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Hotel Honolulu: A Novel

In this wickedly satiric romp, Paul Theroux captures the essence of Hawaii as it has never been depicted. The novel’s narrator, a down-on-his-luck writer, escapes to Waikiki and soon finds himself the manager of the Hotel Honolulu, a low-rent establishment a few blocks off the beach. Honeymooners, vacationers, wanderers, mythomaniacs, soldiers, and families all check in to the hotel. Like the Canterbury pilgrims, every guest has come in search of something — sun, love, happiness, objects of unnameable longing — and everyone has a story. By turns hilarious, ribald, tender, and tragic, HOTEL HONOLULU offers a unique glimpse of the psychological landscape of an American paradise.

Rating: (out of 50 reviews)

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#1 written by Rick 1 year ago

Review by Rick for Hotel Honolulu: A Novel
Rating:
Once again our “dear friend” makes superficial forays into others’ cultures. If you can get passed his stock characterization and stereotyping of various Hawaiian ethnic groups, you might find something to salvage in the local color presented in this novel. As one who has lived in Honolulu, I can just imagine what they’re saying about this book at UH right now. I’m not one to eagerly jump on the PC bandwagon, but this book will certainly bring it rolling down Ka’piolani Blvd. You’d think he’d have learned from his patronizing posture in “Riding the Red Rooster,” where the Chinese are merely dirty peasants. Or from his flop, “Kowloon Tong,” which in its film version (e.g. “Chinese Box”) was poorly received at its world premiere at the Hawaii Theatre. At that gathering, Theroux tried to distance himself from the production, which was amusing. You’d also think he’d learned a lesson or two from Lois Ann Yamanaka’s debacle with “Blu’s Hanging” and thereby tried to resist the urge to caricature Filipino Americans in the islands as over-sexed, perverted or otherwise maladjusted. Yes, and we need that anal-retentive Japanese American and, of course, the sluggish, slow-witted Hawaiian. Please, Mr. Paul, spare us more of this rubbish in the future and fix your otherwise keen traveler’s eyes on something you really know about.

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#2 written by Randall Neustaedter 1 year ago

Review by Randall Neustaedter for Hotel Honolulu: A Novel
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Paul Theroux loves to play the intelligent, uninvolved raconteur, the perpetual, if distant, visitor. In his inimical style of episodic narration he tells the stories of those characters he meets, or he writes his fantasies about them (read sexual). In Hotel Honolulu he continues the witty, winking entertainment he began in his fictional autobiographies My Secret History and My Other Life, all viewed from his superior stance. Now that he is transplanted from England to Hawaii, the flavor is Polynesian, but the sly, voyeuristic prose the same. No other autor carries the reader along so effortlessly, so superbly, and on such a smooth amusement ride. No literati populate this world, however, a world of prostitutes, con men, complainers, and calculating crones. If readers are hoping for plot, try Theroux’s masterful sci-fi story O-Zone, or the bizarre sexual deviant thriller Chicago Loop, ore even the anti-establishment raves Milroy the Magician or Mosquito Coast. Discover Paul Theroux, a truly great writer, a mastermid who can take his reader on a funfilled ride of literary loops and thrills that leave you breathless at the feats of prose prowess and always wanting more.

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#3 written by L. Carroll 1 year ago

Review by L. Carroll for Hotel Honolulu: A Novel
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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).

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#4 written by Linda Linguvic 1 year ago

Review by Linda Linguvic for Hotel Honolulu: A Novel
Rating:
There’s a great premise for this novel by Paul Theroux. The narrator is an unnamed middle-aged writer who takes a job as a manager of a small seedy hotel in Honolulu. What follows is a book full of overlapping stories about the constant parade of guests and locals and a fresh look at what Hawaii is like by the New England-born author who now makes Hawaii his part-time home.There’s a wide variety of characters and a loose non-conventional plot. Most memorable of all is the larger-than-life figure of millionaire and hotel owner Buddy Hamstra, a big man who over-indulges his appetites in life. There’s the writer’s wife and daughter as well as permanent and temporary hotel guests and employees. It’s a collection of vignettes interwoven with reoccurring themes and finely developed people. It’s big and sprawling and full of pathos and humor, small portraits of human nature focusing on the themes of love and death.I found myself drawn into it, enjoying the author’s sharp observations and finding myself wanting to laugh out loud. How each character views this world is fascinating and the writer dares to ridicule it all. There’s a power in the book that kept me reading in spite of the meandering pace. It’s sad and funny and very human all at the same time as it willingly explores such topics such as ethnic tensions and physical disabilities. It might not always be a flattering picture of a place we sometimes think of as paradise, but it sure does seem real, as the characters grope and blunder along in their lives below a constantly shining Hawaiian sun. I just loved the experience of reading this book. Definitely recommended.

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#5 written by Gail Cooke 1 year ago

Review by Gail Cooke for Hotel Honolulu: A Novel
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Few capture the essence of a setting as sensitively as author Paul Theroux. One remembers with pleasure “Kowloon Tong” (1997), a vivid word portrait of China. Once more he renders unforgettable scenes in his latest work, “Hotel Honolulu,” set in Hawaii where, by the way, Mr. Theroux maintains a second home. But this is not the sun dappled island paradise of which many dream. It is instead a rather seedy spot, a down-at-the-heels 80 room hotel on an unimposing byway several blocks from the beach in Waikiki. “The rooms were small, the elevator was narrow, the lobby was tiny, the bar was just a nook.” The owner, Buddy Hamstra, a man with protean appetites, bridled at calling his place small. It was, he said, “Yerpeen.” Resident manager for this haven is an unsuccessful writer who has no hotel experience, but a sharp eye for observing and facile tongue for relating the human dramas that unfold behind closed doors. Readers will find themselves drawn to the off-beat, flawed characters who visit the hotel, and reminded that Mr. Theroux is not only a trenchant observer of humankind but one blessed with limitless imagination and a powerful sense of place.

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Hotel Honolulu: A Novel