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Don't Stop the Carnival
It's every parrothead's dream: to leave behind the rat race of the workaday world and start life all over again amidst the cool breezes, sun-drenched colors, and rum-laced drinks of a tropical paradise.
It's the story of Norman Paperman, a New York City press agent who, facing the onset of middle age, runs away to a Caribbean island to reinvent himself as a hotel keeper. (Hilarity and disaster -- of a sort peculiar to the tropics -- ensue.)
It's the novel in which the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of such acclaimed and bestselling novels as The Caine Mutiny and War and Remembrance draws on his own experience (Wouk and his family lived for seven years on an island in the sun) to tell a story at once brilliantly comic and deeply moving.
It's the story of Norman Paperman, a New York City press agent who, facing the onset of middle age, runs away to a Caribbean island to reinvent himself as a hotel keeper. (Hilarity and disaster -- of a sort peculiar to the tropics -- ensue.)
It's the novel in which the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of such acclaimed and bestselling novels as The Caine Mutiny and War and Remembrance draws on his own experience (Wouk and his family lived for seven years on an island in the sun) to tell a story at once brilliantly comic and deeply moving.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
204 people are currently reading
3657 people want to read
About the author
Herman Wouk
160 books1,389 followersHerman Wouk was a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning Jewish American author with a number of notable novels to his credit, including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.
Herman Wouk was born in New York City into a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia. After a childhood and adolescence in the Bronx and a high school diploma from Townsend Harris High School, he earned a B.A. from Columbia University in 1934, where he was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and studied under philosopher Irwin Edman. Soon thereafter, he became a radio dramatist, working in David Freedman's "Joke Factory" and later with Fred Allen for five years and then, in 1941, for the United States government, writing radio spots to sell war bonds. He lived a fairly secular lifestyle in his early 20s before deciding to return to a more traditional Jewish way of life, modeled after that of his grandfather, in his mid-20s.
Wouk joined the United States Navy and served in the Pacific Theater, an experience he later characterized as educational; "I learned about machinery, I learned how men behaved under pressure, and I learned about Americans." Wouk served as an officer aboard two destroyer minesweepers (DMS), the USS Zane and USS Southard, becoming executive officer of the latter. He started writing a novel, Aurora Dawn, during off-duty hours aboard ship. Wouk sent a copy of the opening chapters to Irwin Edman who quoted a few pages verbatim to a New York editor. The result was a publisher's contract sent to Wouk's ship, then off the coast of Okinawa. The novel was published in 1947 and became a Book of the Month Club main selection. His second novel, City Boy, proved to be a commercial disappointment at the time of its initial publication in 1948.
While writing his next novel, Wouk read each chapter as it was completed to his wife, who remarked at one point that if they didn't like this one, he'd better take up another line of work (a line he would give to the character of the editor Jeannie Fry in his 1962 novel Youngblood Hawke). The novel, The Caine Mutiny (1951), went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. A huge best-seller, drawing from his wartime experiences aboard minesweepers during World War II, The Caine Mutiny was adapted by the author into a Broadway play called The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, and was later made into a film, with Humphrey Bogart portraying Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg, captain of the fictional USS Caine. Some Navy personnel complained at the time that Wouk had taken every twitch of every commanding officer in the Navy and put them all into one character, but Captain Queeg has endured as one of the great characters in American fiction.
He married Betty Sarah Brown in 1945, with whom he had three sons: Abraham, Nathanial, and Joseph. He became a fulltime writer in 1946 to support his growing family. His first-born son, Abraham Isaac Wouk, died in a tragic accident as a child; Wouk later dedicated War and Remembrance (1978) to him with the Biblical words, "He will destroy death forever."
In 1998, Wouk received the Guardian of Zion Award.
Herman Wouk died in his sleep in his home in Palm Springs, California, on May 17, 2019, at the age of 103, ten days before his 104th birthday.
Herman Wouk was born in New York City into a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia. After a childhood and adolescence in the Bronx and a high school diploma from Townsend Harris High School, he earned a B.A. from Columbia University in 1934, where he was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and studied under philosopher Irwin Edman. Soon thereafter, he became a radio dramatist, working in David Freedman's "Joke Factory" and later with Fred Allen for five years and then, in 1941, for the United States government, writing radio spots to sell war bonds. He lived a fairly secular lifestyle in his early 20s before deciding to return to a more traditional Jewish way of life, modeled after that of his grandfather, in his mid-20s.
Wouk joined the United States Navy and served in the Pacific Theater, an experience he later characterized as educational; "I learned about machinery, I learned how men behaved under pressure, and I learned about Americans." Wouk served as an officer aboard two destroyer minesweepers (DMS), the USS Zane and USS Southard, becoming executive officer of the latter. He started writing a novel, Aurora Dawn, during off-duty hours aboard ship. Wouk sent a copy of the opening chapters to Irwin Edman who quoted a few pages verbatim to a New York editor. The result was a publisher's contract sent to Wouk's ship, then off the coast of Okinawa. The novel was published in 1947 and became a Book of the Month Club main selection. His second novel, City Boy, proved to be a commercial disappointment at the time of its initial publication in 1948.
While writing his next novel, Wouk read each chapter as it was completed to his wife, who remarked at one point that if they didn't like this one, he'd better take up another line of work (a line he would give to the character of the editor Jeannie Fry in his 1962 novel Youngblood Hawke). The novel, The Caine Mutiny (1951), went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. A huge best-seller, drawing from his wartime experiences aboard minesweepers during World War II, The Caine Mutiny was adapted by the author into a Broadway play called The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, and was later made into a film, with Humphrey Bogart portraying Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg, captain of the fictional USS Caine. Some Navy personnel complained at the time that Wouk had taken every twitch of every commanding officer in the Navy and put them all into one character, but Captain Queeg has endured as one of the great characters in American fiction.
He married Betty Sarah Brown in 1945, with whom he had three sons: Abraham, Nathanial, and Joseph. He became a fulltime writer in 1946 to support his growing family. His first-born son, Abraham Isaac Wouk, died in a tragic accident as a child; Wouk later dedicated War and Remembrance (1978) to him with the Biblical words, "He will destroy death forever."
In 1998, Wouk received the Guardian of Zion Award.
Herman Wouk died in his sleep in his home in Palm Springs, California, on May 17, 2019, at the age of 103, ten days before his 104th birthday.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 425 reviews
March 3, 2009
The great comic drama - if it could go wrong, it did. Sometimes I found myself covering my eyes (makes it hard to read) knowing already what was going to befall poor Norman Paperman. As I read, some little gnome in the back of my mind kept poking me, asking "and you think you want to run away to the tropics and never come back? See what happens?" Well, yes, I still do (and the gnome can just shut UP already) - a fun look back at New York society of years gone by, and of island life that is probably just about the same today as when Mr. Wouk wrote his semi-fable. My biggest problem with this book? Not only did I want to miss work & curl up on the couch to finish reading it (it's mid winter in Illinois, what can I say), I also ended up with Jimmy Buffett songs playing endlessly in my head. Not usually a bad thing, but there are only so many days I can wake up with "We're Kinja! Still Kinja!" in my head before I start to get a little freaked out.
Sorry, not a professional review, just a little fun from someone who had a lot of fun reading a great book. It'll get you thru the last of the winter 'mush' if you're in it. And if you're not, if you're already on an island somewhere? Well, I'm jealous. Maybe you should read a book about driving on ice or dog sledding or something, just to make us northern folk feel better.
Sorry, not a professional review, just a little fun from someone who had a lot of fun reading a great book. It'll get you thru the last of the winter 'mush' if you're in it. And if you're not, if you're already on an island somewhere? Well, I'm jealous. Maybe you should read a book about driving on ice or dog sledding or something, just to make us northern folk feel better.
March 29, 2015
I brought this 1960s-era novel along to read on our recent vacation, and it ended up being a really good choice. In it, native New Yorker Norman Paperman chucks his stressful show-biz/theatre life in the city to buy a run-down hotel on a small Caribbean island, and what ensues -- the constant hotel disasters, the quirky new friends he meets, his naïveté about island politics and work ethics, etc. -- makes for really funny and entertaining reading. It was so easy to imagine the hilarious missteps and misunderstandings that he experienced really happening on some of the islands we visited, especially on those that aren't overly sophisticated about tourism. Author Herman Wouk is usually considered a serious writer (at least he is to me), but this was a wonderful departure into humor by him. It was an easy, enjoyable book, and I would recommend it as a fun vacation read.
December 7, 2012
This is a hateful, toxic book. Reading it felt like being beaten up. I cannot compass how it has earned so many positive reviews; I would rate it at less than zero if this site permitted negative numbers of stars. The main characters are so dissolute and debauched that it is impossible to care about them. Worse, the author has an egregious habit of "type-ing" every character, no matter how fleeting, in a most debasing manner: Negro, Jew, gentile, whore, Turk and just about every homophobic deprecation he can think of. Whatever skill the author may have as a storyteller is completely undone by his bigoted, blighted world view. It would be charitable to say that this is a book written and published before conventions of political correctness could moderate Wouk's mordancy, or to say that the cruel callousness that suffuses the narrative belongs more to the protagonist than to the author. However, "Don't Stop the Carnival" is just too relentlessly and gratuitously crass to concede Wouk that courtesy: this book is utterly poisonous, and not nearly funny enough to palliate its venom. Moreover, as another reviewer here points out, the author imperiously assumes a White male (and very narrow-minded) reader -- and even that demographic must surely find many passages offensive. I was eager to read this book because I once lived in St. Croix, and know well the places, and the quirks of Caribbean life, that inspire the story. Instead of kindling my nostalgia for the Virgin Islands' natural beauty and the spirit of the Cruzan people, though, it brought back wince-worthy memories of the strident, gluttonous, piña colada-swilling scumbags who swanned around in sports cars and speedboats, indulging their Master-race status on the island to distract from midlife crises and sundry failures back in the States. Nothing redeeming in that exercise -- and yet the author somehow feels entitled to have us actually empathise with such boorish boozers. In his 1998 forward to "Don't Stop the Carnival" Wouk writes, "My métier is social portraiture." Spiteful caricature is more like it; peppered with snide stereotyping and imprecation that veers toward flat-out hate speech. He also states that while writing this novel he, "had in mind the feel of a Chaplin movie." Well, the slapstick is certainly there -- minus Chaplin's sparkling humanity. This one belongs in the dustbin. Or better still, the fireplace. My recommendation: Don't read the horrible "Don't Stop the Carnival".
October 22, 2018
Have you ever wanted to run away from life and begin again in the tropics? If you are anything like Norman Pepperman it is a bad idea! But I am so glad that he suffered from this particular midlife crisis and that Herman Wouk allowed me the pleasure of witnessing the antics that followed. If anything could go wrong ... it did. And poor Norman tried so hard to stay positive and upbeat. He tried so hard to make his new beach life work. This book made me laugh out loud when I was listening in bed next to my sleeping husband. Oops. Wouk is a master and this book proves it ... not because it is his best, because it isn't. I like The Winds of War, War and Remembrance and The Caine Mutiny all better. But this book is a complete departure from the above with absolutely no similarities to those more recognized titles. And yet it is still written with such beautifully and carefully chosen words that it is unmistakably his. And the differences in setting and style are so distinct that it emphasizes the greatness of his talent.
A strong 4 stars.
A strong 4 stars.
October 18, 2020
The number 10 bestseller of 1965 is a whimsical and wacky read set on a fictional island in the Caribbean. I was not expecting much but it was quite the rip roaring read.
May 5, 2018
This book... objectively is a 3-4 star read but I’m too close to it to be objective (this is a reread for me). Bad news first: its attitudes towards women, Caribbean people, and the LGBTQ community are ANTIQUATED. Capitalized. Underlined. Antiquated.
However, considering that it was written in 1965 it’s ‘forgivable’ in that it does accurately capture the zeitgeist of the time.
The good news: the story is a tragicomedy about the illusionary paradise of running a hotel as an outsider in the Caribbean and it really, really is just like that. What can go wrong will go wrong and often in the most uproarious ways. The author would know as Herman Wouk did spend some time running a hotel (The Royal Mail Inn) on Hassel Island in the US Virgin Islands before writing the novel.
The title of the book is a cheeky play on the Caribbean meaning of the word carnival = party / fete, and the western meaning = circus. Hotels really are sort of like freak shows... especially down here where people tend to take on their ‘cutting loose’ vacations with vehemence.
I was handed this book with a wink and a smile when I started in the Caribbean hospitality industry and read it then, and now a few years in it warranted a reread to see just how accurate this ‘field guide’ is. And it is. Unfortunately here in the Caribbean a lot of the antiquated attitudes are still accurate too, but that aside, whenever something goes wrong at one of the hotels I work with (which it inevitably will, even things you never imagined could go wrong) I often hear the phrase (or I say it myself) ‘don’t stop the carnival’ uttered in reference to this book. When nonsense occurs that you want to fix, ignore, or mask you simply don’t stop the carnival!
However, considering that it was written in 1965 it’s ‘forgivable’ in that it does accurately capture the zeitgeist of the time.
The good news: the story is a tragicomedy about the illusionary paradise of running a hotel as an outsider in the Caribbean and it really, really is just like that. What can go wrong will go wrong and often in the most uproarious ways. The author would know as Herman Wouk did spend some time running a hotel (The Royal Mail Inn) on Hassel Island in the US Virgin Islands before writing the novel.
The title of the book is a cheeky play on the Caribbean meaning of the word carnival = party / fete, and the western meaning = circus. Hotels really are sort of like freak shows... especially down here where people tend to take on their ‘cutting loose’ vacations with vehemence.
I was handed this book with a wink and a smile when I started in the Caribbean hospitality industry and read it then, and now a few years in it warranted a reread to see just how accurate this ‘field guide’ is. And it is. Unfortunately here in the Caribbean a lot of the antiquated attitudes are still accurate too, but that aside, whenever something goes wrong at one of the hotels I work with (which it inevitably will, even things you never imagined could go wrong) I often hear the phrase (or I say it myself) ‘don’t stop the carnival’ uttered in reference to this book. When nonsense occurs that you want to fix, ignore, or mask you simply don’t stop the carnival!
June 29, 2022
Great, fun read! Just beware: this book was written in the mid-60s so there’s quite a bit of antiquated ideas here that certainly won’t fly in today’s culture. But, overlooking that, the story - the bones - are totally solid and hilarious!
July 14, 2021
It was supposed to be funny. Many of the reviews and even the author himself in the foreword says that the book is supposed to be funny in a Charlie Chaplin like way...it's not. What did I miss? Is my sense of humor so different than so many others? I just found it to be tedious at best.
July 16, 2014
I���m going to finish this, but more out of grim determination than anything else. There are so many isms that seem to come so naturally to the period. I don���t know why they shock me so. It isn���t as if I never read older works. I think one of the things I find most distressing is his casual assumption that it���s perfectly okay for men to have affairs, but not women. He divides his characters along strict moral and gender lines, and it never occurs to him to do differently. There are good women and bad women and sluts everywhere. When someone like Siddons writes about the period it is with the understanding that good girls would like to be doing it, ���no, that isn���t it. Siddons doesn���t assume that some girls are good and some are bad. She has characters who play by the rules and others who don���t but she takes the time to explain why and how. A character may be shocked if another one has sex, but Siddons isn���t shocked. Someone may call someone else a slut, but Siddons doesn���t. Wouk on the other hand keeps letting his male characters sleep with girls and discard them like used Kleenex, and neither the characters, nor Wouk think that���s wrong. He agrees with the stereotypes, and he���s lazy about it, and that I do not approve of.
***
I finally finished it. It was a chore, I didn���t really want to. When I was done I wished I hadn���t made myself do it. Do you know how he ends the thing? I���m infuriated. Night of the big party Hyppolite the murderous one comes for Atlas, and after a week or so of heavy drinking and no food, Janet/Iris dresses up and comes to the party. Nothing happens. Hyppolite frightens Esm�� and she goes into labor, but manages to have her baby in the hospital and all. Janet/Iris falls down and scratches up her face and her dog is slashed by Hyppolite. That���s all. Essentially everything goes off without a hitch. And then the next day a policeman comes to get the facts on Hyppolite and ends up shooting Hassim and killing him. No good reason, just a stupid thing. And then Janet/Iris borrows Norman���s car to go pick up her dog at the vet, and she has an accident and dies. She���s not drunk or anything. A cab driver stops in the middle of the road to talk to a girl, and she comes up and runs into him, and goes flying out the windshield. Stupid. Far all the concern about her drinking herself to death, she dies in a perfectly normal car accident. For all the fear of the murderous Hyppolite, he doesn���t harm anyone. There are two other big expectations: that Norman will go broke and that his wife will leave him if he has another affair. Norman pulls out of the island hotel business at least even, maybe ahead a little, and when Henny realizes that he slept with Janet/Iris (after she���s dead) not only does she not leave him, she ends up comforting him.
The worst thing about it all is that Wouk hasn���t set up these expectations in order to fulfill them in an unexpected way, nor has he set it all up to make a joke of how the things we worry about never come true. It���s as if he���d worked on this novel, painstakingly crafted it, and someone else came along and wrote the last chapter using the same characters. The characterizations are so poor that I can���t figure out who Norman all of a sudden decides to leave. It���s crazy. One of the most frustrating books I���ve ever read.
***
I finally finished it. It was a chore, I didn���t really want to. When I was done I wished I hadn���t made myself do it. Do you know how he ends the thing? I���m infuriated. Night of the big party Hyppolite the murderous one comes for Atlas, and after a week or so of heavy drinking and no food, Janet/Iris dresses up and comes to the party. Nothing happens. Hyppolite frightens Esm�� and she goes into labor, but manages to have her baby in the hospital and all. Janet/Iris falls down and scratches up her face and her dog is slashed by Hyppolite. That���s all. Essentially everything goes off without a hitch. And then the next day a policeman comes to get the facts on Hyppolite and ends up shooting Hassim and killing him. No good reason, just a stupid thing. And then Janet/Iris borrows Norman���s car to go pick up her dog at the vet, and she has an accident and dies. She���s not drunk or anything. A cab driver stops in the middle of the road to talk to a girl, and she comes up and runs into him, and goes flying out the windshield. Stupid. Far all the concern about her drinking herself to death, she dies in a perfectly normal car accident. For all the fear of the murderous Hyppolite, he doesn���t harm anyone. There are two other big expectations: that Norman will go broke and that his wife will leave him if he has another affair. Norman pulls out of the island hotel business at least even, maybe ahead a little, and when Henny realizes that he slept with Janet/Iris (after she���s dead) not only does she not leave him, she ends up comforting him.
The worst thing about it all is that Wouk hasn���t set up these expectations in order to fulfill them in an unexpected way, nor has he set it all up to make a joke of how the things we worry about never come true. It���s as if he���d worked on this novel, painstakingly crafted it, and someone else came along and wrote the last chapter using the same characters. The characterizations are so poor that I can���t figure out who Norman all of a sudden decides to leave. It���s crazy. One of the most frustrating books I���ve ever read.
June 23, 2011
I read this a few years ago, after listing to Jimmy Buffett's concert CD of the play he made out of it. A fun cautionary tale about a middle-aged Broadway PR guy who has a mild heart attack and buys a hotel on a fictional Caribbean island. Very quickly Norman runs afoul of the trials and tribulations of building ownership in the tropics, such as a wonky water cistern, crazy employees, and his financial backer who managed to get one of those crazy employees mad enough to hunt him down with a machete. I winced a bit at some of the portrayals of the native islanders, and of women for that matter, but it was written before I was born so I sort of expected a bit of that. Doesn't make it okay, but it only detracts a bit from the adventure. If it's something that would bother you, though, best to avoid the book.
December 13, 2010
Wow! Norman Paperman had a gigantic, mind-numbing, mid-life crisis and I’m glad I was allowed to witness it. This book had me howling with laughter throughout, but being a story populated with very real people, there were consequences and casualties. The end of the book was painful. Painful, because of what happens to the characters, but also because the story had ended and I wouldn’t get to spend more time all the people I had met.
The change in tone toward the end of the book, was initially surprising, but upon reflection, it seemed to be the correct ending. If you haven’t had your own mid-life crisis, be prepared for something completely ridiculous, incredibly exciting and extremely nerve-racking. Fifty is very similar to fifteen; it’s awkward, you do things you shouldn’t, you have fun, and you make mistakes. You can survive it, but not with your dignity intact, and not without regrets.
Herman Wouk has written a very fine book. The book was written in the mid-sixties, but the themes are still relevant today. Read it to be entertained and read it to learn something about people and different cultures. This book gives us a glimpse of what the world could be and some hard facts about what it really is.
The change in tone toward the end of the book, was initially surprising, but upon reflection, it seemed to be the correct ending. If you haven’t had your own mid-life crisis, be prepared for something completely ridiculous, incredibly exciting and extremely nerve-racking. Fifty is very similar to fifteen; it’s awkward, you do things you shouldn’t, you have fun, and you make mistakes. You can survive it, but not with your dignity intact, and not without regrets.
Herman Wouk has written a very fine book. The book was written in the mid-sixties, but the themes are still relevant today. Read it to be entertained and read it to learn something about people and different cultures. This book gives us a glimpse of what the world could be and some hard facts about what it really is.
July 25, 2014
I was standing in the office of a tire shop in my small, East-Texas hometown. The air conditioner was ineffectually humming, failing to contest the heat coming through two doors open to the stale baked air outside. A small man was hunched over a small desk, fingers pecking awkwardly at a keyboard, squinting into an undersized monitor. There was a 2013 calendar on the wall.
I can't tell you how I would have felt witnessing this scene before reading "Don't Stop the Carnival" - but I can tell you that I had nothing but overwhelming fondness for everything around me. The mechanic, regaling me through broken teeth with his heroics as a young man. The customer in sneakers, white socks and camouflage shorts - chewing on his mustache and scratching at a faded tattoo.
I didn't want to leave. I wanted to pour burnt coffee into a Styrofoam cup and help them whittle away their pre-lunch hours.
I can't tell you how I would have felt witnessing this scene before reading "Don't Stop the Carnival" - but I can tell you that I had nothing but overwhelming fondness for everything around me. The mechanic, regaling me through broken teeth with his heroics as a young man. The customer in sneakers, white socks and camouflage shorts - chewing on his mustache and scratching at a faded tattoo.
I didn't want to leave. I wanted to pour burnt coffee into a Styrofoam cup and help them whittle away their pre-lunch hours.
October 15, 2025
What book should I take to the Caribbean? I asked myself on the way to my friend's place on Bonaire. I remembered reading this book on the Caribbean side of Mexico 30 years ago and loving it. I don't often re-read books, but why not? "Carnival is very sweet," as the song in this book goes.
I love the fantasy of leaving it all behind to run a hotel in paradise. I love the way nature, culture, and bad luck keep thwarting our hero, Norman Paperman, from ever being able to relax. It's a kind of joke Wouk repeats over and over again to good effect. And I love the window into 1960s Jewish New Yorkers.
This was headed for a 5-star review, which is how I remember it from the first time I read it. But then the final chapter soured it for me. Wouk and/or his protagonist were as sexist, racist, and homophobic as one would expect for a book published in 1965. I was willing to cope with that through most of the book. I did wonder what a reader in the '60s would make of Norman's frequent infidelity. Now it makes him far less sympathetic than I imagine Wouk was aiming for. Then the last chapter was just too much to take, too mean, for this modern reader. And a strange, bitter way to end a fun story.
I love the fantasy of leaving it all behind to run a hotel in paradise. I love the way nature, culture, and bad luck keep thwarting our hero, Norman Paperman, from ever being able to relax. It's a kind of joke Wouk repeats over and over again to good effect. And I love the window into 1960s Jewish New Yorkers.
This was headed for a 5-star review, which is how I remember it from the first time I read it. But then the final chapter soured it for me. Wouk and/or his protagonist were as sexist, racist, and homophobic as one would expect for a book published in 1965. I was willing to cope with that through most of the book. I did wonder what a reader in the '60s would make of Norman's frequent infidelity. Now it makes him far less sympathetic than I imagine Wouk was aiming for. Then the last chapter was just too much to take, too mean, for this modern reader. And a strange, bitter way to end a fun story.
May 18, 2021
Oh, island in the sun
Willed to me by my father's hand
All my days I will sing in praise
Of your forest, waters, your shining sand
I hope the day will never come
When I can't awake to the sound of drum
Never let me miss carnival
With calypso songs philosophical
Midlife crisis, diminishing ability to tolerate the meat grinder that is routine of life and “career” anymore, trainwreck choices you see your children make and have to accept smiling... all so relatable. Don’t we all dream of an escape?
So Norman makes good on this dream and takes the plunge - hotel in the tropical paradise it is!
“I think I’m just waiting to die here in New York, Henny. There has to be something better to do with the time I’ve got left.”
Unfortunately, the reality as always fails to live up to the dream and the problems pile up in paradise, and poor unprepared Norman has to somehow stay on top of the situation. My heart was aching for him (and for me as I was imagining the same escape!) as I watched the train wreck with horrified fascination... after a while of this, it became quite hard - even when seas seemed calm I was metaphorically perched on the edge of my seat, expecting disaster. Had to take a break for a while :)
So... time passes, life continues to happen and it’s harder and harder not to wake up. Even in a book about escape to tropical paradise, in the end reality bites. Disillusionment is inevitable, and disillusionment comes, while dreams remain just... dreams.
Willed to me by my father's hand
All my days I will sing in praise
Of your forest, waters, your shining sand
I hope the day will never come
When I can't awake to the sound of drum
Never let me miss carnival
With calypso songs philosophical
Midlife crisis, diminishing ability to tolerate the meat grinder that is routine of life and “career” anymore, trainwreck choices you see your children make and have to accept smiling... all so relatable. Don’t we all dream of an escape?
So Norman makes good on this dream and takes the plunge - hotel in the tropical paradise it is!
“I think I’m just waiting to die here in New York, Henny. There has to be something better to do with the time I’ve got left.”
Unfortunately, the reality as always fails to live up to the dream and the problems pile up in paradise, and poor unprepared Norman has to somehow stay on top of the situation. My heart was aching for him (and for me as I was imagining the same escape!) as I watched the train wreck with horrified fascination... after a while of this, it became quite hard - even when seas seemed calm I was metaphorically perched on the edge of my seat, expecting disaster. Had to take a break for a while :)
So... time passes, life continues to happen and it’s harder and harder not to wake up. Even in a book about escape to tropical paradise, in the end reality bites. Disillusionment is inevitable, and disillusionment comes, while dreams remain just... dreams.
June 30, 2017
I agree with other readers that the mid(20th)century-America race/class/sex-ism of the novel can be distracting/disheartening/off-putting, and the stereotypes it plays on dated ... but come on ... Don't Stop the Carnival has such a big, bad, midlife heart. If you've ever been on "island time" you'll recognize it, the beauty of the odd encounter, the crazy juju, the cacophony, the mercurial, sweet-scented air. I haven't read anything else by Wouk, but I know not to expect a sequel or prequel to Carnival. He wrote the novel while researching The Winds of War and War and Remembrance while living in St. Thomas. His white protagonists banter like Nick and Nora Charles, and there are lots of martinis, and planter's punches, and pickled millionaires and machete-wielding "fonny" Frenchmen, and dissolutes and their accompanying debauched Sand Witches ... and there is Norman Paperman and Iris Tramm (aka Janet West), and Lester Atlas (the prototypical Ugly American, aka "de fot porson," so named by Sheila), and Bob Cohn (the Frogman), and the awful academic Sheldon Klug (aka The Sending). And Sheila. It's the best kind of fonny, because if you're like me you cry at the end. I did like it, Mistah Papuh suh.
June 13, 2012
I adore this book. I read it when I was probably 13 and found an old hard back copy in one of my parents stacks of books. Neither of them knew where it came from or had read it. I thought that was so odd but adored reading it and have gone back to it many times since. I own very few books though I am a voracious reader. If it isn't a book I really love and see reading multiple times it isn't worth it for me to have it on a shelf. This book makes me giggle and smile with it's eccentric characters and hilarious snafus surrounding the running of a tropical hotel. I also love how out of character it is compared to Herman Wouk's other books and what that adds to my pondering of who he was. I had no idea of the connection to Jimmy Buffet until many years later. Buffet has phenomenal spirit and music. He created a play based on the book. I've not seen it but like the idea of a combination of these two fine artists.
August 2, 2018
At first, I was into this book as the writing is good, the story zips along, and I enjoyed picturing NYC in the 50s. But as it progressed, I found it harder and harder to keep at it. Every bad thing that could happen does happen and poor Norman could never catch a break. I know I should not feel sorry for him, but I did. It wasn't even all the typecasting and slurs that bugged me so much since I was able to let those go as being the norm when this was written in 1965. It was that one disaster after another befell Norman. Ah well, maybe he deserved it all.
In any event, I skipped over the latter half of the book to the last few pages, learned some sad tidbits and was ultimately very glad I chose not to read the rest of the book. Onward!
In any event, I skipped over the latter half of the book to the last few pages, learned some sad tidbits and was ultimately very glad I chose not to read the rest of the book. Onward!
October 19, 2016
To be fair, I know that this book is a product of its time. But the overwhelming racism, misogyny, and homophobia is still revolting - I'm amazed that modern readers continue to rate this book so highly. I was so excited to read this because of my personal history with St. Croix, but I wound up abandoning the book halfway through in disgust after Wouk tried to portray an attempted sexual assault through a humorous lens. I'd give this negative stars if I could.
July 16, 2015
What a fun read! Though a bit dated now since it was originally published in the '60s, island misadventures never grow old, and honestly, don't change all that much from decade to decade. I hated to see this romp end! Highly recommended for anyone with even an inkling of a thought of opening a business on a tropical island.
January 6, 2015
Here's the problem: you can't write 380 pages of comedic farce, then abruptly switch to tragedy for the last 20 pages. You're humming along contentedly with this colorful Caribbean pageant, and all the sudden, it's rather like being kicked in the gut. Too bad about the ending, because I mostly enjoyed the book up to that point, except for the abundant racism and homophobia.
June 15, 2024
They don't write them like this any more. This is a simple comedic story set in the sixties about a misguided New Yorker who decides to buy a hotel in the Caribbean - yesteryear's equivalent of A Place in the Sun or Escape to the Country. Just proves that everyone's dream of packing it all in and moving abroad is nothing new.
From the moment Norman Paperman signs the deal purchasing the Gull Reef Club (in the fantasy Caribbean island of Amerigo) it is a comedy of errors. One slapstick disaster after another ensues - like missing the water boat and having to purchase water, only for the water supply truck to be so smelly it drives the customers away. The whole book is so tautly plotted and peopled with a cast of amusing characters with a range of bizarre habits, like the nymphomaniac bartender, and the ambitious frogman - it's brilliant.
It is very much a book of its time, and that is a good thing. Thank goodness we have these insights into the mindset of the sixties in print. Progressive New Yorker Norman tries gamely to hide his prejudices about the black population of Amerigo. It must have seemed very forward thinking at the time to have a hero who tries to be open minded, because it's made clear he's somewhat unusual.
As for the comedy - if you enjoy slapstick, the plot is amusing, and there are funny lines here and there to enjoy, like this line early in the book: "Long ago they came in their white-winged ships, swarmed over the islands, slaughtered the innocent cannibals, chopped down magnificent groves of mahogany that stood since the Flood, and planted sugar cane." There are also some great descriptions of what people are wearing - here's an example: "The lawyer Collins now appeared in brown Bermuda shorts, brown knee stockings, and a butter-yellow jacket with a sort of green leprosy all over it." - what an image!
From the moment Norman Paperman signs the deal purchasing the Gull Reef Club (in the fantasy Caribbean island of Amerigo) it is a comedy of errors. One slapstick disaster after another ensues - like missing the water boat and having to purchase water, only for the water supply truck to be so smelly it drives the customers away. The whole book is so tautly plotted and peopled with a cast of amusing characters with a range of bizarre habits, like the nymphomaniac bartender, and the ambitious frogman - it's brilliant.
It is very much a book of its time, and that is a good thing. Thank goodness we have these insights into the mindset of the sixties in print. Progressive New Yorker Norman tries gamely to hide his prejudices about the black population of Amerigo. It must have seemed very forward thinking at the time to have a hero who tries to be open minded, because it's made clear he's somewhat unusual.
As for the comedy - if you enjoy slapstick, the plot is amusing, and there are funny lines here and there to enjoy, like this line early in the book: "Long ago they came in their white-winged ships, swarmed over the islands, slaughtered the innocent cannibals, chopped down magnificent groves of mahogany that stood since the Flood, and planted sugar cane." There are also some great descriptions of what people are wearing - here's an example: "The lawyer Collins now appeared in brown Bermuda shorts, brown knee stockings, and a butter-yellow jacket with a sort of green leprosy all over it." - what an image!
June 4, 2018
A good holiday read.
March 24, 2021
An instant favorite.
September 6, 2022
Was a very enjoyable read, but an awful ending. Started a bit slow, then took a turn for the worse (in what I enjoy for a plot) in the last couple chapters.
April 1, 2025
Hilarious! I loved every minute!
June 12, 2022
A friend told me this was her favorite book ever, so I had to try it. It was a good read, but hardly my favorite. I liked the idea, and it was well written, but as a reader you must remember that it was written in 1965. Societal norms were different then. And frankly, I didn’t like many of them.
Overall, it was a fun read. Some lovable characters, and a few truly bizarre ones.
Overall, it was a fun read. Some lovable characters, and a few truly bizarre ones.
November 15, 2024
This book was way too relatable. Hapless city folk buy a decrepit hotel on an island in the Caribbean.
October 6, 2022
A hilarious book about a former producer who buys a hotel on a tropical island, and has one mishap after another. Not "politically correct" by today's standards, but reflective of language/attitude towards gays, blacks, women, etc. when it was written. A fun beach read.
January 6, 2019
I enjoyed this light, dated (1965) novel by the master, Herman Wouk. He's the master of research and historical writing, but this was a clever and fun story.
March 25, 2019
An interesting tale of an expatriate trying to eek out a life in the Caribbean. Set in 1960’s. Some of these things can still be felt happening today. The slowness of the Island, the government and the warmth of the people. good read .. a really quick ending but good read nonetheless
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