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The Rum Diary

3.84 of 5 stars 3.84 · rating details · 23,685 ratings · 1,227 reviews

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 a...more

Paperback, 204 pages

Published November 1st 1999 by Simon & Schuster (first published 1998)

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Aug 12, 2011 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it 4 of 5 stars · 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 narrative is fic...more 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 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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Sep 13, 2012 Bonnie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, literary-fiction, full-of-wonderful

'Here I was, living in a luxury hotel, ,racing around a half-Latin city in a toy car that looked like a cockroach and sounded like a jet fighter, sneaking down alleys and humping on the beach, scavenging for food in shark-infested waters, hounded by mobs yelling in a foreign tongue - and the whole thing was taking place in quaint old Spanish Puerto Rico...'

I would guess that in the time that lapsed in this story, a couple tons of rum was consumed. I suppose that explains the title. But serious,...more 'Here I was, living in a luxury hotel, ,racing around a half-Latin city in a toy car that looked like a cockroach and sounded like a jet fighter, sneaking down alleys and humping on the beach, scavenging for food in shark-infested waters, hounded by mobs yelling in a foreign tongue - and the whole thing was taking place in quaint old Spanish Puerto Rico...'

I would guess that in the time that lapsed in this story, a couple tons of rum was consumed. I suppose that explains the title. But serious, these people had to be staggering around drunk all the time. It's amazing they actually got anything done. Oh wait. That's right. They didn't. But considering this story is set in the late 1950's I suppose that would explain their behavior as well.

"We're all going to the same damn places, doing the same damn things people have been doing for fifty years, and we keep waiting for something to happen. You know - I'm a rebel, I took off - now where's my reward?"
"You fool," I said." There is no reward and there never was."

Gritty and raw with a tinge of desperation. Paul Kemp in addition to everyone else he's become acquainted with since his arrival on the island of Puerto Rico have only ended up there in hopes of escaping to something better. After quickly realizing that Puerto Rico (at the time) is far from their original vision of paradise, the spiteful and bitter attitudes begin making an appearance. It doesn't take Kemp long to become just as bitter after the realization that a person can work so hard to have a better life, have more money, and to accomplish your dreams and never actually get anything done except wasting time and getting older.

"We keep getting drunk and these terrible things keep happening and each one is worse than the last... Hell, it's no fun anymore - our luck's all running out at the same time."

The Rum Diary is simply that, a diary. There isn't even that much of a plot, really. It's almost like a pilot episode, a small glimpse of what's to come but unfortunately there isn't any full episode to look forward to. Despite that, I find myself extremely fascinated and I now have an incredibly strong desire to read anything I can get my hands on of Hunter S. Thompson's. The Rum Diary is his second novel which he wrote at the age of 22 is semi-autobiographical because Hunter himself flew down to Puerto Rico as a journalist to write for a newspaper. Despite writing The Rum Diary in the early 1960's, it was never actually published until 1998 because no one was interested and he was constantly rejected. Fortunately, he revisited the idea of publishing it several decades later and he finally succeeding in releasing it to the world.(less)

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Aug 27, 2008 A.J. rated it 2 of 5 stars

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. Thompson's pr...more

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Dec 27, 2007 Mike rated it 2 of 5 stars

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 before he...more

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Nov 13, 2011 Jim Lawrence rated it 4 of 5 stars · 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 prose are reco...more 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 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 5 of 5 stars

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 between these two poles--...more

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Sep 13, 2011 Michael Cunningham rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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...more 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 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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Jan 23, 2008 Hunter rated it 5 of 5 stars 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 4 of 5 stars 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 dismiss...more

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Feb 18, 2009 5 rated it 3 of 5 stars

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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May 05, 2013 Bailarina rated it 1 of 5 stars

Living in a city with a whole lot of colleges and thus a whole lot of people about the same age as the protagonist (who probably hold or are about to hold advanced degrees in "useless" fields), I believe I can reliably attest that some human beings during this stage of life are really this myopically self absorbed and inane. I feel like this book just proves one could put this sort in any environment at all and all they would accomplish is drinking to excess while half-heartedly angsting and pas...more

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May 01, 2013 Cody rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Rum Diary is the long lost novel of Journalist Hunter S. Thompson. By the time I got ahold of this novel I had not yet read Hells Angels nor Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. So, in perfect coincidence I ended up reading the first thing Hunter Thompson wrote. I picked up my copy, which is the first edition hardcover released in 1998, at Half Price Books. This was about the time the film adaptation of The Rum Diary was about to be released in theaters. I believe it was still summer of 2011 when...more The Rum Diary is the long lost novel of Journalist Hunter S. Thompson. By the time I got ahold of this novel I had not yet read Hells Angels nor Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. So, in perfect coincidence I ended up reading the first thing Hunter Thompson wrote. I picked up my copy, which is the first edition hardcover released in 1998, at Half Price Books. This was about the time the film adaptation of The Rum Diary was about to be released in theaters. I believe it was still summer of 2011 when I started reading the book. I ended up finishing the book in about four days. It's a short novel about 200 pages. A Fast read. But there's something special about the book. While in San Juan, Porto Rico, Thompson worked as writer at the San Juan Daily Newspaper, mostly writing for bowling magazines.

The novel follows Paul Kemp a journalist out of New York who comes to San Juan, Porto Rico. While here he meets an assortment of characters including the lovable Bob Sala, a degenerate called Moburg who listens to Hitler recordings, Lotterman, Kemp's boss of the San Juan Daily News, a ruthless business man named Sanderson, and the beauty Chenault, who Kemp falls in love with. Filled with a poignant bitterness of jealousy, misunderstandings, late nights of boos, and thinking what it is all about to be part of the American Dream that's deteriorating around you slowly and noticeably.

I find this novel to be bittersweet. That this is the beginning of the Hunter Thompson we widely know. But it's interesting to read The Rum Diary knowing that it may not be the Hunter Thompson we know, but there are hints of what would become Gonzo. The thing that always resinates with me about Thompson that he was a man with a keen awareness and an urge to write about the death of the United States. A man who was passionate to write about it. Hunter Thompson was a patriot. He think he was just so hurt because he believed in America. But as we all know Hunter will go down in the history of Gonzo as a man who defied America in a savage journey of the American dream. (less)

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Jan 29, 2013 Schmacko rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ah, Hunter… This is his very first novel, the one he said would elevate San Juan the way that Hemmingway’s The Old Man and The Sea did for Key West. And in fact, the Puerto Rico of the 1950s is described in filthy, loving detail. Well, The Rum Diaries didn’t quite elevate San Juan, but it is a very strong, coherent start from one of America’s most revered writers (May he rest in peace.)

In fact, the narrator of TRD is a lot like a young Hunter S. Thompson. In his early 20s, Thompson landed in tro...more

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Jan 23, 2013 Rob rated it 3 of 5 stars

THE RUM DIARY traces the evaporation of hope experienced by thirty-year-old journalist Paul Kemp, as voiced by Hunter S. Thompson writing in his early twenties. It's easy to see why it wasn't published until Hunter had earned his audience with his underbelly oeuvre. It's hard to find a page where a cigarette isn't lit or an ice cube rattled. Apart from a handful of scenes, there's not so much dramatic tension as a crescendo of despair. A foggy sense of impending doom that regularly dissipates li...more

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Nov 25, 2012 Tracy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've read all of HST's books since he is my favorite writer of all time and Rum diary is the first book he ever wrote and his best. It's a classic, up there with the Great Gatsby as a work of literary genius. This is the great American novel. Of course Fear & Loathing is incredible too and is a close 2nd but in terms of literature, true literature, this is his finest work. I can't believe it was hidden away for decades and only published in 1998 but I'm glad it saw the light of day because i...more

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Oct 29, 2012 Roncissell rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Rum Diary takes us on a crazy alcohol induced joy ride through San Juan, giving a detailed look at inner workings of the Caribbean boomtown as well as Paul's head.Who's Paul? Paul Kemp, is the newest member of the daily news and the story's protagonist.Paul's intermittent floods of pure knowledge tinged with the identity crisis of "going over the hump" lead the novel forward on an outrageous journey. This coupled with his fellow drinking companions on the news,hammer out his thoughts(with th...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Peter rated it 5 of 5 stars

'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.' Wow. The Rum Diary, at least to me, is a coming of age story. The loss of a certain innocence. There is no denying that Paul Kemp is a semi-autobiographical portrait of a 22 year old Hunter S. The reader can tell that Hunter S. Thompson, only a young adult when he wrote the story, was extensively afraid of falling out of touch in...more

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Sep 19, 2012 Monique Sanchiz rated it 3 of 5 stars

I want to start off by saying that this is one of those books that is geared specifically towards an intended audience. Hunter S. Thompson was twenty-two years old when he wrote this, which, coincidentally, is very close to my own age. I don't doubt that that's the reason why the book spoke to me.

Paul Kemp, the protagonist and narrator of the story, goes to Puerto Rico in search of money and status. He gets a job in a sinking newspaper and, like everyone else, hardly works at all and gets loads...more I want to start off by saying that this is one of those books that is geared specifically towards an intended audience. Hunter S. Thompson was twenty-two years old when he wrote this, which, coincidentally, is very close to my own age. I don't doubt that that's the reason why the book spoke to me.

Paul Kemp, the protagonist and narrator of the story, goes to Puerto Rico in search of money and status. He gets a job in a sinking newspaper and, like everyone else, hardly works at all and gets loads of money to drink rum, party, and hook up with girls. There is no plot to this story, or almost none, but that's all right because it's written in a very realistic way--as in trying to mirror real life rather than make real life into a novel. I dug it, but I'm sure other people won't.

What Paul Kemp struggles against are two main things:

1) Getting old

2) Selling out

Not so surprisingly, these are the things that most people in their early twenties (and I don't exclude myself) struggle against.

We are afraid of getting old because we enjoy being young so much and we are afraid of what the future might hold for us once we're not so energetic and buoyant. We want to make money (come on, just admit it) and gain a position for ourselves in life as somebody, but we don't want to sacrifice our dreams or principles or ideals to do it. We are forever being stretched in two ways, and someday, one part of our body will have to give up, lest it tears us apart.

The book captures this essence very well. It's a slow book, not erratic and fast-paced as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It's more mellow, less violent, more reflective. But overall, I liked the change in pace. And it spoke to me because of the subject matter.

Of course it offers no solution. It ends with an impending message of desperation and doom--the quiet type. But I understand why it does so. There is, after all, no solution to getting old. We don't know what will happen. All of us people in our early twenties have that sense of those infernal clocks ticking away, leering at us (I'm paraphrasing from the book). Or at least most of us do. And we don't know where it will end.

Getting old can't be that bad, I know. But somedays, the unknown just stares us in the face, and it's scary. Thompson did a good job at capturing this sense of (I'll say it again) quiet desperation.
Selling out does have a solution. You either do or you don't, and only time and yourself will decide what will happen.

The characters were all right, nothing very striking or memorable about them. The setting was vividly described, though, and Thompson does a good job at capturing what Puerto Rico in the late 1950's was all about (or so I believe).

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a quick but reflective read and who enjoy Thompson's books in general. (less)

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Aug 27, 2012 C.G. Worrell rated it 2 of 5 stars

Thirty pages into this book, I was ready to cast it aside, but I forced myself to finish because it was written by the iconoclast, Hunter S. Thompson. “The Rum Diary” has plenty of humor and snappy dialogue, but that wasn’t enough to maintain my interest. While Thompson's descriptions, similes, and metaphors are beautiful and worthy of study, the story lacks a cohesive gripping plot. Paul Kemp is a jaded journalist who flies to San Juan in the late 1950's to work for a second-rate gringo newspap...more

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Aug 14, 2012 Tommy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Excellent and eloquently put. Hunter S. Thompson's satire is scathing to the bone, exposing all manner of Bohemian debauchery during the 1950s in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Throughout, Thompson's freelance journalist narrator Paul Kemp struggles to reconcile himself or his surroundings, lending to a pervading sense of futility. In between such a web of lies and licentiousness, Kemp reaches moments of revelation which alight to harsh truths. These truths echo in our minds like iron gongs which bang s...more

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Aug 06, 2012 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-own-a-copy

I'm a massive HST fan so I had to read this. His hand at fiction (while still based on actual events) just wasn't as strong as his nonfiction. This was actually one of the rare occasions where the movie was totally better than the book.

Despite the fact that it wasn't his best work, I did enjoy The Rum Diary. The reason it wasn't so great for me is probably that I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas first. This seemed a lot like a cheap knockoff of the same story - just move the characters to Pue...more

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Apr 06, 2012 RMD rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Amazing stuff.

Describes the life of yet another exploiter of (old) capitalism in the Caribbean, in this case, a journalist in a crappy newspaper, which sets the peak of the decadence of this age.

The introspective conflicts within the main character are left to a minimum, as it would make sense, as his inertia just lets him bounce from one situation to another. Most people seem to focus on the sex and alcohol in the story, while there isn't even that much sex (mostly blunt voyeurism) and is defin...more

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Mar 28, 2012 J.ruzhyo rated it 1 of 5 stars

This novel approached at gun point and held me hostage for three days. Trapped in a Biology Classroom with a teacher that would confuse rock salt for a turtle I turned to the only book I had available in my bag, "The Rum Diaries" by Hunter S Thompson. I read the first few chapters accepting that the novel had to set the scene in order to tell the story. I continued waiting through long passages describing particular Puerto Rico bars and diatribes to pristine beaches waiting to be defiled. Slowly...more

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Mar 21, 2012 Richard Bon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When a friend told me of this book’s existence, I couldn’t wait to read it, and it didn’t disappoint. Thompson before drugs, a novel set in Puerto Rico about a young journalist working at a struggling newish rag, heavy drinking, sex, violence . . . a lot of action packed into a relatively quick read. Unlike Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I had not seen the Johnny Depp film prior to reading this book, and thank goodness for that because I’ve since seen the movie and it was just flat out horrible...more When a friend told me of this book’s existence, I couldn’t wait to read it, and it didn’t disappoint. Thompson before drugs, a novel set in Puerto Rico about a young journalist working at a struggling newish rag, heavy drinking, sex, violence . . . a lot of action packed into a relatively quick read. Unlike Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I had not seen the Johnny Depp film prior to reading this book, and thank goodness for that because I’ve since seen the movie and it was just flat out horrible, one of the worst book to movie adaptations I’ve ever experienced and particularly upsetting because I’m sure Depp sought to honor Thompson’s memory when making the flick . . . but enough about that, let’s get back to the fantastic, fast paced read that is The Rum Diary.

It all starts (and ends) with Paul Kemp, presumably a semi-autobiographical character loosely based on Thompson’s own years in San Juan. As much as Kemp can push limits with his drinking and stubbornness, he’s often a mostly innocent bystander around the antics of his friends, Sala, the newspaper and freelance photographer, and Yeamon, fellow journalist. Yeamon makes particularly reckless, wild, self-destructive decisions and Kemp finds himself alternately in awe, jealous, or resentful toward him.

Yeamon’s verbal and occasional physical abuse of his gorgeous girlfriend, Chenault, who Kemp meets and desires before he even meets Yeamon, creates a dilemma for Kemp that makes for one of the novel’s most excellent storylines. Kemp battles between his friendship with Yeamon, his lust for Chenault, his anger toward Yeamon when he berates or beats her, and his general inclination not to meddle in other people’s personal affairs. It doesn’t help Kemp’s cause that he and Sala spend significant amounts of time around Yeamon and Chenault, usually quite drunk and at one point in the midst of an all day and all night party during carnival time on St. Thomas.

Another dilemma for Kemp revolves around an offer he receives to write press and brochure copy for a planned hotel and resort development on an untouched beach. He needs the money offered to him for the job, but when he visits the beautiful beach, he comes to despise the idea of seeing it developed at all. To me this rang of Thompson’s later obsession with “The American Dream,” and I can see how he would come to feel powerless against its advancement. I can imagine how the confusion seen here in Kemp could lead to Thompson’s later writing in Fear and Loathing.

I think what I love most about Thompson’s writing, in the two books I’ve read, is his honesty. In Fear and Loathing he speaks to the reader directly and never pulls punches. In The Rum Diary, he wrote fictional characters, but Kemp, narrating the story in first person, never fails to be frank with the characters who surround him or with his readers. Kemp tells us what he’s thinking without any regard for how the reader might judge him, even when his thoughts contradict what seem to be his true feelings. Though at times I thought, “wow, I can’t believe I just read that, it’s amazing that Thompson would write that Kemp felt something so bizarre at such a sensitive moment,” I never felt like any of it was odd for the sake of being odd. Other times I just smiled and loved the way Thompson worked a particular insight of Kemp’s into the narrative. And Thompson’s writing just reads so smoothly. It all worked for me.

I enjoyed the hell out of this read, flew through it, and recommend it strongly.
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Mar 12, 2012 Lis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reads

When we bought tickets to Puerto Rico, I decided I had to read this first. It is only a little over 200 pages, so not a long read. HST did spend time in Puerto Rico trying to write for a paper, which I understand was a short lived attempt. This book reads as if maybe he changed the names, maybe emphasized some moments over others, and maybe added some embelishments to hit a climax to come down from to end, but I imagine the rest was very close to true life. It was a few months in a life that spa...more

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Jan 03, 2012 Lucy rated it 3 of 5 stars · 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 trying to same somet...more

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Dec 02, 2011 Josh Duggan rated it 3 of 5 stars

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 written in 1959...more 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 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.co...(less)

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Nov 17, 2011 Jools rated it 4 of 5 stars

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...more 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 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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Oct 28, 2011 Devin Asaro rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 more ebullien...more 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 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 3 of 5 stars

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 today and bully...more 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 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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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 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.” — 468 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.” — 347 people liked it

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