Notes on Hunter S. Thompson's *The Rum Diary*

Hunter Thompson’s The Rum Diary is a manic read.

The first few pages italicized pages are well-crafted, almost painterly in their evocation of a particular time and place, in this case 1950’s Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, this promising start is not sustained (and this from an unabashed Thompson fan). Instead, we are quickly dropped into Thompson’s fevered world of cartoonish violence, mayhem, and paranoia.

Ostensibly, the novel is about Paul Kemp, a transplanted New York journalist who lands at a Puerto Rican newspaper on the verge of collapse. Kemp has various run-ins with the staff, the police, the citizenry. And he does it all with a drink in his hand practically the whole time. Pair this with an uneven portrait of a love triangle between himself, his co-worker, and a woman named Chenault and you have the entire novel (at 200 pages, really a novella). The turning point comes late in the story and I won’t spoil it here, but it is, in a word, disturbing how Thompson describes it and deals with it from a narrative perspective.

Stylistically, the novel is unbalanced. Some sections – those dealing with the newspaper and its erratic drunken staff – are staccato. Short, jabbing sentences put the reader on edge just as much as the story itself. Other portions take a more leisurely pace. The effect is that Kemp, our narrator, comes across as somewhat schizophrenic. Maybe this was intentional, but I cannot think that it is.

There are passages of tremendous insight, flashes of absolute narrative brilliance. But they are few and far between in a scattered, eclectic storyline.

Giovanni Ribisi, Johnny Depp, and
Michael Rispoli in The Rum Diary

I read The Rum Diary in anticipation of the upcoming film. After reading it, I’m not certain if I will even see it (at least, not in the theaters). I can tell from the trailer that they are taking quite a few liberties with the plot, embroiling Paul Kemp in what appears to be a real estate swindle that, I’m guessing, he will be made to combat in the newspaper.

The funny thing about The Rum Diary is that I can’t recommend it, but I’m glad that I read it.