Hotel Honolulu
Paul Theroux
At times throughout one?s life, when everything seems to haven fallen apart, and the scattered pieces may be too many too pick up, two options are possible. Option one is to attempt to remake a previous life, which has been a basic disaster, in hopes of pulling back to success. Option two, is to start life over. Start life as if fresh out of college, without any burdens stacking up through the roof. Hotel Honolulu portrays more of an autobiography than it does a fictional story, much in part to the fact that Paul Theroux based this book around his life. Theroux tells a story of a man in his 50?s, who runs a Hotel in Honolulu, strangely, called Hotel Honolulu. The protagonist, who?s name is never given, has set out to start his life over, after leaving his former family, and moving through Africa and England as a novelist.
As the story starts though, the emphasis is on the sex life of the protagonist, which sets a somewhat odd tone for the rest of the book.
Theroux paralleled his life through the protagonist, so although a fiction novel, Hotel Honolulu was very nearly autobiographical, which raises the question of why Theroux left the protagonist nameless. He is never called by name from his friends, his wife?s last name is never given, this could very well be an implication that the protagonist is Theroux. But had this been non ? fiction, I find it hard to believe the chronicles of his life were entirely true the way he depicted them. At times his life seemed a little over the top, such as his abundance of multi million dollar friends. Maybe Theroux?s actual life was too bland to write a book about, so he had to spruce it up, but his outrageous stories at some points seemed tedious and pointless to the greater meaning of the story. In every case, his stories of the female Hawaiian?s or Latin American?s, always seemed to have twisted backgrounds concerning prostitution, rape, and affairs with JFK, or maybe all three. By the books end there is some vague interpretation of the meaning of Hotel Honolulu, but Theroux spent a few hundred pages talking about random occurrences that had no effect on him, his friends, or the story line, which can only be found after the first 350 pages.
The majority of the novel is a grouping of random Vignette?s, that at times were amusing, but may as well have been separate stories all together. The short stories flying around throughout the beginning of Hotel Honolulu made reading this book a task, mainly because an interesting and attenuated story line could only be found near the end of the book. While Theroux?s stories of practical jokes played by his friend Buddy Hamstra added some comic relief throughout the monotonous chapters, this still didn?t crack the surface of the books story, causing the reader to wonder whether or not there is a point, or will eventually be a point, to reading this book. The most aggravating task of all is attempting to remember the number of stories and characters introduced in these Vignette?s, only to later find that they have been completely erased from the book, through either suicide, murder, or just lack of material. And one again a strange point is the number of detailed life story?s given, without Theroux ever telling anything of the protagonist?s, other than he used to be a writer, and he was somewhat of a drifter. This could imply that Theroux doesn?t want the reader to find out he is writing about himself, or maybe, writing as the protagonist in the first person, he just assumes not influence the reader with his background. Once again another unsolved mystery of Hotel Honolulu.
As the book seems to be coming to a close, finally, a plot is found, and seems to thicken relatively quickly. The story though, is too predictable, and when Buddy Hamstra collapses on the floor at Pinky?s swearing in ceremony, it was too easy to say, ? who didn?t see that one coming?? Of course Pinky got the riches, and finally after seven years of ?working,? the protagonist finally sets sail to again become a writer, Something which he strongly protested being referred to as throughout the book. On the last page, the protagonist finally understands what the point of his being in Honolulu was, to write a book about it. "with Rose?s encouragement I renewed my old habit of seeing my life as something worth remembering and sharing. All the people I knew, their fortunes and their fate, were part of a bigger design, vivid and memorable because the hotel contained them.? The reader finally understands that the point of the book was that in a strange way, you always return to what you love inside. But this hardly seems to be an efficient ending, and all it shows is that Theroux had no way of explaining his numerous stories, so he just fed you an ending that seemed to encompass everything, he needed to write a book. By the books ending it seemed more like an episode of Beverly Hills Bordello (A Showtime original series), than it did fine literature. The only way Theroux could keep his readers reading, was by putting some sort of strange and deranged sex in every other chapter, but if it kept them reading, it must have been a winner. Hotel Honolulu is worth reading if you find some interest in other?s very random lives, but if you?re looking for an actual story, steer clear.
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