Hotel Honolulu

by Paul Theroux

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.

Genres: Fiction, Travel, Novels, Literature, Humor, Literary Fiction, Contemporary

434 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through East Asia, as far east as Japan, and then back across Russia to his point of origin. Although perhaps best known as a travelogue writer, Theroux has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast.

He is the father of Marcel and Louis Theroux, and the brother of Alexander and Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.

Reviews

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started out really enjoying this book with its colorful locale and offbeat characters. The protagonist is a stranger coming to grips with a strange land--a middle-aged writer from the mainland who leaves behind his family and old life to start over in obscurity in Hawaii and ends up managing a second-rate hotel. The stories he tells about the people he encounters are by turns funny and tragic, and often a little twisted, which was good. Then they became really twisted, and then ultimately quite perverse. After about the third instance of some paunchy and/or eccentric older man falling in love /becoming obsessed with some exotic young beauty (the protagonist included), and multiple stories of sexual abuse/enslavement, I started to find it all quite disturbing and more than a little tiresome. I did enjoy Buddy, the hotel's outrageously crude and crass owner, and the writer's literal-minded young daughter, Rose, but overall, I think this was the author's own impotent masturbatory mid-life crisis depressingly set down in print.

[Andrew Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m a huge fan of Paul Theroux’s writing, both his fiction and his non-fiction, particular his many travelogues. I’d recently read, and loved, his latest novel Under the Wave at Waimea, also set I Hawaii. I expected to like this book, possibly to love it. But it just didn’t work out that way.

The story of a writer who takes a job managing a down at heel hotel started off well enough but, for me, it quickly ran out of steam. There are some interesting characters, such as the irascible and uncouth the hotel owner, and it seems the each of the hotel’s eighty rooms spawns its own story. And yet there just wasn’t anything tangible for me to hang my hat on. The stories of the guests weren’t really grabbing me and I didn’t find enough here to invest in the writer or his family either. I stuck with it for about the first quarter of the book and then called time.

I won’t be giving up on Theroux but I consider this book a rare failure. A single star is my standard award for any book I fail to finish.

[emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two real issues here: repetitiveness and the ladies.

See, Paul Theroux had a great idea here: 1 story per room for the dissipated Hotel Honolulu. The problem, though, was that he maybe didn't actually have 88 separate stories to write about it. Instead, we get a half-dozen stories relating to women who were once sexually abused and then became prostitutes, another three or four of Buddy Hamsa telling not-quite-true stories about his sexual exploits, and a couple based entirely on dialect. While Mr. Theroux does a lovely job tying stories together in delightful (and unexpected!) ways, perhaps we'd have felt a little better with only, say, 70 stories. It would still be impressive, dude. Don't worry.

My real issue, I think, is the presence of women in the stories. They're self-described (or narrator-described, alternately) coconut princess beach bunnies, each of whom the narrator informs us are beautiful and hot-bodied but are unbearable, indescribably stupid. Oh holy heaven are they stupid. The narrator's daughter is the only woman who escapes such a fate and, straight-up, it's so profound that I keep wondering at exactly what point in her life (puberty?) she'll BECOME stupid. I'm curious.

This flaw, pretty much, would be okay if Paul Theroux lived 150 years or so ago, which I often suspect he maybe thinks he does. If so, then yeah, we'd just be able to overlook the dopey women and the crafty, crafty natives. But as is? It's just weirdly antiquated and upsetting.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hotel Honolulu reeks with local color. I was stationed on Oahu in the Army, living off post for nearly 3 years at about the time the novel is set in. I took my discharge there and stuck around for another 6 months, while my wife worked. I loved the place; it’s beaches, mountains and communities. I found the variety of people fascinating. Flying back to the mainland was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

Although I mostly hung out in the lesser populated areas than Hotel Honolulu’s setting, I did see enough of the latter area to confirm that the novel reflects the real Hawaii.

[Yoonmee · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to force myself to finish this book just so I could write a review and give it a rating. Ugh. There's only so much I can read about the sex, scandal, rumors, etc. of boring people. Another reviewer noted that this reads too much like a middle-aged man's masturbatory fantasy with sordid sex stories, older men dominating younger women (generally white men w/ younger women of color), murder, mystery, etc. Not only that, but the portrayal of the locals in Hawaii was somewhat insulting. All the locals are somewhat dimwitted, not intellectuals, who, while sometimes praised for not being pseudo-intellectual and more like salt of the earth, they are also ridiculed for who they are. Gah. I could write more but I'll just leave it at that.

Don't bother reading this book, and especially don't bother if you think you'll be getting any insight into local Hawaiian culture, the people, the history, etc. You won't get any of that. What you will get is one haole's perception of the other mainland haoles who visit the island and his somewhat racist views of the locals.

[Елвира · Rating 5 out of 5]

Наистина книгата заслужава международните си похвали. Не бях чела толкова богат роман от много време насам. Нещата от живота, описани по възхитителен начин. А историите от хотела са наистина невъобразими!

[Oceana2602 · Rating 4 out of 5]

"seedy"

"flawed"

"really twisted, and then ultimately quite perverse"

"disturbing"

"self-described (or narrator-described, alternately) coconut princess beach bunnies" (referring Theroux's description of women)

"over-sexualized misadventures with some seriously unappealing people"

"don't bother if you think you'll be getting any insight into local Hawaiian culture, the people, the history, etc"

These are just a few quotes from the reviews about this book that can be found on this site. And yes, I say! I agree!

Only, I don't see why any of these are a reason to dislike this book, or to give it anything less than the four stars it deserves (I almost gave it five, but it wasn't close enough to my heart that it deserves the five stars I usually reserve for my very favourtie books).

Anyway, like with most of Theroux's books, I can honestly say that I loved it. And, also like with most of Theroux's books, there seem to be quite a few people who hate his books, mostly exactly for the reasons that I love them. See, what I love most about Theroux is is brutal honesty. In his travel books, it's an honesty about himself (not personally knowing the man - UNFORTUNATELY - I have to revise this and say that he seems to be brutally honest - for all I know he could be lying his head off, and probably is, like any good writer).

In his fiction, however, Theroux is brutally honest with his characters. In other words, he dares to create characters that are unlikeable, and he lets them be unlikeable. Many people see to object to his. Just like many people seem to object to the fact that this book is set in Hawaii. Cause Hawaii is a lush and green paradise, and it shall not have seedy, disturbing hotels with morally questionable inhabitants, and people may be allowed to be unlikeable, but not if people have to read about them.

What these "critics" fail to see, of course, is that setting doesn't matter at all. This book could be set anywhere. Of course, it works remarkably well in Hawaii, because of the fact that people think of Hawaii as a tropical paradise. But it could be set at any other place in the world, because Theroux, again, writes about people. And people, despite the fact that some people don't want to admit to that, are seedy, disturbing, twisted, perverse, and most of all, flawed.

So you don't like that? Oops, what a shame. I'm sure Mr. Theroux feels really sorry that he writes about people you didn't like. I, for one, am enjoying reading a book with the most brilliantly drawn and exeptionally human characters, immensely. Even if, no, because they are flawed, seedy and a bit disturbing. This, too, does not matter, because they are so incredibly well-written. I can't think of any other writer who creates such vivid, consequent characters, likeable or not. And the fact that millions of people like Twililght, which contains no characterization AT ALL, but so many hate Theroux because of his characters, makes me think that many people are just too stupid to like Theroux - oh, sorry, was that arrogant? Must have rubbed of from the author.


As for the "oversexualized" remark, well, yes, Theroux's novels have a tendency to feature sex strongly. Of course, I don't see a reason why writing that contains sex cannot be good writing, but I'm also enough of a hypocrite to sometimes hesitate to Theroux being my favourite writer, exactly because many people (who have not read him), think of him as slightly seedy. Fact is, admitting to JK Rowling being your favourite writer will make people think that you are a bit infantile, admitting to Theroux might make people look at you in a whole new light. Proceed at your own risk.

I most certainly have never thought of any Theroux book as "masturbation material for middle-aged men". However, I suspect that you should rethink your own perversity if that's the feeling you have about this book.

I also suspect that another reason why people dislike this book so much is the fact that Theroux once again chose a writer as his narrator. A writer who will remain nameless throughout the book, if I remember correctly, and that, of course, draws attention to the assupmtion that Theroux is writing about himself. And, if you don't like the narrator, and you think of the narrator as the author, well, you will dislike the author, too, won't you?

Again, this is what I mean with Theroux putting himself out there. He consciously creates these situtations where he puts himself right into the firing line for criticism. He never hides, and neither do his characters. I love it. But then, I don't expect all books to be pretty and shiny and likeable.

In my humble opinion, and as someone who has loved every book by Paul Theroux I have read so far (except for the tiny disagreement we had about O-Zone, see my review), I know that if you like Theroux, you'll like this book.

I am assured of his.
(OMG the Generation Kill fannishness is killing me! Which is completely OT but needed to be said anyway.)

[Alex Tsiatsos]

I strongly disliked this book. It chronicles a middle-aged mainlander's career as the manager of a lower-status Honolulu hotel and is written in as a series of artificially short, episodic "just so" stories. The only characters who were not made intentionally repulsive were pretentious and annoying. Locals were described as stupid and mute so often by characters that it was hard for the reader to draw any other conclusion. My admiration for this author’s other works compelled me to finish this book. I wanted it to end sooner.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Theroux at is caustic best. The narrator is a disenchanted writer who is the manager of a vintage hotel in Waikiki with topless hula contests and bleary- eyed clientele in the Paradise Lost bar. A semi- retired hooker who is the mother of the “young, fresh” Hawaiian he marries lives on the third floor. The owner of the hotel is a self-indulgent blowhard given to sadistic tricks on his relatives who happens to be a millionaire. The cast of outrageous characters goes on with sad pinch lines at the end of each of their bizarre tales. But, somehow it all seems believable. I couldn’t stop reading about these locals who hate mainlanders who decide to stay on the “green island.” Theroux lives in Hawai’i and had a lot of fun with the pidgin that locals speak and some of their attitudes. I was sorry when it ended and I had to get back to less entertaining debacles and ridiculous circumstances.
P.S. I am a big fan of Happy Isles of Oceania and Fresh Air Fiend by the same author.
Wai-nani: A Voice from Old Hawaii

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read most of Paul Theroux's travel books, but to date very few of his novels. Hotel Honolulu is a fascinating book written with a great deal of humor, perspicacity, and local knowledge. It tells the story of a writer who manages to get a gig as the manager of a downmarket Waikiki hotel. It was owned by a colorful character named Buddy Hamstra who won it in a poker game.

The book tells the tales of Buddy, his friends, and various guests at the Hotel Honolulu. Walk-on parts are played by Henry James biographer Leon Edel and late Hawaiian singer Izzy Kamakawiwo'ole. I enjoyed reading the stories -- most of them semi-independent -- so much that I will read some more Theroux fiction before the year is up.

Particularly funny is the tale of Buddy's sex life with Pinky, a Filipina hoochie-koochie dancer he had married, who starts importing her relatives or people who purport to be her relatives.

There is a lot of dialog in Hawaiian pidgin of which Theroux is apparently a master. I particularly like the word mucky for dead and hybolic for highfalutin.

[CatMS · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book for 2 reasons; 1 is I love Paul Theroux, 2 is I lived in Hawaii for 10 years and being a mainlander didn't appreciate living in Wahee until I read Hotel Honolulu. This book is the true Hawaii, at least the Honolulu-Waikiki Hawaii, and Hotel Honolulu is any number of small hotels off the beach side of Kalakaua Avenue. I actually think I drank in the Paradise Bar many times and definitely knew people in this book. For a taste of the real Honolulu read Hotel Honolulu as Paul Theroux got it right. Paul Theroux lives part time in Hawaii and you can tell he loves Wahee and its people, he was less critical of his characters in this book than other of his books, not to say he wasn't critical as he was but he showed a little kindness also.

[Tracy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried to get through this book, but I ended up putting it down with about 100 pages to go. I felt like I was forcing myself to read. The characters were stereotypical and the chapters seemed to be written for shock value more than anything else.

[Angus McKeogh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good entertaining stuff. Kind of like a nesting doll; stories within stories within stories. Tons of humorous and sexual stories buried within and interwoven into the narrative. A whole bunch about the native Hawaiian population and the culture of island life. And as an odd aside the narrative was suffuse with incest.

[Andrew Post · Rating 5 out of 5]

They ought to teach this book in creative writing classes. Each chapter is like a short story, a masterclass in characterization and world-building. Yet the overall theme and tone of the novel is preserved throughout, and builds toward a surprisingly satisfying conclusion. It's part of Theroux's genius that he writes a book which at first seems dull and mundane and uninteresting, a soap opera about the sordid lives of various hotel-goers in Honolulu; but then you gradually realize that it seems dull and banal only because the story is so freaking realistic and the characters so believable. I frequently had to remind myself that I was not reading one of Theroux's nonfiction travelogues but an actual novel, made up out of thin air. (Or perhaps not so thin after all; the narrator is quite clearly Theroux, and his backstory possesses many of the same details as Theroux's personal life.) Though this book is certainly more lurid than I was expecting, it didn't detract or distract me from the narrative the way gratuitous sex usually does. I now firmly intend to read more of Theroux's novels (this was my second).

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finished this book on the beach & instead of hurling it into the ocean much like Pat hurled A Farewell to Arms through the window of his parents' attic window in Silver Linings Playbook, I banished it to the share-a-book bin at the beachside hotel where we were Labor-daying. Now it's someone else's albatross. Best Wishes. ❤️ Ash

[Lorna · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Nothing to me is so erotic as a hotel room, and therefore so penetrated with life and death. Buddy Hamstra offered me a hotel job in Honolulu and laughed at my accepting it so quickly. I had been trying to begin a new life, as people do when they flee to distant places. Hawaii was paradise with heavy traffic.”

And so begins Hotel Honolulu by Paul Theroux. With Oahu being my favorite island in Hawaii, and Honolulu possessing its own magic, particularly along Waikiki beach, I was excited to read this book that was said to be a satirical novel. Oh my. . . . Hotel Honolulu was a boutique hotel not on the beach, being the last small, old hotel in Honolulu. The narrator of the novel is writer but currently down on his luck, thus his escape to Waikiki accepting the job as the haole manager of the Hotel Honolulu where there is a constant stream of honeymooners, vacationers, wanderers, soldiers and families. And each guest has come in search of something and everyone has a story as we are offered a unique glimpse of the psychological landscape of an American paradise. Also taking place on the North Shore, there are myriad tales to tell.

The book within a book is further complicated by the fact that the nameless writer bears an uncanny resemblance to Thoreau with his many musings. Henry James also is an important presence in the book. Arriving in Honolulu a blocked writer takes a job as hotel manager being assured that it is a “multi-story” hotel as it turns out to be in every sense of the word as each of the residents and staff have a story to tell and over the course of eight years, there is a lot of material. And it is within these tales that Paul Theroux expands on his twin themes of death and sex, lots of sex. . . . As the narrator reflects: “In a small hotel you see people at their best and their worst. . . .this is where America stays.”

[Jackson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sun, sand, and saucy escapades - this every bit the "beach read" Alexander Theroux lambasted in his scathing literary critique of his brother back in 1996. To be fair though, it never pretends to be anything but.

Based around a scuzzy Hawaiian hotel and its cartoonish inhabitants, Hotel Honolulu is by and large a compendium of outlandish sex stories that seem to amuse the author more than anyone else. Stock pacific nubiles mate with horny old fuckups, affairs end in death, incest happens - but at no point does Theroux evoke the guffawing "oh my word!!" he's so clearly going for. Because ultimately there's not much to care about.

This added to the fact that it's narrated by a recovering writer/hotel manager/unabashed authorial stand-in (Theroux has lived in Hawaii since the late 90s) whose snide, 'clever' asides about the brainless locals lend credence to one of the elder Theroux's most savage criticisms:

"... he has found half the world wanting in goodness and grace, brains and bravery, cleanliness and character."

Still harsh, but not far off the mark. 2 stars because it's easy to read if nothing else.

[Beth · Rating 1 out of 5]

this book is so incredibly racist and gross. like i really do not know how to describe how utterly disgusting it is. it repeatedly fetishises asian/native hawaiian/black women and is generally just so rank. some parts of it were funny but it is drenched in this weird fucking predatory bigotry that makes it impossible to enjoy. it portrays white men as owners of women and people of colour. it has a weird fucking incest/r*pe plotline that adds nothing to the book. you aren't left feeling like 'wow that was so disturbing and unsettling' you're left going 'what the fuck is wrong with this author holy mother of god'. it's poorly written and basically a self insert fanfic. please do not read this without a bucket nearby

[Kristi · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a slog! It's over 400 pages of privileged white men, casual racism, abused women, and poor life choices. Theroux is a good writer, but the characters are so broken, so unlikeable, and the stories are miseries piled upon miseries. I had to skim the last 100 pages because I couldn't bear to read any more.

[Fiona Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its dark and weird and not to everyone's tastes but I love it because its painfully real, yet so strange.

[Fhina · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like 3.5 stars.

[Jukebook_juliet · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 🌟

[Arthur Swan]

Based on my stay in a place like this, I'd say Theroux captured the essence of Waikiki.

[Aishe · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, I picked up this book, thinking, well, I'm not expecting too much from this, since it's written by a Haole, who is not from the Islands, but it could be interesting. The premise was promising, and I happened to have another book by the author on my shelf, strangely, but also unread. So, I picked it up. I was pleasantly surprised by the writing, and the stories drew me in, but that was just schadenfreude on my part, I do believe. I like the way the author writes; he has good flow and the hotel setting makes for some racy stories. However, I found the portrayals of the residents of the hotel and the islands was caricature, and that really disappointed me. My deepest fears were, unfortunately, not unfounded. Maybe this is a memoir based on actual people the author has encountered, or maybe he was writing in such a way as to encourage its conversion to a major motion picture. To me, I felt Theroux was just another Bronislaw Malinowski, whom he mentions in the book, by the way, or a Herman Melville, "peeping at Polynesians." He reinscribes "the other." After reading this novel, I felt dirty. I was somehow complacent in his characterizations, merely by reading them. Frankly, I felt disappointed. The writer is obviously talented, and yet his cast could have come from early Hollywood. They were much more fleshed out than the caricatures of alluring island beauties, dragon ladies, and middle Americans we generally see in cinema, however, they do nothing more than reinforce such images. There was a paternalistic view of these backward Islanders, whose Island mentality and culture made the narrator and his other main-lander buddy feel as if they were on a different planet. The impressions of Paradise presented by Theroux is one of savagery, where civilized folks come to escape their civilization and live fantasies, because on these islands anything and everything goes. I've never been to Hawaii, but I have lived in different parts of the continental U.S., and I seriously doubt it is more unseemly or more backward than anywhere else. In the end, I finished the book to be rid of it, but I truthfully had a hard time thinking of how to properly divest myself of this book. I would feel somewhat ashamed to give it away to anyone I know, and somehow responsible if I gave it to some stranger or no, who might believe some of this garble to be truth. I also felt betrayed by the author, because I think he could have written this hotel into existence anywhere and made all the characters white and it would have been just as entertaining and so much less damaging on the psyche. I am not going to spell out the caricatured cast here because I feel it would be spoiler material, but I am not sure I want to read the other Theroux novel on my shelf. It's not so much a waste of brain cells as a waste of time and threatens to fill me with more frustration and disappointment if it, too "others" all the people in it. I am really not into neo-colonial pseudo travelogues. I feel like kicking myself--I should have judged this book by its cover and title and left well enough alone.

[Auggy · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF@15% Ultimately a collection of short stories that have an annoying air of pretentiousness and feel annoyingly repetitive because of the finish given to the end of each chapter/story. While I find a lot of the writing very engaging, the tone of the last few lines to complete and/or twist the story are just irking me. Perhaps I could tolerate this better if I was just reading a single chapter before bed or something, but reading one after another it really wears.

[Helen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book started out fun and then turned into a repetitive stream of older men raping young girls, except the author doesn't seem to think it's rape. These situations are considered relationships and at once point he describes a 12 year old being raped by her uncle as her finding her "first lover." That was the point where I decided I was done with the book. Got about 50% of the way through (chapter 38).

[Fiona · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'll stick to his travel writing.

[Gaia · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Hotel Honolulu” by Paul Theroux is rated at 3 stars because some tragedies and traumas are too taboo for me, and when speaking of such abuses— especially crimes against minors— the writing has to use language that lets the readers know that it was not consensual.

“Hotel Honolulu” had some interesting characters and stories. The drawbacks were sexual abuse, beastiality, and cultural differences in regards to what some cultures eat that would be considered domesticated in certain cultures. Even as a vegetarian, it is creepy to consider.

What was enjoyable: Theroux was inspired by locals and Hawaiians. When he spoke truths, he did so in a light that had me think, “I know him/her/they/them.” Even more so when he offered the historical importance and existence of Mahus.

Paradise Lost, businesses with a white background and red writing, the people and places of Hawaii will be known to those who are familiar with Oahu, or kama’ aina, such as Theroux.

I must reiterate, the taboos were too much for me, but I did enjoy the majority of the novel.

[Ryan Winfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think writers who write about writers are a bit like photographers taking selfies, or painters painting self-portraits--kind of sad, means you're out of ideas. That said, after initially hating the characters in this book, the more I read the more my biases slipped away and I got into the groove of the story. An interesting slice-of-life drama that delivered in the end.

[RosaM66 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lamentablemente no puedo hacer una reseña positiva sobre este libro. Me ha costado mucho terminarlo, lo he sufrido como un sinsentido desde el principio al fin, en su mayor parte sin un nexo de unión entre las distintas historias. Alguien podría pensar que el narrador es ese nexo, pero bajo mi punto de vista no es así. ¿Lo mejor? Que he sido capaz de terminar su lectura a pesar de las ganas que tenía de abandonarlo...