The Rum Diary to Big Screen

When Harry Potter hit the big screen, fans noticed that there were some differences in the movie. Some drastic, some were minor details that were left out. But when I watched The Rum Diary after reading the book. Wow. To leave out one of the books most major characters was a huge mistake in this one.

The Rum Diary 2011 Trailer

Yeamon, the aggressive “monster” from the book, was completely gone! They took him out of the movie completely! And the movie very, much resembled The Great Gatsby even more than the book! An outsider who gets thrown into this scandalous, chaotic group of people in a crazy, corrupt town. One reason I think there were so many changes in the movie is because it came out in 2011 and was a tribute to Hunter Thompson. And long time, close friend, Johnny Depp, who portrays main character, Paul Kemp, might have had a major influence on the film.

For example, Hunter Thompson was a major advocate of drugs and violence. Johnny Depp, loved this about Thompson. Depp added an interesting, yet very awesome aspect to the car fight scene after the Kemp and Sala don’t pay at the café. (In the book it was Kemp, Sala and Segarra.) In the movie, Kemp and Sala get arrested because Kemp drinks alcohol, then sprays it into a lighter and onto a cops face, burning half the cops face off. In the book, they simply got arrested.

The courtroom scene and jail scene are probably the two scenes that resemble the book the most. Everything is the same, except no Segarra. Kemp and Sala go into the courtroom and Sala spots Moberg. Moberg went and got Sanderson and Sanderson bails them out. However, the significance of Kemp’s bail being a lot less than Sala’s bail in the book is not in the movie. Kemp and Sala are portrayed as similar characters in the movie, unlike in the book where Kemp is portrayed as a little bit of a better person.

The two major characteristics that made the movie so different from the book were the ending and the missing character of Yeamon.

The book ends with Lotterman selling out and disappearing. He doesn’t pay any of the writers their last check and they meet at Al’s discuss a plan to find Lotterman and get their money out of him. Kemp is not very into the idea and decides to stay at Al’s. Here he has his revelation and decides to leave Puerto Rico as soon as possible. Sala and Yeamon show up and tell Kemp that they found Lotterman at a party and Yeamon had gotten in Lotterman’s face and Lotterman had a heart attack and died. Sala flees to the airport and Kemp takes Yeamon 45 miles down the coast where Yeamon gets on a boat and leaves. The movie ends completely opposite!

Kemp, the one who is against the newspaper employees’ idea to get Lotterman, suggests at a meeting at Al’s that they run one more issue of the paper that ruins Lotterman. No one else is on board except Sala and Moberg. They go back to the paper to find that Lotterman has cleared the building out, locked it up and disappeared. The trio then travels down the coast and Kemp gets on a boat and flees leaving in a rather emotional fashion. Subheadings appear telling us that he made it to New York, married Chenault and became one of America’s most famous and successful journalists.

These subheadings are extremely significant. With them, you get every answer and you know everything that happens and the story is complete and over. The book is rather unclear. You can assume where Kemp will go because, unlike the movie, you know what Chenault’s note said to Kemp—“Come to New York and marry me.” The book leaves more to be assumed and inferred. The movie spells it out. Which is frustrating cause what’s the fun and mystery in that?

           For that reason and because they took a major character out of the movie, the book wins for this story. Besides Johnny Depp playing the role of Paul Kemp very, very well, the film adaptation of The Rum Diary will disappoint, and maybe even frustrate the reader.

That's Why You Read? To Smell a Book?

                A book is a blank canvas for the individual imagination to paint its picture. Movies take books and they paint the picture for you. But the great thing about books is that you can take them and create your own movie. “A Book is actually a place, a place where we, as readers, still have the chance to engage in active imagining, translating word into play, have already been imagined for us, but the book, in whatever form we choose to interact with it, forces us to complete it.” –Joe Meno, A Book is a Place

                Today so many people are concerned with how stories are told. Books or movies? That used to be the simple question but now it’s more complex. Book—hardcover, paperback—Kindle, iPod, iPad, iWhateverItIsYouUse or movie? And for some reason people think that each one of these is the same. Really the question is as simple as this: Text or Visual? I don’t care what you read on. You’re still reading the same story. It doesn’t matter what it is you’re reading on. The important thing is that you get the meaning and point of the story. Getting that new book smell isn’t that important. There are bigger things in life than smelling books. “The message [of the book], the content [is] more vital than the medium.” –Joe Meno, A Book is a Place

REVIEW: The Rum Diary: Chapters 11-21

                My review of the last half of The Rum Diary by Hunter Thompson: Well done. I was eventually finally engaged in the book as the pace finally picked up. My review, after finishing the book, as a complete novel: eh? It’s really not that spectacular of a book. And it’s advertised as an exciting book filled with lust, action, money, scandals and total drunkenness and bar fights. The most of these advertised by the covers of the book are the lust of a “mysterious, sexy woman.” This would lead the reader to believe, that main character, Paul Kemp, would get involved with some woman. But there is no other significant woman in the book other than Yeamon’s—fiance? Girlfriend? Wife? It wasn’t too clear on what Chenault and Yeamon’s relationship was. They lived together in a really nice beach house.

                Only towards the very end of the book does Paul get involved with Chenault when she gets separated from Yeamon at a party after they have a bit of an argument. The argument signifies the ‘final straw’ to Yeamon and Chenault’s abusive relationship. Paul comments at one point that “’he treats her like a slave.’” Chenault disappears and everyone goes back to San Juan, only for her to show up at Paul’s apartment one morning. Then, after a complete day of her silence, they sleep together and the lusting and sex part of the book that was advertised finally comes full circle—but only for her to flee Puerto Rico after a few days and go to New York. She does leave a very significant note with one hundred bucks. This note tells the reader what happens to Paul, or at least gives us material to infer what most likely happens if Paul follows Chenault’s instructions to meet her in New York and marry her.

                The most exciting part of the book, and the biggest action scene is when the paper folds and Lotterman refuses to pay any of the employees. Moberg, Yeamon, Sala, Segarra and many other of the employees agree to go after Lotterman at a party. Yeamon, a continuing symbol of anger and aggression in the book, beats up Lotterman and he ends up having a heart attack. Meanwhile, Paul is sitting alone at Al’s, the bar that has continuously symbolized neutrality and maybe even peace from the rest of the Puerto Rican culture and chaos. Sala and Yeamon show up and tell them what happened. Sala flees and Paul takes Yeamon about 45 miles down the coast so Yeamon can flee on a boat. The whole ride down is extremely ironic, because we know and Paul knows that Chenault slept with Paul and fled for New York. Paul is dropping Yeamon off and then leaving to go marry his ex-partner.

                Overall, I’ve read better books. I’ve read worse. I give The Rum Diary a 6 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone that enjoys reading a good, messy scandal.

High School Literature in the Real World

Literary classics and popular bestsellers can be very different things—especially in today’s schools.  Would a kid want to read Of Mice and Men or Twilight? Well…maybe that’s not a good example. Of Mice and Men or Harry Potter? Almost every kid would likely answer Harry Potter.

But what would prepare a student for a job in the real world? Well it works both ways. There are some literary classics that will be of hardly any benefit to a kid. There are also many popular bestsellers that will be of no benefit to a kid. In the future, the kid will be in his office and get promoted and has to teach another guy how to do his job. This other guy is just incredibly dimwitted and can’t do a thing right. So this kid has to pull the other guys weight. Sometimes this happens in the real world. So the kid will take what he learned from his high school readings, pull out his wand, and with a flick of his wrist get all the work done in the blink of an eye. No. Reading Harry Potter in high school didn’t help this kid. So, same scenario but the kid takes what he learns from reading Of Mice and Men. He pulls the other guys weight so much that his boss starts to get irritated along with his other co-workers and after a while the kid decides to shoot the other guy. No. He’d be fired and charged with murder. Hooray for his high school reading curriculum!

Now, these are extreme examples that would probably not happen. But you get the point. There is a flaw in our current high school reading curriculum. It does not prepare students for much in today’s society. Something must change and different books need to be getting read. But which books should be read and how long till society destroys their meaning? That’s the real question.

REVIEW: The Rum Diary: Chapter 1-10

What I’ve gotten out of The Rum Diary so far is it resembles the child of The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye--which shouldn’t be a surprise considering Hunter S. Thompson copied The Great Gatsby in its entirety on his own typewriter while working at Time magazine. But there are many connections I’ve made from the book to other classic novels.

Rum Diary takes place in Puerto Rico in the 50’s centering around a freelance journalist, Paul Kemp, who seems to be a combination of Nick Carraway and Holden Caulfield. Kemp arrives in San Juan to work at the ‘Daily News,’ an international, English newspaper. When first arriving, alone, he befriends the paper’s photographer, Bob Sala. Kemp examines the room or journalists and employees. “’They look normal.’” Sala tells him that they’re “thieves—packrats.” (16) Kemp has his friends, Sala and Segarra. But he’s also an observes to Lotterman, the head of the paper who is slowly going insane and Yeamon who was just fired from the paper and continuously treats his wife like a slave. Kemp may or may not have some attraction to her, that much is unclear though.

So far the story is Kemp, surrounded by savage natives that have beaten him, on an island that depresses him and seems to be falling apart—a connection to the Heart of Darkness. He is “the new kid” in town and is an observer to the crazy affairs going on in everyone’s lives—a connection to The Great Gatsby. And the continuous use of Holden Caulfield’s favorite word: “he was a phony, and he didn’t even know it.”  

Although the book is drawing many close connections to other classic novels, the one thing The Rum Diary is lacking is an actual story. Other than his internal conflict of not knowing what to do with his life at the moment, there seems to be no main conflict, story or point the book is moving toward.