| Title | : | The Curse of Lono |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 3822848972 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9783822848975 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 205 |
| Publication | : | First published November 1, 1983 |
The Curse of Lono Reviews
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“Yesterday's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why.”
I was intrigued by the claim that Hunter Thompson's The Curse of Lono was to Hawaii what Fear and Loathing was to Las Vegas. Though Thompson predictably interjects himself into the story he is reportedly covering, the Hawaii Marathon, I didn't feel as immersed in his crazed adventures as I had with Fear and Loathing. I had some interest in how Thompson covered big game fishing and I liked how he used journal entries from Captain Cook's voyage to establish context, but The Curse of Lono still fell short to me.
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I accepted my assignment with some wild trepidation. It’d been a while since I spent time with Dr. Hunter S. Thompson and I knew the crazy bastard would give me the shakes if I let off the throttle for half a second.
Before I uploaded the book, his 1983 visit to Hawaii and the dark underbelly of Americana, I fired up the El Camino and went for provisions, I wouldn’t be left stranded high and dry like a potbellied iguana the way I had in Costa Rica; I’d be ready this time. I surveyed my haul: three cases of Kona Beer, two gallons of rum, a couple pints of gin, a handle of Kentucky bourbon, a carton of American Spirit cigarettes and a bag of Lays potato chips. I was on a shoestring budget, but this might just get me through to screaming end.
Thompson was in rare form, describing a quick survey of the Hawaii marathon that ended up with weeks on the Kona shore, holed up like a gang of demented ferrets in a hot dog factory. The good doctor mixed in his cacophony of gonzo literature with snippets of history of the island and especially of Captain James Cook and his fatal last voyage and his attempted kidnapping of a Hawaiian king. It was a blood curdling song of despair, nervousness and confusion – but worth the shamble through the back alleys of Honolulu to a high resting place atop a summit of clear perspective.
So long again, Thompson, you frenzied maniac, we’ll meet again.
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The most elaborate, hilarious, and engrossing "big fish" tale ever committed to print. This is one of Hunter Thompson's greatest achievements, and it doesn't hurt that the packaging is lavish. A huge coffeetable book with quality prints, facsimiles of the Good Doctor's relevant letters, and interspersed excerpts from other books that fill in the Hawaiian history relevant to the story. What is so fascinating about this last feature is that it reveals what other HST books have left out: the studious preparation behind the wild stories.
Roughly ten years after Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the action opens with the line "We were about forty minutes out of San Fransisco when the crew finally decided to take action on the problem in Lavatory 1B." Remarkably similar to the iconic opening "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold". And so begins a manifold tale of America in the '80s-a tale of a Christmas vacation gone horribly, horribly wrong-a tale of high stakes sports fishing-and the tale of a man finding his inner godliness on the westernmost edge of America.
Put that way, The Curse of Lono might be the most ambitious book in the Thompson oeuvre. Either way, I personally think it is his funniest. -
My current favourite book of all time, from my current favourite writer of all time.
I never thought I'd ever get a chance to read this badboy, or at least not until I hit the age of forty. But my parents were kind enough to splurge on it for my birthday back on July 11th, 2013.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that this thing is bloody ginormous. My version is a coffee-table book, meaning it could technically be used as a weapon or to club off intruders.
The pictures are beautiful, and the size of the book really allows them to come to life.
The story itself is a wonderfully wacky Thompson tale which blends comedy and weirdness with darker stuff (the dogs, man!) and even some Hawaiian history. A genre-blender of the highest order.
Highly recommended to anyone and everyone. I was laughing until tears came out of my eyes, and then two lines later I'd be questioning my own sanity.
If only Hunter S. Thompson had written more... -
This is the Hunter Thompson book you've never heard of, but really want to read. It's mostly about how crappy Hawaii is. It has the best ending of any of his stuff I've read, hands down.
Getting the book though is another matter. The paperback of it has been out of print since the early 80s. It's only produced now by Taschen, the art book company, as a big 60 dollar coffee table book. And they only started really printing it about a year after the first batch of 1000. The first 1000 Taschen put out were signed by Ralph Steadman, Thompson's artist and partner, and numbered. You can find these first 1000 on used book pages on BN.com or Amazon for around a thousand bucks, making it one of the more pricey things I know of on those used services, besides that Madonna Sex book from the early 90s.
So basically if you want to read it, you're screwed, unless of course you know somebody that has a DRM free digital copy. But who would possibly have one of those? -
I LOVED THIS STORY!
Hunter beating a mythical sized Swordfish over the head with an "ancient hawaiian war hammer". What more could you ask for??? -
One afternoon this week as I rode my bicycle home from the library I passed under the branches of an array of stout old trees along the roadway. But I had my suspicions about them, and this, more or less verbatim, was what I was thinking:
"They look safe enough, but you read about their dastardly ways once in awhile, dropping a trunk onto some hapless unsuspecting bastard, pile-driving him into oblivion. You'd think I was safe, being a tree-hugger, but they don't care. I'm human."
Now, would I have thought about that, in this way, unless I had read Hunter S. Thompson? I don't think so.
The funny thing is, once you've read some Hunter, his mode of thinking becomes yours, or maybe that only happens with people who share some kindred spirit with him, with his skewed outlook; I was already inclined toward that bent. I'm also a native of Louisville, like Thompson, and that's an exclusive club of shared weirdness.
My imitation is easily explained, too, because there is a certain formula to Thompson, and it attracts all manner of bad imitators. The fact that it can be replicated does not detract from its originality, and its particular qualities -- which can only be had from lived observation -- means his prose style can never be duplicated without someone calling the faker out.
The Curse of Lono has long been considered a bastard stepchild in Thompson's oeuvre. For some reason, it was only given a small print run in 1983 after which its rarity ensured its cult status and high prices for used copies. Upon Thompson's death in 2005, it was reissued in a deluxe edition sporting even more of collaborator Ralph Steadman's beautifully twisted paintings and illustrations. That edition, too, became a collectible.
Why the book has been treated as a specialty item is a mystery to me, because, at least in terms of laughs per square column inch, it possibly beats even Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
As I started reading it, I was inclined to think of it as a junior league retread of ...Vegas, down to its conceit of having a reporter, Thompson, covering a minor local sporting event (a marathon in Honolulu), then losing interest in it quickly and setting off on a maddening, aimless, drug-fueled surreal adventure informed of local lore and mythology.
To a certain extent, Thompson does stumble into a well-gouged mine to extract some familiar ore. Luckily, though, he's very good at this and the story, though derivative, has its own grotesque charms as well as the always impish off-kilter humor that I love so much in Thompson's work, and as it proceeded, the book won me over. Even when the incidents to some degree seem like repeated variations on a theme, and the constant drug references threatened to take the wink-and-nudge factor too far, I was constantly impressed by Thompson's piquant observations and brutal cosmic punchlines.
Once again, Hunter faces The Fear in search of The Wisdom, fearlessly and irrationally, or at least his first-person alter-ego protagonist does. In the process, he stares it down -- the locals facing off against the outsider, and vice versa. The result is ironic, comic gold.
The book's "plot," in a nutshell, has Hunter and a drug-dealing acquaintance flying to Hawaii to cover the marathon, meeting there the writer's always reluctant artistic collaborator Steadman and his family. After aceing some beautiful and hilarious observations on the insanity of running, he and his cadre head for the Kona Coast on the big island where things get much stranger. There Thompson becomes determined to snare the ultimate prize, a big Blue Marlin, on a fishing trip journey that matches any harrowing sea adventure. During all of this, a hospital-load of drugs and booze are downed, Steadman becomes deathly ill causing him and his family to split and allowing Thompson to continue to charge insane amounts on his running tab, a fishing companion has his toe crushed by an oxygen tank, a firecracker bomb wreaks unintended havoc, the locals and beach thugs get very surly, the weather turns vicious, Thompson is stung in the eye by a wasp stuck behind his shades, a hibachi grill nearly threatens disaster on the sea-tossed fishing vessel, murderous and litigious real-estate moguls threaten vengeance, a stubborn anchor almost leaves the hapless fishing crew forever adrift, a companion has his armed died blue for the entire book as the result of an airplane toilet bowl mishap, a savage outbreak of red fleas infects the men's mascot, a major drug operation threatens to expose the motley crew, a veterinarian ships out illegal drugs labeled "dog medicine..." and so on.
On top of all this, Thompson is pondering the island legend of Lono, the God who the locals once dubbed Captain Cook before cultural misunderstandings led to his violent death. When the crazed Thompson arrives in port with his proud marlin catch, he harbors a God complex and delusions of grandeur and proclaims himself to be the God Lono returned to them, a move that goes too far, pissing off the islanders. You can say and do almost anything, he is told, but don't mess with their religion. Needless to say, he goes into hiding with the help of a weed-smoking park ranger.
The book's descriptions of sport fishing are great and the attendant tales imaginative. This is possibly the funniest fishing story ever written.
And, trigger warning for the easily offended, the book is sprinkled with Thompson's typical casual racism, which one can deal with in context.
The last chapters in the book take an epistolary form, in letters to Ralph Steadman, and conclude with a breathlessly beautiful sentence of Thompson describing a companion's swim in the sea.
This is not a book the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce could ever endorse. This is not the Hawaii of blue skies, crystal seas and languid green palms. This is the alternate Hawaiian universe, a Dantesque version of a paradise as hell on earth. Leave it to Thompson to find that underbelly.
And nowhere else would you find a friend's alienation described as "kinky brooding" -- an amazing insight into the contradictory impulses of self pity.
I will admit, I read an online "renegade" copy of this, so I was not able to see all of Steadman's crazy and amazing illustrations, but most of those too are posted online to see.
This was a unique experience and I would like to read it again someday.
(Kr@Ky 2016) -
I've read a lot of Hunter Thompson over the years but wasn't acquainted with this title. Having spent my sixteenth summer in Hawaii, his story, ostensibly of his own months there, mostly on the Big Island, in the early eighties, attracted me.
As ever, I found some of this 'memoir' very funny, enough to elicit laughter. That was mostly from the first third of the narrative. Afterwards I got the sense that Thompson was just fulfilling a book contract. Reading him, however, did get me to go to the computer to look up photos of places that I hadn't seen in decades. -
I think this is my fave HST book. Coupled with Steadman's delicious gonzo art, the writing and story really comes alive.
Its a crazy romp through Hawaii which no Thompson or Steadman fan should go without reading!
*If you're a fan of Steadmans art, as I am in a big way - look for a recently published version of Lono. Its a huge oversized hardback printed on high quality pages where Steadman's art really is given center stage. I keep it on display at all times! -
«La vida no debería ser un viaje a la tumba con la intención de llegar a salvo en un cuerpo bonito y bien conservado, sino más bien llegar derrapando de lado, entre una nube de humo, completamente desgastado y destrozado, y proclamar en voz alta: ¡Wow! ! ¡Qué viaje!»
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Curse of Lono came out in 1983, which means I would've been about 14 when I found it inexplicable racked in my small town's sole bookshop/newsstand. I freely admit I'd never heard of Thompson or Steadman, and that it was actually the latter's frenetic and vaguely frightening art that drew me to the book. Ten bucks would've been hard for me to come by at the time (probably proceeds from my short-lived Sunday-paper route), but this book was something I had to have. It is not hyperbole to say that it changed my life forever.
While now, in retrospect and having since read most of Thompson's writing, I can see this is not at all a classic book (let alone classic Thompson), when I was a small-town teenager it was a window in a world I couldn't have imagined existed. Most of my reading up to that point was no more recent than Sherlock Holmes, so to witness the savagery, catastrophe and balls-out insanity that was Hunter Thompson was mind-blowing.
The book today reads like what it was: Thompson attempting a return to classic form. By this time in his career, he had regrettably found himself utterly hemmed in by the Gonzo character he had created. In ...Lono, he admits he'd been turning down writing assignments for years when he took one to cover the Honolulu Marathon for a small mag called 'Running.' Perhaps he saw it as a chance to relive the magic that caused Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (which, of course, started as an assignment to cover a motorcycle race, but turned into something bigger and stranger). Unfortunately, this book lacks the grand mission that ...Las Vegas took on. There is no American Dream pursued here, in fact nothing is pursued at all. Even what could have ended as a journey of self-discovery for Thompson ends in a manic fizzle rather than any kind of resolution. Too many threads are left dangling (Whatever happened to Ackerman and the pot? What became of the dog in the suite and its killer fleas?) to qualify this as a concrete novel either. What we end up with is a slightly beefed-up magazine article that reads like something between Rum Diary and ...Las Vegas, padded further by extensive excerpts from other sources on Hawaiian history (does he do that in ANY other book?).
The writing itself, of course, is classic Thompson, and thus a wonderful, fun read. And the beautifully reproduced Steadman illustrations are a rare delight in the Thompson library. It's small wonder German art-book publishers Taschen chose to reprint it in coffee-table format. It is a gorgeous example of Steadman's work, but only an adequate one of Thompson's. -
I don't know why I have been in Hawaii this long without reading this. It was time to pick it up.
It has all the hallmarks of a Hunter Thompson work.... energy, macho, drugs & alcohol, fast cars, loose talk and some politically uncorrect nouns and adjectives. The drawings of Ralph Steadman add even more edginess. The story is secondary to the style.
Also, like any Hunter Thompson book, there is redeeming content. While an ordinary journalist would cover Waikiki, surfing and flowers... they rate only a mention with HST.
The first focus is the Honolulu Marathon - not even present in most travel books although it is every bit as international as its NYC and Boston cousins. The description is pure Thompson... and right on.
Thompson does the same for 2 week storm on the Big Island - again - not often mentioned in other travel literature.
The longest part is about sport fishing in Kona.
Interspersed is some period writing of the voyage of Captain Cook and one from Mark Twain.
It's a good fast read. I like the layout. Nicely wedged in Hawaiian allusions. Pure, but not vintage, Thompson. -
*Back-dating reviews based on snips I find*
I’m officially taking a break from Hunter S. Thompson. I’m sick of feeling like I’m missing the point. I swear, that blurb has made me paranoid! Every book I read, I’m like “Is it hilarious? Am I missing something hilarious?” I mean, I like his style of writing and I like the fact that much of it surrounds journalism in some form, but I’ve never read a book – barring ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ and felt like I really got the tone it was written in, or the jokes – if there was any.
I think I’ve gotten myself wound up to the point I’m determined to read more and crack the issue, but it’s just making me more paranoid! That seems about right, considering the excessive drugs in every book of his, like, ever. I’m officially on Hunter hiatus. For now.
(I read one of his books a while back and thought it was good - I liked it, but that was all. Then I read the blurb in which a review had called it hilarious. That's almost certainly always going to be the incident I refer to any time I read his books). -
Part of a conversation about this book:
E: Just ate a sub-par dinner, reading Hunter S. Thompson, avoiding cleaning....I'm doing pretty good.
P:
Fear and Loathing?
E: The Curse of Lono. Hawaii in the 80s, marathons, botched fishing excursions, mescaline.
P: Right up there with brown copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Exactly. -
Not his best effort, a little disjointed and and depressing, but it was an interesting read.
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HST was an absolute legend, I can never get enough of his work. This book is brilliant (as always), full of experiences only HST could get into. Pages full of Steadman's artwork in-colour make the wild ride come to life.
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Hunter S. Thompson's curse was his annoyingly persistent belief that his comically deranged style could be employed in the service of any narrative, with the end result being satisfactory.
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Hunter abimiz yine eğlendiren ama anlaşılırken zorlamaya özen gösteren bir kitap bırakmış bize. Çizimlerle çok ama çok daha iyi bir hale gelmiş olan kitap, Taschen kalitesiyle eşsizleşmiş. Ralph Steadman’ın daha fazla kitabını, çizgi romanını görme şansımız olsa keşke.
Tabi bir de Hunter S. Thompson’un hayatının çizgi romanını okuma şansımız olsa! Ne güzel olmaz mı acaba? -
I listened to this on audiobook and so probably didn't catch everything. I found it quite energetic and a lot of fun, with a number of memorable scenes including "trapped on a boat with drug fiends during a midnight storm," "impersonating a Hawaiian deity," and many scenes in which a Samoan war club proves essential. Another possible title could have been Fear and Loathing in Hawaii. I liked this book a lot, and I will definitely read the physical copy at some point in the future. There were a few subplots that never really conclude or develop very far, but the fact that it is mostly based on actual events could have prevented that. If I had to give a ranking right now to the HST novels (or at least non-loosely-organized-essay-collections) that I've read, it would be:
1. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (amazing)
2. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72(also amazing)
3. The Curse of Lono (pretty great)
4. Hell's Angels (some memorable parts, but a bit dry since it predates gonzo)
5. The Rum Diary (why did they make this into a movie instead of F&L on the Campaign Trail!?)
I think I want to read Better than Sex next, which is supposed to be the 1992 version of F&L on the Campaign Trail from what I've heard. -
I had seen this lying around the local Half-Price Books and snagged it with a coupon diminishing the hefty price tag. This is a gigantic book with huge beautiful prints by Steadman as well as the usual crazed drunken rambling of Thompson.
The whole thing is about a trip to Hawaii to cover the Honolulu Marathon that goes awry a la la
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and degenerates into a mescaline-fueled marlin hunt with a smattering of interesting pre-American Hawaiian history. The art is great, the writing is fantastic. If you can't justify the $50 tag find a library somewhere that has it. Don't expect to carry the thing on a plane or keep it to read at work or something, it weighs about 5 pounds and is like 18x12. -
La prosa es casi siempre fantástica para mí. Es fuerte, hermosa e inteligente. Además de hilarante. Pero no es una historia, sino una colección de historias. Sobre lo que le pasaba a Hunter allá. Y las partes ajenas, sobre lo del capitán Cook y Lono, la mayoría son muy interesantes, al menos. Y así debería apresurarlo. Por los capítulos fuertes. Porque no tiene un final propiamente de historia de ficción. Aunque el "giro de final", una revelación de Hunter, me ha gustado mucho. Es un libro que disfrutaré leer una segunda vez.
¿Qué haría para que este libro fuera de 5 estrellas? Quitaría algunas historias intermedias de terceros que no me dijeron nada. Ajustaría la narrativa para que terminara con la revelación. Siento que podría quitarle 50 páginas y si me quedo con el texto más afilado que ofrece, que es la mayoría, tendría un libro perfecto. Pero nada es perfecto. La Maldición de Lono es, sin embargo, un libro que me ha gustado bastante. -
It's rather swish of me, but I have the huge and lavish Taschen edition of this wonderful book - probably one of Thompson's most underrated pieces of work.
Any book that starts with the narrator making his way through customs with a blue arm because he chickened out of flushing his stash down the airplane toilet and grabbed it back is obviously going to be pretty 'out there' and this doesn't disappoint.
As usual, Steadman's manic illustrations match Thompson's twisted narrative. Brilliant.
I went back for a wander around it today because I was too busy to do anything as indulgent as wander around a Taschen book. And I thought about GoodReads. Hence you're reading this!
Buy it. The Taschen one is actually worth the money, BTW - it's the perfect frame for Steadman's work. -
As I read this beautifully written book I noted how much of himself he accepted, he was not afraid to share everything. Judgement on his lifestyle or bad decisions was left for his peers while he continued on with his whimsical lunacy.
I say lunacy without malice, I use it to describe the mind set of those brave enough to be unique, live their lives and embrace their mistakes even when knowingly making them. I long to be rid of the anxiety which holds me back from such adventures, living for the experience universes away from judgement.
Amazing read, I highly recommend it! -
Siempre se agradece una buena traducción al español.
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Hunter Thompson does Hawaii on a family vacation. Yep, that about sums it up.
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Hunter S. Thompson , on his birthday July 18
Curious and with a grand contempt for all authority, paying attention to the man behind the curtain and bringing us all along with him for the ride, iconoclast and rebel, transgressing boundaries with wild abandon and great joy, an imp of satire, embracing all that is human and moving through all stratum of our society with an ease of blending in and the adaptational skill of a shapeshifter, for whom life is a party and the ordinary becomes spectacular pagentry, Hunter S. Thompson is a figure of the Platonic Ideal of an American.
In a world full of thou shalt nots, he said yes to life and affirmed the value of other people regardless of our differences.
Notwithstanding his great literary influences Dickens, Hugo, and Flaubert, his stylistics inherited from the Beat and Dadaist-Surrealist writers and the stream of consciousness aesthetic founded by Joyce, we do not read him as we would Stein or Burroughs, as a great and visionary artist who reinvented the possibilities of being human, but as someone in whose adventures we can participate with delight, and in the process learn about ourseelves and our human world.
But there is more.
In his reinvention of news journalism as an inquiry into social issues which is lived by the reader rather than discussed as an essay, the record of an authentic experience of an event and not a dissection of the set of its facts, Hunter S. Thompson created a new art of literature and changed forever the nature of journalism and our expectations of it. He wrote as an avatar of his readers, depriviliging the news as the people's common property and bringing down the wall between author and reader as a revolutionary act.
From his glorious debut book Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga, throughout the great and classic works Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, the four volumes of the Gonzo papers (The Great Shark Hunt, Generation of Swine, Songs of the Doomed, Better Than Sex), Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone, Kingdom of Fear, and the antiimperialist novel The Curse of Lono (an apotheosis of his art which merits study alongside Don Quixote or Finnegan's Wake) , his career may be seen as a disruptive event which both shifted literary aesthetics and radicalized its political and social dimensions.
Read also Hunter S. Thompson: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations , and for context the wonderful illustrations of their adventures together collected as Gonzo: The Art, by Ralph Steadman.
And then go walk among some group of outsiders or crash an event beyond your circle of familiarity, as did he. You never know might happen, or what you might discover, in a life of wandering across boundaries; maybe your own will get broader., as bridges replace walls.
