Ross Parker » rum http://www.rossparker.com my personal homepage Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:32:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Rum and hamburgers http://www.rossparker.com/2009/08/17/rum-and-hamburgers/ http://www.rossparker.com/2009/08/17/rum-and-hamburgers/#comments Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:58:00 +0000 Ross http://www.rossparker.com/?p=314 On the way to work this morning I finished Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary. I enjoyed it hugely. The whole book is about the degenerate, alcoholic atmosphere among ex-pat American journalists in the Puerto Rico of the late 1950s, where every meal is rum, ice and hamburgers, and most days start at noon. Layered beneath this is a much deeper theme of hedonism giving way to a sense of more mature contentment, the aging process that prompts this, and the horror that this adaptation brings with it. To understand and describe this process at 22 was a remarkable achievement for Thompson.

I was disappointed to hear that the film of the novel, scheduled for release in 2010, does not include one of  the central characters, Yeamon. The only way to remove Yeamon’s character is to partner the protagonist, Kemp, with Chenault, the wanton Conneticut, from the outset. This would remove much of the storyline, a lot of the simmering tensions and jealousy, and much of the point of the novel. Still, I hope the film works – but I’m glad I got through the novel first.

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