Published: 1998
So, no book reviews for a while, then. This may have had
something to do with the twin addictions of the TV series Breaking Bad, which
ought to come with a government warning, and Stephen King’s sprawling, seven
book magnus opus, The Dark Tower (review forthcoming when I’ve finished it).
But then my birthday, for an age I’d not care to mention, rolled around again,
and suddenly I was inundated with books from family members and friends who
know what really gets me going. One of these was The Rum Diary.
Despite
the well-worn maxim about not judging a book by its cover, I was practically infatuated
with this one before I even opened it. In the black-and-white picture, a young,
toned, shorts-wearing man sips a glass of something (rum, the title suggests)
whilst making notes on a journalist’s pad on his lap. He’s got his feet up on a
table containing empty beer bottles, and in the background is a concrete hotel
block, peppered with balconies and fringed with palm trees. From the
perspective of another grim Cumbrian winter, I couldn’t wait to start it. The
knowledge that it was written back in the early 1960s, but not published until
relatively recently, added to the appeal. I wasn’t disappointed. It turned out
to be one of those novels so good you don’t want to begin another one
afterwards. But the life portrayed in the novel turned out to be far more
nuanced and ambiguous than the cover photo suggested.
Paul
Kemp, a vagrant journalist in his early thirties, has pitched up in San Juan,
Peurto Rico’s capital, in the late ‘fifties, for a job on an English-language
newspaper. He doesn’t speak any Spanish, or for that matter have any
significant journalistic talent that we can discern. But he knows the right places
to get a decent, inexpensive shot of rum and a hamburger, and that seems to be
more important. Wall to wall heavy boozing features strongly, along with a
pleasing 1950s disregard to driving drunk, turning up to work drunk, or doing
practically anything without a few beers in an exotic land where “men sweat
twenty-four hours a day.” Most of the itinerant hacks who write the paper don’t
wander in to the newsroom until noon, and do most of their work in the bar. I
have to admit that Thompson’s seductive imagery and sparse prose initially made
me yearn for Kemp’s carefree life in the sun.
But
despite Hunter S. Thompson’s well known ‘Gonzo’ trappings, the novel is surprisingly
ambivalent about the lifestyle. Kemp arrives in San Juan the worse for wear
from drinking on the journey, echoing unpleasant memories I have of arriving in
foreign lands both jet lagged and hung over. On more than one occasion, in rare
sober moments, he wonders if all the booze might be getting the better of him.
Aside from a couple of drinking buddies – Kemp has no real friends in the story
– considerable contempt is shown for the other sozzled hacks at the News. Fired journalist Yeamon is
ridiculed as messed-up and incompetent, and abusive of his beautiful girlfriend
to boot. Masochistic over-drinker and whoremonger Moberg is condemned as ‘disgusting’
and ‘degenerate’. If anything, the author – for surely this is at least a
semi-autobiographical work – is saying that hard drinking is only cool if you
can handle it and keep your head, as Kemp mostly does, but few others manage.
From a
sociological point of view, the novel depicts a pre-globalisation third-world
country on the cusp of being converted into one big resort for American
tourists, of whom Kemp is suitably scornful. But at the same time, with this
process incomplete, it is currently a playground for Kemp’s type of Westerner.
Meanwhile, there are no significant Peurto Rican characters in the story; where
they do appear, they are portrayed as violent, impulsive and, in one scene, sexually
predatory. In a sense, these elements mark it out as a product of a previous
era.
The
plot itself follows the fortunes of Kemp, and by association that of his
acquaintances and the newspaper. One major plotline involves Kemp’s stewing
lust for the alluring but naive Chenalt, Yeamon’s girlfriend. But in the same
vein as the not dissimilar 1950s counterculture classic, On The Road, the
plotline of The Rum Diary is less important than the overall atmosphere, the
sense of place, that makes it so alluring.
If you’re
anything like me, it’s worth remembering that Kemp’s life – if it ever was
indeed possible – certainly isn’t now in our interconnected world, where you need
more than the false claim of a connection to The New York Times to make it as a
journalist in the tropics. At any rate, in the latter part of the novel the
footloose Kemp, who has spent his twenties tramping around the world from job
to job, admits to yearning for symbols of stable adulthood, such as his own
apartment and a car.
The Rum
Diary is one of those books that, whilst reading it, you find yourself wanting
to live it. But, like so many novels,
from fantasy to travelogue, it’s always worth simultaneously being realistic about
the flaws in the world it portrays. There may be plenty of rum in this novel,
but there’s barely a hangover in sight.