Hunter S. Thompson – The Rum Diary – Review

Picking up Thompson again after so many years, was a true re-experience of his prose style, humour and gut-wrenching honesty. The story behind the novel is as interesting as the novel itself. Evidently, Thompson had written the first draft in the early sixties, but it wasn't published until 1998. As the story goes, actor Johnny Depp, while staying with Thompson in Colorado, discovered the manuscript stuffed in a drawer. The famous author never got around to it again. Later Bruce Robinson adapted the novel to a screenplay and directed the film, starring Johnny Depp as the central character, journalist Paul Kemp, which was released in 2011. Personally having seen the film and read the novel, the novel is much better, as it's Hunter at his best.

Paul Kemp leaves New York to work for a a major newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The beginning of the story is hilarious, as he finds his seat on the plane and sees the beautiful blond he spotted in the terminal boarding, to then attempt to bully the guy next to him to get out of the seat for the blond. Kemp is unsuccessful, of course, and already has gained the insane reputation as a drunken journalist. As readers we discover the “blond” is a central character, that partly changes Kemp's destiny as man and a journalist.

This behaviour, too, is the driving theme throughout the text: hard-drinking writer as vagabond, searching for the next story, contemplating death, contemplating old age; maniacal, writing and drinking a few snorts of rum at breakfast. Hunter-esk indeed, but there is a self-reflected honesty in the text, an existential self analysis about the world and one's purpose within it with a pinch of humour and sad irony.

It's been said many times before, but I love this style of American writing: clean, simple, descriptive and deep without being cluttered with pretension and unnecessary, belaboured sentences that can do more harm than good. Thompson's prose style is exciting, immediate and drags you along whether you want to go or not.

The best dialogue happens in AI's bar, a dive that serves only hamburgers and alcohol, mainly rum and beer. It is here where the journalist's gather to drink, discuss stories, complain about management, and gossip about each other's lives. Having worked at a major daily, and friends with many who worked for the opposition paper, every newspaper has their own Al's bar. At the time, I was young and writing advertorials and selling advertising space. I would look forward to every Friday night, because many of the “old guard” journalists would gather, drink and discuss their stories for the next day's Saturday edition.

The characters in The Rum Diary were slightly more insane than the journalists I drank with, but the theme was essentially the same: their next story, drinking, and the latest gossip, that would somehow end-up in one of their pieces the next day.

Thompson wrote the first draft of Diary when he was only in his early twenties. As a writer, this journalist-ethos, his gonzo-style made the man a celebrity. He lived what he wrote, and most of us continue to love him for it.

A wonderful novel.