Arthur Graham’s Reviews > The Curse of Lono > Status Update
Arthur Graham
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The Christmas season, in Hawaii, is also the time of the annual Feast of Lono, the god of excess and abundance.
— May 28, 2026 02:21PM
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Arthur’s Previous Updates
Arthur Graham
is 94% done
That was the problem, Ralph. We were blind. The story we wanted was right in front of our eyes from the very start -- although we can be excused, I think, for our failure to instantly understand a truth beyond reality.
— May 30, 2026 12:55PM
Arthur Graham
is 90% done
It is not like fishing for trout. What we are talking about here is a beast the size of a donkey that is fighting for its life on its own turf. A ten-pound trout might put up an elegant fight, but a 300- pound marlin with a hook in its throat can rip your arm-bones right out of their sockets, then leap right into the boat and snap your spine like a toothpick.
— May 30, 2026 12:41PM
Arthur Graham
is 88% done
I didn't pack that goddamn brutal Samoan war club in my seabag for the purpose of crushing ice. There is a fearful amount of leverage in that bugger, and I knew in my heart that by the end of the day I would find a reason to use it. . . On something: maybe a fish, or maybe the fighting chair. There is a lot of mahogany to work with on a thirty-six-foot Rybovich.
— May 30, 2026 12:39PM
Arthur Graham
is 87% done
So much for that, eh? I think it's time to leave.
But before I go I want to tell you a fish story.
— May 30, 2026 12:35PM
But before I go I want to tell you a fish story.
Arthur Graham
is 86% done
About six hours after I finished the last draft on driving the Saddle Road, I was sitting in the fighting chair on a boat called the Humdinger and locked into a desperate struggle with a huge fish -- and 17 minutes later I had it reeled up so close to the boat that I was able to reach out and shatter its brain with one crazed swooping blow from the Great Samoan war club.
— May 30, 2026 12:31PM
Arthur Graham
is 85% done
I type all night and prowl the roads by day, looking for Pele. She hitchhikes a lot, they say, usually in the form of an old woman. So I do a lot of driving and I pick up many hitchhikers, especially old women. . . but age is a hard thing to be sure of at 55 miles an hour; and the lazy shameful truth is that on any hot afternoon I can be found cruising Alii Drive in my T-top Mustang picking up women of all ages.
— May 30, 2026 12:27PM
Arthur Graham
is 81% done
Forty thousand feet deep in some places, within sight of the Kona Coast. Eight miles straight down, off a cliff. It would take a long time for a body to sink eight miles down to the ocean floor. It is pitch-black down there, absolute darkness.
— May 30, 2026 12:20PM
Arthur Graham
is 72% done
Every successful charter boat captain understands the difference between the Fishing Business and Show Business. Fishing is what happens out there on the deep blue water, and the other is getting strangers to pay for it.
— May 30, 2026 11:31AM
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May 28, 2026 02:22PM
(cont.) The missionaries may have taught the natives to love Jesus, but deep in their pagan hearts they don't really like him: Jesus is too stiff for these people. He had no sense of humor. The ranking gods and goddesses of the old Hawaiian culture are mainly distinguished by their power, not their purity, and they are honored for their vices as well as their awesome array of virtues. They are not intrinsically different from the people themselves -- just bigger and bolder and better in every way.
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(cont.) The two favorites are Lono and Pele, the randy Volcano goddess. When Pele had a party, everybody came; she was a lusty long-haired beauty who danced naked on molten lava with a gourd of gin in each hand, and anybody who didn't like it was instantly killed. Pele had her problems -- usually with wrong-headed lovers, and occasionally with whole armies -- but in the end she always prevailed. And she still lives, they say, in her cave underneath a volcano on Mt. Kiluea and occasionally comes out to wander around the island in any form she chooses -- sometimes as a beautiful young girl on a magic surfboard, sometimes a jaded harlot sitting alone at the bar of the Volcano House; but usually -- for some reason the legends have never made clear -- in the form of a wizened old woman who hitchhikes around the island with a pint of gin in her kitbag.Whether Pele and Lono ever got together is a question still shrouded in mystery, but as a gambler I would have to bet on it. There is not enough room on these islands for the two most powerful deities in Hawaiian history to roam around for 1,000 years without coming to grips with each other.
