About this title: This is Hunter S. Thompson's only work of fiction to date, an irreverent and autobiographical story about a young journalist in the drunken, drugged-out tropics. It has been published to coincide with the release of a film version of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", directed by Terry Gilliam.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: 1st Scribner Paperba
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 11/1/1999
ISBN-13:9780684856476ISBN:0684856476
Description: Fine. 0684856476 NEW/UNREAD! ! ! Text is Clean and Unmarked! --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing--Has a small black line on bottom/exterior edge of pages. May have light shelf wear to cover from storage, if any. read more
Description: Very Good. 074757457X This mass market paperback book is in REAL GOOD SHAPE! ! Some creasing of the spine and minor signs of wear from reading--nothing major! SMOKE FREE HOME! Do not settle for worn, torn, throwaways. Pay a few pennies more for a book that looks a wrinkle or two away from near new! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780684856476ISBN:0684856476
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1999-11-01
ISBN-13:9780684856476ISBN:0684856476
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780684856476. read more
Edition: NEW ED
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780747574576ISBN:074757457X
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 224 pages. (213 pages) the sultry classic of a journalist's sordid life in puerto rico maps edition new ed (Paperback) read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1998
Description: New. First Edition. Advance Reader, s Excerpt in new unread condition with no markings. Color illustrated wrap. All items shipped in weatherproof padded mailers. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Cloth
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, London, United Kingdom
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780747541684ISBN:074754168X
Description: Fine in Fine jacket. A voodoo orgy of murder, sex, and craziness from the Gonzo King. Perfect hardback UK first edition, first impression. read more
Edition: 1st Ptg
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Bloomsbury, London, UK
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780747541684ISBN:074754168X
Description: Fine in Fine jacket. UK First Edition/First Printing. Near Fine Book in Fine dustjacket. Top tips slightly pushed. Brodart protected. Ships in a box. read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Scribner, New York
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780684856476ISBN:0684856476
Description: Very Good. No Dust Jacket. 8. Trade paper. Minor edgewear. Corners are a bit bumped. (Hunter Thompson-green, red, white, light blue/white & blue letters) "Packed with all the self-destructive excess his fans have come to expect, Thompson's long-lost semiautobiographical first novel is a tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and alcoholic lust set in the 1950s boomtown of San Juan, Puerto Rico. " read more
"This is one of the greatest novels I've ever read. About a man who moves to San Juan, Puerto Rico to become a journalist and escape the troubles of the civilized world. The passage where he describes why he left New York to come to San Juan is one of the best written passages I've read. Hunter S really knows how to keep a person wanting more and circle him around madness, rum, and promiscuous behaviour. The plot is really simple and realistic with no real high or low point, but just a straight line of life we all go through. The analysis of mankind and their brutish ways."
"I seriously recommend the rating system either have half stars or go up to ten because I feel horrible giving his book a four.
The first Thompson book I read was the oh-so-popular "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" mainly because I love learning about the drug culture. I had heard that "Rum Diary" was a different path; however, I was not troubled by it. I knew the drug culture would be gone, but I also I knew I could get the same swift, dirty, poetic style of writing I loved from "FaLiLV."
I was pleased to see this was still evident in "Rum Diary," although because of its more subdued nature, it was less frequent. It went well with the I'm-gonna-live-my-life-one-dirty-day-at-a-time type of feel. Drink rum, eat hamburgers, go into work late, dread going back to the apartment where you can't open your windows.
It was painfully realistic, but maybe that's because I have spent a bit of time as a journalist myself. Bosses are unbelievable, you don't want to finish that boring story and how could the editor possibly think this would be a 12-inch piece when it clearly only has enough merit for six. I enjoy this sense of realism. I'm more likely to feel like I'm there. I felt myself sitting in that office building next to a huge typewriter and wondering when the boss was going to be breathing down his neck. I don't get this feeling from books often, but I did here.
I admit, though, that I read this book with the upcoming movie weighing heavily in my mind. I didn't want it to do this, but it happened. First of all: Mr. Depp, you're starting to get too old play characters that are still in their 20s. Then there was the thoughts of who would play the only female character, Chenault. Then it was "If people thought 'Public Enemies' was boring, how are they going to deal with this?"
Not to say this was boring; I'm just not quite sure this is Hollywood material. The ending to this was there, but about the beginning?
Frankly, I enjoyed the quiet, I-don't-give-a-damn flow. With having read a psycho thriller, "Memoirs of a Geisha" and now diving into "Fight Club," it was needed."
"The book is written in the typical Thompson's fear and loathing style leaving that feeling of desperation and uttermost survival in the social jungle of some remote place on earth. The style of the author in this book is not so witty and overwhelming as in other of Hunter Thompson's books but the story reaches out and grabs you by the throat, suffocating the reader in "Do these things really happen out there?" manner. I did not have fun reading it like I did with The Curse of Lono or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but the the book really affected me as only a good writer can do. Perhaps because the story was not funny.. Not funny at all.."
""The Rum Diary," a novel written when Hunter Thompson was in his early twenties and not published until the late 1990s, is of interest mostly to fans of the late journalist. Readers can easily see the influence Hemingway's novels, "The Sun Also Rises" in particular, had on Thompson, and they also can observe him developing his signature style of manic, paranoid overstatement, here found mostly in the dialogue.
In fact, almost everyone in "The Rum Diary" sounds like a version of Thompson himself -- not unusual for an early novel, I suppose. Characters in "The Rum Diary," just as in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and Thompson's other books, tend to say things like, "These people are animals! We'll be lucky to get out of here alive." And there's drunkenness -- a lot of drunkenness -- which is hardly surprising for a Thompson book.
"The Rum Diary" is not a great book, to be sure, but it's a quick, entertaining read. Readers unacquainted with Thompson shouldn't start here, and the unconverted certainly won't have their minds changed by "The Rum Diary." But fans may like to see the ways Thompson progressed -- and, perhaps more interestingly, the ways he didn't -- from his early days of writing."
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