Rum diary how long

Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem.

Return to Book Page. The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Begun in by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late s. The narrator, freelance journalist Paul Kemp, irresistibly drawn to a sexy, mysterious woman, is soon thrust into a world where corruption and get-ric Begun in by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S.

The narrator, freelance journalist Paul Kemp, irresistibly drawn to a sexy, mysterious woman, is soon thrust into a world where corruption and get-rich-quick schemes rule and anything including murder is permissible. Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. More Details Original Title. Paul Kemp. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

To ask other readers questions about The Rum Diary , please sign up. Andrius Urbaitis One important idea that Hunter writes about is the importance of doing your own homework. See all 3 questions about The Rum Diary…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of The Rum Diary. 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 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 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 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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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. Sometimes I really like being ordered to get off my bottom by the books that I am reading.

Human eyes mine? 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. View all 27 comments. Oct 07, Jonathan Ashleigh rated it really liked it.

This book was brutally normal. It went along nice and regular for a while and then something happens and you are sort of left to wonder how you should feel about it. Hunter S. Thompson is cool and collected in his thoughts and it really feels genuine.

John Zelazny is another emerging Aspen writer and he is picking up where Thompson left off. Mar 11, Steven Godin rated it really liked it Shelves: fiction , america-canada. Falling for someone else's girl. Pissed-off Puerto Ricans. Public misbehavior. A shitty newspaper in decline. Soft-core lewdness. All held together: despite the fact Paul Kemp is far from sober most of the time, by a Hemingway-esque, first-person, clear and simple prose.

No beating around the bush - just straight to the point in the least amount of words possible. For me, this was more enjoyable and accessible than Fear and Loathing - not necessarily better mind you, but more like a proper novel and less like deranged exuberant journalism. Less fucked-up. No acid obviously. Despite the fact he gets to drink rum during day and get his leg over on the beach at night, year-old Kemp is a character where the word morose easily comes to mind.

He seems to find himself on the one hand caught between a restless idealism and on the other a feeling that something terrible is right around the corner. Part of his problem is simply San Juan itself, which Thompson writes about with panache and danger. For a while, nothing really happens other than Kemp and company ordering drinks and generally mulling over life in San Juan, before trouble looms, as Kemp and two colleagues - Yeamon and Sala - from the San Juan Daily News, get into a violent altercation with cops, followed by more of a real problem on the island of St.

Thomas, where a carnival has enticed Kemp, Yeamon, and his sexy blond girlfriend, Chenault - whom Kemp has had his eyes on right from the off. They encounter looting, a wild party, and Chenault letting her hair down a little too much for the locals, before disappearing into the night.

Thompson might have driven the narrative into a bit of a dead end by the end, but, going along for ride prior was a real treat. For gonzo fans don't expect anything gonzo-esque - you won't find it here. Someone told me that this was basically like a second-rate Henry Miller, and that he would have made a much better job of it. If Henry Miller had written this novel I wouldn't have gone anywhere near it. I'd take Thompson over Miller all day long. View all 4 comments. But it is on of those words, like Love, that I have never quite understood.

Most people who deal in words don't have much fait in them and I am no exception -- especially the big ones like Happy and Love and Honest and Strong. They are too elusive and far too relative when you compare them to sharp, mean little words like Punk and Cheap and Phony. I feel at home with these, because they're scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and '"Happy," I muttered, trying to pin the word down.

I feel at home with these, because they're scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and it takes either a priest or a fool to use them with any confidence. It is easy to drive too fast down the roads of this book and miss the fantastic prose. Even early Thompson had the sweaty, sharp, twisted prose that hits you in the head like a half-empty Bacardi bottle. One would think rum, women, sand and hamburgers might be heaven, but it also might be the next step to death.

Thompson finds that awkward, brief shadow between paradise and hell and soaks it in and leaves us crumbs of grace that trails the reader out of that hot, heavy mess. Loved him referring to the other woman as his pig date all the time! So funny. View 1 comment. Apr 22, Kevin rated it really liked it Shelves: own , classics , fiction , reviewed. That maddening delusion that a man can lead a decent life without hiring himself out as a Judas Goat.

Aptly titled with a plethora of boozy contrivances an "No matter how much I wanted all those things that I needed money to buy, there was some devilish current pushing me off in another direction - toward anarchy and poverty and craziness. Aptly titled with a plethora of boozy contrivances and catastrophes, it is surprisingly coherent and readable. I kept thinking that this is what William S. Burroughs could have been if his drug of choice had been rum instead of hallucinogenic narcotics.

Thompson, when in control of his faculties, was one hell of a writer. A word of caution: if your trigger is implied sexual assault, consider taking a pass on this one. Thompson's narrative gets a little rapey at one point. It was not well defined, but it was enough to give me a nasty knot in my stomach by sheer insinuation. View all 5 comments. Jul 20, Brina rated it liked it Shelves: journalism , fiction.

The summer is getting steamy. Endless days above ninety degrees has me sitting in air conditioning nonstop. When I go out to on errands like I did yesterday, I find myself craving an ice cold drink. This summer I also actually participated in a seasonal challenge. I am a mood reader so I tend to avoid challenges other than open ended ones, but seven letters of scrabble was too fun to pass up.

Rum and coke is definitely The summer is getting steamy. Rum and coke is definitely one of those ice cold drinks I love to sip at the end of a hot summer day, so without knowing anything about the premise of The Rum Diary, I picked it up to help complete my rack of scrabble tiles.

Believe it or not, I have never read a Hunter S. Thompson book before this. I have nothing against his books, but I never got around to picking one up. Before reading, I decided to research him as he is a new author for me. Thompson is credited with coining the term gonzo journalism, a first person narrative that removes any objectivity from the piece. As a twenty two year old unknown, Thompson had written The Rum Diary in An autobiographical novel, Thompson follows young journalists around Puerto Rico, without a care in the world besides drinking rum all day and finding girls on the beach.

It is Paul Kemp is a thirty two year old journalist and searching for that last adventure before settling down with his life. He had covered Europe and desired a new locale so on a whim answered an ad for a job in Puerto Rico. With rum being as cheap as twenty five cents a glass and rent as low as fifty dollars a week for a shared apartment, Puerto Rico was a new vacation destination.

Kemp discovered this on his flight down when an attractive blonde got on his flight. With work only typing a few lines a day and rum cheap and the beach in walking distance from almost anywhere, there were plenty more blondes to be had should Kemp decide to make his job more of a vacation. Kemp got into plenty of adventures in his short time on the island.

The Puerto Rico he has traveled to was not the built up tourist attraction it is today. The Caribe Hilton was relatively new, but that was it in terms of luxurious hotels with a beach. Puerto Ricans who wanted to get ahead moved to New York a la West Side Story, and those who stayed, at least the majority that Kemp met, were of low means and were clamoring for statehood. To this day, Puerto Rico remains a territory, statehood an ongoing debate. Kemp and some colleagues got ambushed at a greasy spoon diner, are met with a mob outside their newspaper building, and are rarely given the benefit of the doubt by the average Puerto Rican citizen.

An educated woman without a care in the world, Chennault is in Puerto Rico for the same reason as her male contemporaries. In , there were few employment opportunities for Seven Sister educated women. Although Chennault has graduated from Smith College, her future was that of a typist, with the feminist revolution being a decade away. Like her male friends with means, Chennault saves one hundred dollars for an open ended round trip ticket to Puerto Rico.

The scenes with Chennault were among the most amusing and steamy of the book. One can tell that this was written by a man in his twenties, but Chennault still offered comic relief among the conversations between the journalists. Whether she is tanning on the beach or gyrating at carnival, Chennault appears to be enjoying life.

She knows that by returning to New York there are few opportunities for her, so why not have some fun before settling down in life.

This is in essence why Kemp and the other journalists came to Puerto Rico in the first place. Having no expectations going in, The Rum Diary was light, entertaining, and gave me a feel for the tropics during the time it was written. After never reading a Hunter S Thompson novel before, I am inclined to pick up another, especially if he writes about more steamy locales that make his books conducive for summer reading. With my scrabble board almost complete, I wonder what other hidden gems I will find before the season is through and whether they will be as comedic as this unearthed novella.

View all 7 comments. Mar 22, Abdul Q. Bastian rated it really liked it. I just spent more than an hour and a half finishing The Rum Diary. I wanted to stop and hit the sack but something inside me whispered to go on. It was when I realized that nothing actually happened in the book. For a book with nothing particularly interesting going on, Hunter S. Thompson got a way to keep me on the edge of my seat. The expatriates were depicted as drunkards were irresponsible and unprofessional, while the natives were stereotyped as people who started fights with foreigners and cannot be trusted.

Verdict: Highly engaging though lacks of substance. Apr 04, Ashley Daviau rated it really liked it. It was an excellent story and I felt like I was living an episode of Narcos as I was reading and I loved it.

I suppose that explains the title. But serious, '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 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 's I suppose that would explain their behavior as well. You know - I'm a rebel, I took off - now where's my reward? 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. Hell, it's no fun anymore - our luck's all running out at the same time. 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.

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 's, it was never actually published until 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. My first night in Saigon. I was sitting in a restaurant when a blind lady selling counterfeit books approached my table. Despite her glazed eyeballs and her inability to find my eyes with her own I was captivated by her bright personality and attractive face, and so I decided to actually have a look at her selection of illegally printed books 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 t My first night in Saigon. She mostly had garbage travel books and lonely planet guides, but I did spot The Rum Diary in the corner of my eye, and being a fan of Hunter S. Thompson fan I realised this was a great opportunity to read his first novel, which was written in but not published until - a late bloomer if there ever was one.

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 beach and I read it while drinking rum The word 'rum' gets thrown around so much you become fixated on it, and before you know it you're ordering three or four with every meal.

The Rum Diary is a very easy and enjoyable read. It's a bit slower than Hunter's other novels, but is to be expected as he was still learning his chops. That is not to say he didn't have any chops when he wrote this, it oozes the Gonzo flavour that made Hunter famous.

The review excerpt on the front cover puts it perfectly: "Crackling, twisted, searing, paced to a deft prose rhythm 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 and skip the movie, which is a pile of hollywood shit. 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 unlike The Rum Diary, the film adaptation of Fear and Loathing is actually very good.

Ostensibly a novel, the line between fiction and fact feels blurry when reading Thompson. The story is about a bevy of young hard-living journalists working for a struggling newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's the late 's and Paul Kemp Thompson? An unlikable cast of characters who we never learn much about, and not much in the way of an actual plot, make it ineffective as a traditional novel, and it certainly doesn't have that feel. Thompson, did in fact, work for a newspaper in San Juan in the early 's.

And the novel has the feel of truth. 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" That sounds pretty autobiographical to me. Either way though, it was an interesting peak into the early work of a man who lived on the edge.

View all 8 comments. Aug 16, Kaya rated it it was ok. It isn't very good. The writing style isn't compelling, there is no plot and no hint of the future nor of the direction of the book. This is the kind of novel that you either adore or feel indifferent about. It's definitely NOT my cup of tea. There's no deep characterization nor natural growth of the bond between characters.

Paul is an arrogant journalist who makes his way from New York to Puerto Rico to work at the only English-language paper on the island. As the paper sits near bankruptcy, he It isn't very good. As the paper sits near bankruptcy, he begins to question the reason for coming to the island in the first place. Paul falls into a love triangle with a fellow colleague Yeamon and his girlfriend Chenault.

With its large amount of disrespect for women, I find the book disappointing and outdated. I kept waiting for something exciting to happen and before I knew, the book was finished. The characters are unconvincing and as I said, there is no plot going on. Paul's perspective is too depressing because he finds nothing beautiful - everything is grey and flat. Besides his passive attitude, he's a pretty flat character with no particular ambitions except getting drunk and getting laid.

Somewhere through halfway, it became repetitive to read about his monotonous days. Paul and Chenault have a loose connection if there even is one. Sure, there is sexual tension between them, but I feel like it's there because they're both bored with the life in Puerto Rico. He doesn't respect her and it's not like she has some deep feelings for him either. It's like they would've done the same thing with the first stranger that crossed their paths. Apr 10, Jason Koivu rated it really liked it Shelves: humor , comedy , crime , autobiography , non-fiction , fiction , travel.

This is rum, indeed! Very questionable goings on going on here! I believe this is labeled as fiction, but since Hunter S.

Even calling it "semi-autobiographical" is a scary prospect since that means at least some of this horror happened. Well okay, maybe it's lightened by some dark humor, but there are still some pretty awful things that happen herein, take fo This is rum, indeed!

Well okay, maybe it's lightened by some dark humor, but there are still some pretty awful things that happen herein, take for instance borderline rape. Trailer 1. Clip Photos Top cast Edit. Johnny Depp Kemp as Kemp. Giovanni Ribisi Moberg as Moberg. Aaron Eckhart Sanderson as Sanderson. Michael Rispoli Sala as Sala. Amber Heard Chenault as Chenault.

Richard Jenkins Lotterman as Lotterman. Amaury Nolasco Segurra as Segurra. Marshall Bell Donovan as Donovan. Bill Smitrovich Mr. Zimburger as Mr.

Julian Holloway Wolsley as Wolsley. Bruno Irizarry Lazar as Lazar. Enzo Cilenti Digby as Digby. Aaron Lustig Monk as Monk. Karen Austin Mrs. Zimburger as Mrs. Bruce Robinson. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. His volatile editor, Lotterman, assigns him to tourist pieces and horoscopes, but promises more.

Paul rooms with Sala, an aging and equally alcoholic reporter, in a rundown flat. Sanderson, a wealthy entrepreneur, hires Paul to flack for a group of investors who plan to buy an island near the capital and build a resort. Sanderson's girl-friend, the beguiling Chenault, bats her eyes at Paul. His loyalties face challenges when he and Sala get in trouble with locals, when a Carnival dance enrages Sanderson, and when the paper hits the skids.

Is the solution always alcohol? One part outrage. One part justice. Three parts rum. Mix well. Rated R for language, brief drug use and sexuality. Did you know Edit. Trivia Johnny Depp suspended his sobriety for this film in order to experience the effects of liquors depicted.

Goofs When Kemp and Sala experience the effects of the mysterious drug while walking outside by the docks, the lobster in the tank is a Maine lobster large claws , not a Caribbean lobster no claws.

Quotes Paul Kemp : Oscar Wilde once said, "Nowadays, people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing. User reviews Review. Top review. Great scenes, great setting, decent story, mediocre direction Rum Diary If you're looking for the craziness of later Hunter S. Thompson, you'll find shreds of it here.

Johnny Depp stars and runs the show in his usual strong if uninspired way as a new, hard-drinking reporter with a failing English language newspaper in Puerto Rico. There is a true surface here that's pretty amazing--the cars, the low down rot of the apartments, the racism between the rich white Americans and the indigenous Puerto Ricans.