- Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (May 15 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0618219153
- ISBN-13: 978-0618219155
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.8 x 2.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 426 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #464,559 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Scrappy, satiric and frowsily exotic, this loosely constructed novel of debauchery and frustrated ambition in present-day Hawaii debunks the myth of the island as a vacationer's paradise. The episodic narrative is presided over by two protagonists: the unnamed narrator, a has-been writer who leaves the mainland to manage the seedy Hotel Honolulu, and raucous millionaire Buddy Hamstra, the hotel's owner and former manager, who fired himself to give the narrator his job. The narrator is at once amused and moved by Buddy, "a big, blaspheming, doggy-eyed man in drooping shorts," who is as reckless in his personal life as he is in his business dealings. He hires the writer despite his lack of qualifications, and the writer returns the favor in loyalty and affection, acting as witness to Buddy's flamboyant decline. As the hotel's manager, the writer comes to know a succession of downtrodden travelers and Hawaii residents, each more eccentric than the next. Typical are a wealthy lawyer whose amassed fortune does not bring him happiness; a past-her-prime gossip columnist involved in a love triangle with her bisexual son and her son's male lover; and a man who is obsessed with a woman he meets through the personals. Theroux, never one to tread lightly, often portrays native Hawaiians including the writer's wife as simpleminded, craven souls. But he is an equal-opportunity satirist, skewering all his characters except perhaps his alter-ego narrator and Leon Edel, the real-life biographer of Henry James, who makes an extended, unlikely cameo appearance. The lack of conventional plot and the dreariness of life at Hotel Honolulu make the narrative drag at times, but Theroux's ear and eye are as sharp as ever, his prose as clean and supple. (May)Forecast: A nine-city author tour kicks off a promotional blitz for Hotel Honolulu, which includes a sweepstakes with a trip to Hawaii as prize. More carefully worked than Kowloon Tong, Theroux's last novel, and more familiar in setting, this may be one of the part-time Hawaii resident's better selling efforts.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.From Library Journal
Every guest at this hotel has a story, and we get to hear them all including that of the new manager, a down-on-his-luck kind of guy whose life is taken over by his job.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific novel,
By David P (Kirkland, WA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hotel Honolulu (Hardcover)
This is without doubt one of the finest novels I've read in recent years. Wickely funny at times, but also a painfully correct portrayal of middle-aged uncertainty.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sounds like the hotel I stayed in,
By
This review is from: Hotel Honolulu (Paperback)
When I went to Hawai'i I hadn't yet read this book. I got home and picked it up to read. Now that I've read it I'm glad I got to go to visit first. I have reflected on the stories Theroux tells and I am able to appreciate Honolulu in a way I probably couldn't while I was there. I recognized so many of the people Theroux described and saw myself in them as well. I had to wonder how much of this novel was really fictional; it was far too easy to imagine that these things had happened. (Especially after getting to know some of the people who do live in Honolulu.) Having grown up near a tourist destination this book give me an appreciation for those who have to deal with tourists for a living; it also gave me several insights into the human condition. I would hand this book to anyone who is planning to travel (and not just to Hawai'i).
5.0 out of 5 stars
Got it Right!,
By
This review is from: Hotel Honolulu (Paperback)
First! This book is really funny!! Second; I agree with all of what the previous reviewer, Linda had to say and I would like to add this: I think I am a bit of an authority on the stuff in this book. The legends, the facts (of course not the stories themselves) but the whole gambit of the Hawaiian islands as seen fron the eyes of a Mainlander. I spent 40 years travelling to the islands, mostly as a incentive travel consultant, where I lived in up to 50 hotels for as much as 3 months at a time. I took people to the islands that are not know for good reading habits, but on some occations I was able to convince the client to send the winners of these trips, "Insight Guides-Hawaii" I'd love it if everyone that ever visited the islands would read, Insight Guides and Hotel Honolulu. These two books. Paul Threoux got it absolutly right! This is the islands. However, it is not a perfect world, so I will not get everyone to read this book.I read a great deal and on my shelf that houses funny books that I like to go back to now and again, the stack is very small. Books that I read for a good laugh, and that's all include: Catch-22, Babbitt, and Catcher in the Rye. Now I will add, Hotel Honolulu.
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