe book I read for quarter 2 was The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson. He retells a journey that first began in 1959 by a twenty-two-year old Hunter S. Thompson through the span of ten years. He first moves to San Juan to make a living and adventure out of it, but soon he began to realize that it was a mistake to come. Without revealing too much, he meets a bunch of crazy and drunk people in the San Juan Daily News. He lives the life of a man that slowly becomes insane. Everyday he does the same. All he does is wake up, drive around, and go home to live the rest of the day. He goes to a burger joint that is cheap called Al's. Al in a way is escape from San Juan where he can live the rest of the day drinking rum with his friends. He lives in his friend's apartment and uses his car to drive. He soon becomes connect to San Juan and buys an apartment and car of his own, but it was too late. San Juan Daily News is closing down, and he was force to move out and go to New York. Throughout his journey, he faces jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust.
The book first starts off slow, and soon after introducing every character in the book; the pace begins to explode with action and mystery. The way it was written really gets to you. Thompson meets a lot of crazy people, and instead of just writing about what happens; Thompson talks to himself of how he feels about this person, which I found interesting. After a major event occurs, he sometimes makes a chapter just for explaining how he feels; the anger, pain, and sadness he might feel. The book may be repetitive, but that is the exact way he wants to write it, to tell the reader how he felt when he lived through this period of ten years. He moves to San Juan to find peace, and in the book, he says how he misses the air of San Juan, because it reminds him of the feeling that anything can happen around the corner. He builds up tension until something finally happens, which captures the reader, including me.
I would actually recommend this book to anyone. This book is short and easily readable. The book captures the reader's mind and teleports you into a sunny beach where you have no care in the world. You live for nothing, where you spend the rest of the day on a hot summer bar, eating and drinking all day, while looking at the sunset.(less)

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Sep 27, 2010

Zee rated it

"The scene I had just witnessed brought back a lot of memories – not of things I have done but of things I have failed to do, wasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost because time had eaten so much of my life and I would never get it back."

Paul Kemp; an arrogant, know-it-all journalist makes his way from New York to Puerto Rico to work at the only English-language paper on the island, 'The Daily News'. The people there however, are like the weather...more

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Nov 06, 2011

Pete rated it

There are two astounding things about this book: 1. Hunter S. Thompson wrote this when he was just 22. 2. It was written in the '60s and accurately depicts many of the pitfalls that have befallen the newspaper industry today. It's not a perfect novel, but it does many things very well. Hunter's portrayal of San Juan was captivating, especially in capturing the feeling of the city. The last line in the book is one of the best I've ever read about setting:

"Sounds of a San Juan ni...more

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Oct 28, 2011

Nicholas During rated it

· review of another edition

There are some good points in this book. One can see the beginning of Gonzo voice, which really is much better in the later non-fiction, in my eyes. I read Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 during the 2007/08 Democratic primary campaign and really enjoyed it. This is not as good.

But the voice is there, at parts. And the dialogue is there at parts--it can be very funny. But the bildungsroman plot ultimately fails in my eyes. I think Michael Chabon must have read this before w...more

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Oct 21, 2011

Adam Floridia rated it

This really is a 2.5-3 star book. However, I "really liked it." It's been years since I've read Fear and Loathing and, more surprisingly, probably at least a year since I watched the movie, a movie that I watched like every week in college. Having spent so much time away from Thompson, a nice dose of "Raoul Duke" is just what I needed. Actually, the protagonist/narrator in this is one Paul Kemp. Although Kemp's life is definitely derived from Thompson's experiences, Kemp...moreThis really is a 2.5-3 star book. However, I "really liked it." It's been years since I've read Fear and Loathing and, more surprisingly, probably at least a year since I watched the movie, a movie that I watched like every week in college. Having spent so much time away from Thompson, a nice dose of "Raoul Duke" is just what I needed. Actually, the protagonist/narrator in this is one Paul Kemp. Although Kemp's life is definitely derived from Thompson's experiences, Kemp is strictly a character not an alter-ego, as it were. Nevertheless, none of that stopped me from mentally reading the sentences in Duke's (i.e. Depp as Duke's) voice, with that singular cadence, rhythm, syntax. That's really what made me "really like" the book and made me decide to spent the next two hours watching Fear and Loathing.

Other random info about the book:
-It's much, much easier to follow than Fear and Loathing. Really a pretty standard novel (the upcoming movie looks like it features outlandish scenes that do not exist in the book).
-Reading this impelled me to go back and leaf through Gonzo, which really is a good biography.
-Many of Thompson's descriptive paragraphs do seem to get recycled (in this and Fear and Loathing at least). I guess you could argue that it's Thompson's "voice," but to me it feels too overt, too forced. Examples:
"What passed for society was a loud, giddy whirl of thieves and pretentious hustlers, a dull sideshow full of quacks and clowns and philistines with gimp mentalities" (70).
and
"All around us were people I had spent years avoiding--shapeless women in wool bathing suits, dull-eyed men with hairless legs and self-conscious laughs, all Americans, all fearsomely alike" (96).
or
"...the suspicion that my strange and ungovernable instincts might do me in before I had a chance to get rich. No matter how much I wanted all those things that I needed money to buy, there was some devilish current pushing me off in another direction--toward anarchy and poverty and craziness" (134).
-Finally, the dialogue in many places is very stiff and just unnatural sounding (even when read in Duke/Depp's unique syntax).

Still, I "really liked it."(less)

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Feb 20, 2011

Tom rated it

I really enjoy Hunter S. Thompson's style of writing, and it is interesting to see his work in fiction, since I am far more familiar with his non-fiction work, such as the columns he would write for ESPN.

This book was interesting because nearly every character was an expatriate, and almost all of them were sort of self-pitying. At the same time, nearly every one of these Americans residing in Puerto Rico was either a drunk, irresponsible, unprofessional, or some combination of these. W...more

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Nov 05, 2011

C.w. Smith rated it

Even more fun than I remember. I'm unsure of how it would work as a movie, but it might be worth checking out. My impression of The Rum Diary is that it was a young Hunter S. Thompson's response to Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. There's a fixation on youth and growing up, with the shortcomings of the violent, brash Yeamon and the "over the hump" Paul Kemp illuminated by their proximity to one another. I read in an interview with the film adaptation's director (and awesome author), Bru...more

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Feb 03, 2009

Clarissa rated it

Thompson was only twenty-two when he wrote The Rum Diary, and while he had not, at that point, had the opportunity to hone his craft, he still possessed the ability to string words together in a way that is both entertaining and to the point. As I read, I noticed a few details in Thompson's writing that would later become trademarks. The voice and persona come to mind automatically. Also, I couldn't ignore the way with which he ingeniously turns abstractions into tangible and gut-wrenching absol...more

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Jan 05, 2012

Susie rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, audio

These journalists don’t seem to do much reporting except to each other about the beach, drinking and women. But they aren’t getting paid so I guess that explains why they aren’t really working. This reads like a day in the life but it is called a diary so I guess it sets out to tell the story that way. Once you realize this then you can just go with it and enjoy the storytelling.

This book really doesn’t ever get around to telling you what it’s really about other than as I said a day ...more

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Nov 03, 2011

Herr Shah rated it

Once you know it was written by Thompson at a younger age, you can tell the future promise he had as a writer. The narrative style is compelling and unique, and the plot itself is at once humorous, dark, and troubling as it follows U.S. expats mucking in 1950s Puerto Rico as they face the consequences of one long, continuous binge. The book is a revision of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and seems a byproduct - perhaps even a modern incarnation - of Conrad's works (I'm no genius - the characte...more

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About Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author, famous for his book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to such a degree that they become the central figures of their stories. He is also known for his promotion and use of psychedelics and other mind-altering substanc...more

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Books by Hunter S. Thompson

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72

The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time

Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

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Quotes from The Rum Diary

“I was not proud of what I had learned but I never doubted that it was worth knowing.” — 299 people liked it

“Like most others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.” — 184 people liked it

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