Hunter S. Thompson- The Rum Diary

The Rum Diary

Bloomsbury

Hunter S. Thompson

Written from 1960-1961, Published in 1998

Other Hunter S. Thompson Reviews- Hell's Angels - Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 - The Great Shark Hunt

“It was the kind of town that made you feel like Humphrey Bogart: you came in on a bumpy little plane, and, for some mysterious reason, got a private room with balcony overlooking the town and the harbor; then you sat there and drank until something happened.” 

The key detail that most book fans know about The Rum Diary is that it went unpublished for almost forty years, until professional Hunter S. Thompson fan Johnny Depp discovered the manuscript and convinced him to finally publish it. For Thompson's legion of fans this was great news, since though Thompson was a very prolific essay writer, with numerous collections available, his long-form work has always been somewhat thin on the ground; especially considering the longevity and popularity of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The question then became as to whether Rum Diary would actually be any good or not; since its original vanishing act occurred after numerous rejections from publishers- not a good sign- and it wasn't for another five years with the publication of Hell's Angels in Rolling Stone that Thompson's name was really made. With that in mind, I was a little paranoid that Rum Diary would be no better than an early curio.

Thankfully it seems like Johnny Depp knows a good manuscript when he reads it, because I found Rum Diary to be much more entertaining and polished than I expected- to the point where I'm scratching my head as to why it was originally rejected (with my only real theory being that publishers may have felt it to seem derivative of recent counter-cultural classics). Reading it over fifty-years later the tone of the narrative is pure (albeit-early) Hunter S, like his later work, built upon the close foundation of the author's own experiences. Thompson adapts his time spent in San Juan, Puerto Rico, turning himself into the character Paul Kemp; new employee at The Daily News, the only English language newspaper in the territory.

While struggling to adapt and survive in the tense Hispanic atmosphere, Kemp and his fellow outrageous American journalists get drunk and cause trouble throughout, constantly at odds with the locals in the aggressive post-colonial atmosphere. While Kemp struggles to establish himself and stay sane, he finds himself drawn to fellow journalist and drinker Yeamon, and his free-spirited girlfriend Chenault. Together the three of them delve further into the volatile nightlife, leading to dramatic and shocking events that finally drive them off the island. From a thematic viewpoint, the events of The Rum Diary fit perfectly within the range of past and future beatnik literature, to such a strong extent that it surprised me to contrast just how early this book was written compared to more famous and well-regarded examples. Primarily it's easy to compare it to Kerouac's On the Road, at least up to a certain extent when considering the activities that the characters get up to, but knowing Thompson's contempt for Kerouac it's easy to see how the two eventually differ, as The Rum Diary seems to me to have a far heavier focus on the inner moral turmoil of its central character.

It also puts Thompson's position with Charles Bukowski in a new light; Fear and Loathing was published the same year as Post Office, making them both icons of the 70's, but Rum Diary has ten years on that, as an example of the down and out thematic direction that newer authors had taken the examples of Fitzgerald. Thompson was well-known as an admirer of The Great Gatsby, and aspects of the character relationships and plot structure (the climactic revalations of helplessness in the face of the order of things) provide a template for Thompson's novel. The Rum Diary is not as impressive a stand-alone novel as these other examples; the fate of the newspaper is uninteresting, and the non-central characters interchangeable.

In conclusion, it was better late than never for The Rum Diary. Compelling, evocative and thoughtful, it would've been a massive shame had this remained in limbo. There are a number of other Thompson books that went unpublished due to his dissatisfaction with them, and I can only hope that they eventually see the light of day. Without Rum Diary, Thompson's career as a fiction writer is disappointingly thin, so the critical success of it suggests that fans have a lot to look forward to if a events conspire to expand his range of published novels.

Thompson on Kerouac

For what it's worth, I like both of them.

Hunter S. Thompson- Hell's Angels

Hell's Angels

Penguin Modern Classics

Hunter S. Thompson

1966

“The Angels don’t like to be called losers, but they have learned to live with it. “Yeah, I guess I am,” said one. “But you’re looking at one loser who’s going to make a hell of a scene on the way out.”

Another of the many books that I've been meaning to read for some time, Hell's Angels is the book that, upon publication, introduced the wider literary world to the talents and hell-raising attitude of the now-legendary Hunter S. Thompson. Now, almost fifty years after that book's publication, Hunter is obviously much more well-known for the iconic, genre-defining explosion of gonzo known as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the book with which ninety-nine percent of the author's fans discovered him (and through Terry Gilliam's cinema adaptation). I belong in that group, and Fear and Loathing made me realise immediately that I wouldn't be happy until I'd read Hunter's entire bibliography. From that bibliography, the entry which stood out most prominently as the book I felt most likely to further encapsulate the bizarrely magnificent style of Fear and Loathing is now the subject of my latest literary thoughts/ramblings.

Naturally it took me literally ten years to get around to reading Hell's Angels, in the meantime getting more of a fix from Hunter S. through collected editions of his many newspaper and magazine articles, such as The Great Shark Hunt and Generation of Swine. Those high-tempo drink and drug-fueled paperback collections gave me the fix I needed, but the itch remained. When it finally came time to read the lovely Penguin Modern Classics edition of Hell's Angels I ordered from Amazon, I was left with not a small amount of trepidation, powered by random comments I'd heard and read over the years suggesting that it wasn't actually particularly good, at least not by the author's standards.

For the first one hundred pages or so of Hell's Angels, I found myself in agreement with such negative criticism; Hell's Angels didn't seem particularly interesting. In hindsight, the reason for my slight dislike for and slow progress through the book was due to a seed of misapprehension planted in my mind so many years ago where I assumed that Hunter's inimitable style was something that had just jumped into the world, full formed, presumably with his first article. The idea of literature as a progressive chain absorbing its own influences, stewing in its own juices, replicating the adapt or die notions of evolution... these were concepts that didn't occur. The fact is that Hell's Angels, as the earliest Thompson book is naturally the book where his style was most primitive.

Spawned as a heavily extended magazine article for The Nation in 1965, Hell's Angels is a roughly chronological look at the world's most famous biker group through the early-to-mid sixties, where Thompson heavily analyses the group's public image across mainstream America in contrast with his own conclusions, made from essentially ingratiating himself in to their ranks.From the opening pages Thompson dives right in to the subject matter, with little to no thought in explaining the set-up. Details of the Angels he met and how he came to meet them are scattershot around the book, which helped delay the moments where I really began to understand the book. This is not gonzo journalism of the sort Thompson would excel in, but the early stages are very much there in places. After persevering through a multitude of quoted newspaper and magazine statements, used by Hunter to portray the media's supposed warped excessively negative opinion on the gang, I found the authors voice really came to life as he spent more time giving his (often painfully) honest opinions.

At the books conclusion, Thompson neither condemns nor condones the often brutal and always anti-social behaviour of many of the Angels, leaving the reader to contemplate their own opinion, all the while hinting that the issue was really a lot more complicated than that. I found the book to be very well balanced in length and tone, as well as very informative with the benefit of interesting subjects... but it still wasn't quite the Hunter S. Thompson I know. I don't wish to bash Hell's Angels at all (I gave it 4 stars on goodreads, rating fans) because it's one of the better pieces of extended journalism I've ever read (I even think I slightly prefer it to In Cold Blood) but the problem is that Thompson's later prose voice is so iconic and instantly recognisable that this earlier, tamer version lacks the spark I associate with the author. I'm aware that it's an unfair criticism to slate an author's earlier work for not holding the same quality as their work to come, but then I'm probably a pretty unfair reviewer. At any rate, I'm glad I finally got Hell's Angels off from my mental to-read pile, and even though it didn't quite live up to my former expectations as an adolescent, it was ultimately an interesting, satisfying read.

Hunter S. Thompson- The Great Shark Hunt- Strange Tales from a Strange Time

The Great Shark Hunt- Strange Tales from a Strange Time

Picador Press

  Hunter S. Thompson

1979 (Collected)

“I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling.”

“In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely.” 

First of all, Hunter S. Thompson is probably the most quotable author I know, and settling on a quote for this review was really hard, so I went with two. Secondly, this is the fifth installment in my frantic (well, ish) attempt to catch up with the list of books I'd read and not reviewed, which puts me more than half way there. For a lazy writer like me, this is somewhat of an achievement.

Anyway, this brings me to my latest review and it's my second Hunter S. Thompson one, after Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. If you can remember, or just clicked the link and trawled through my rambling nonsense, I wasn't as much of a fan of that book as I'd like to be, though I did gain a positive impression of it overall. Basically the deal with that one is that I frantically admire, adore and worship Thompson's ability to select his vocabulary and manipulate his prose like a true genius, like a modern-day-drug addled Thomas de Quincy (he who wrote the book of which I stole and adjusted the title of for this blog) or Joseph Conrad (Thompson's quest to track down Ricard Nixon reminded my of the hunt for Kurtz in Heart of Darkness)- I like him that much. It's just the topic matter that I don't care enough about; like when Paul Auster inserts an article about baseball in a novel I'm enjoying.

The Great Shark Hunt- Strange Tales from a Strange Time is somewhat like Campaign Trail '72 in that both are collections of Thompson articles and columns from a set period. The latter was a pre-planned series following one topic, but this collection is far more open, collecting the author's most notable work from the late fifties until the end of the seventies, for famous publications such as Rolling Stone, Playboy & The New York Times as well as some very early articles writing for the US air force.

The subjects of these angrily-written, expletive-ridden, extravagant prose filled articles are generally the things that Thompson was most interested in. This means lots of articles about politics, and about the world of politics. Nixon and Jimmy Carter are constant targets of aggressive analysis, as is the Watergate scandal of course. Altogether the politics encompasses around half of the book, which I had mixed feelings about. As in Campaign Trail, I learned a little and enjoyed a little more about the 70's US politics scene, but the aspects that I enjoyed (namely Thompson's ability to portray the world in the way he does) were swamped by a deluge of names of people and societies that I've never heard of before, and so the deep context alienated me as a reader somewhat.

Everything else, though was very entertaining and interesting. The first part of the book is short but intriguing, containing a selection of Thompson's air force work. The character within his writing is totally clear and identifiable, but it's the thought of Thompson writing for the establishment (and failing to meet their standards) which is interesting. Part two of the book is the politics stuff. Some of it is taken directly from Campaign Trail and included as extracts, which is basically just a way of ripping the buying reader off. The third part of the book was the one that appealed to me most, as it avoids politics and instead focuses on travel and culture; looking at the beat generation, at South America. The book concludes with a focus on Thompson's gonzo influence, and the Fear and Loathing name.

This book isn't going to appeal to many people who pluck it randomly from the shelf, and, ironically, it'll never be as recognised as the amazing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but it's definitely the place to go for newer fans of Thompson who've just finished Raoul Duke's story, and also for readers particularly into the post-beat movement. While there are plenty of great full novels from that period, these shorter snippets of encapsulated life offer a manic, ingenious, and unique view into a fascinating artistic world.

Hunter S. Thompson- Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Fear and Loathing on the Campagin Trail '72

Simon & Sschuster

Hunter S. Thompson

1973

"A week earlier I'd been locked into the idea that the Redskins would win easily — but when Nixon came out for them and George Allen began televising his prayer meetings I decided that any team with both God and Nixon on their side was fucked from the start."

In hindsight, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 was probably the wrong book for me to choose to read. Like many, many others, my first exposure to Hunter S. Thompson was through Terry Gilliam's strange film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and not longer after that I read and massively enjoyed the source material. That book remains Hunter's most famous work, existing as the prime example of gonzo journalism in action and remaining up there with Thompson's spiritual predecessor William Burrough's Naked Lunch as one of the most popular examples of drug literature an excitable and easily-influenced student can buy. Curiously though, none of Thompson's other work has gotten anywhere near as close to infiltrating the shared consciousness of the wider reading public, and so in that respect Thompson stands out as somewhat of an enigma, yet to be fully explored. When I came across a copy of what's arguably the author's second most famous work (and one that relies on the title of the first to catch a browser's initial attention more than it does its own subject) I couldn't resist picking it up, despite a nagging feeling that the subject matter would alienate me rather quickly.

Initially serialised in the magazine that Hunter will be forever related to, Rolling Stone, this book is essentially a hard mix of Thompson's self-defined gonzo journalism and serious, legitimate political journalism, as the author dedicates himself to covering the race for the presidency between eternal rivals the democrats and republicans across the year of 1972. Now, straight away there was a conflict for me between the subject matter and the literary style that, had I not been so amused by Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, could have pushed me away from this book entirely. It's not that I'm completely against trying to read about politics (I even took a module on US government and politics during my late teenage years, albeit rather unsuccessfully), but reading about US politics including its transitory figures and minutia of forty years ago was something this reader was always going to struggle with. I was hoping for the pure gonzo to shine.

The result is somewhere in between; though Thompson begins his coverage with a level-headed approach, sticking to his established, entertaining style to portray the varied characters making the initial moves in the national election race. To me particularly, they were all characters, most of whom I'd never heard of before. Even Richard Nixon, political superstar was someone who I mostly looked at as the President of Earth as a head in a jar. As a result of my own uninformed perspective I lost a lot of the context and with it some of the humour. As Fear and Lo odyssey of Hunter S./Raoul Duke as a twisted, mythical adventure through the overworld, the writing style in this book presented to me a similar kind of effect; real political figures become literary caricatures under Thompson's gaze and collaborative illustrator Ralph Steadman's pen.

As the story continues further and further into the campaign, Thompson seems to become more and more exasperated by his attempts to somehow make sense of the bizarre world around him, and his grasp of coherency suffered in my eyes. It became harder and harder for me to track what was going on, and my interest in the book wained. As I said at the beginning, this was probably the wrong book for me to read, because it became near impossible for me to keep up with. Thompson focuses strongly not only on the campaign, but mainstream US media's coverage and presentation of it. This in itself is interesting, but again the line between fantasy and reality is further blurred as these mainstream presentations almost completely overwhelm any semblance of actual truth, and the whole thing becomes a kind of mutated public relations monster, controlled by nobody but prodded from all angles. Considering the cocktail of drugs Hunter was likely on at the time, it's somewhat of a surprise that he had the mental fortitude to finish the project.

Ultimately, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 will, to a certain extent, live and die with the reader based on his or her prior knowledge of the people and places involved, or at least their willingness to try and work it out. I lack the patience or professionalism to make such an effort, and as a result found this book a mish-mash of satirical adventures that kind of exhausted me on the subject. Thompson's writing is as good here as it is anywhere else, and I don't want to try and downplay any of his efforts, as he delivered a historically relevant journal of an important time in the only way he could, but its intensity just didn't capture me.