I often daydream about running away from home. Packing it in and slipping away to some Red-and-Andy-Dufresne tropical island and starting anew. I could do it! I could just GO. I could get one of those ‘island’ jobs (hotel manager, coconut picker, hippie bead necklace maker). I don’t need to be less than 10 miles from a Target and just thinking about the great tan I’d get makes the fantasy so much more appealing.That’s the fantasy of Don’t Stop the Carnival, by Herman Wouk. Set in the 60’s, DSTC takes us through the mid-life crisis of one Norman Paperman. Norman is an agent in New York and through a series of manipulations and his own desire to start anew, he ends up chucking it all and purchasing a hotel on the island of Amerigo. He was the first Parrothead. A New Yorker through and through, Norman suddenly finds himself on what might as well be a different planet. When reality sets in, when the vacation gloss wears off and he finds himself having to function and make a living as a new hotel owner, the story really takes off. A fantastic cast of supporting characters walk poor Norman through mishaps, heartbreak, soap-opera antics, Caribbean social politics and a cornucopia of absurdities. They could have easily become two-dimensional cartoon characters but Wouk gives them personalities and histories and life. Your heart breaks for some, you cheer and jeer and roll your eyes for others because they don’t exist to make Norman’s story: they would be there doing their crazy regardless of whether this book was ever written or not. Wouk also did an incredible job of creating a sense of place. You feel the bitter NY winter, bask in the island sun; you grind your teeth along with Norman as he relays between utter frustration and a fleeting sense of peace. Your share that pit in his stomach when he stares at his mounting debt and laugh when he eventually concedes that maybe, just maybe, he’s in over his head. Full disclosure: I know the island Wouk writes about. I grew up there. Fictionalized in his book, I learned through my mother that Wouk spent time there in the early 60’s. He was perceived by the locals as a “gringo hippie writer” and they just humored him. When I first read the book, I laughed myself silly because I KNEW THESE PEOPLE. I knew that you have to have a full cistern; that sometimes you have to go retrieve your receptionist from her home and remind her to come to work; that the world doesn’t end if the power goes out but you better have kerosene in your lanterns and candles readily-accessible. I’ve met these aging pirates, recluses and retirees; wannabe sailors and those marooned on a stretch of sand, not entirely sure how they got there in the first place. The Caribbean, the real Caribbean, is a parenthesis on this planet. It’s the exception to the rule. Regular laws don’t apply and God help you if you think it will adapt to you instead of the other way around. You either succumb to it, or pack it up and head back to where you came from. Regardless, it will still be there when you change your mind.
This is a hateful, toxic book. Reading it felt like being beaten up. I cannot compass how it has earned so many positive reviews; I would rate it at less than zero if this site permitted negative numbers of stars. The main characters are so dissolute and debauched that it is impossible to care about them. Worse, the author has an egregious habit of "type-ing" every character, no matter how fleeting, in a most debasing manner: Negro, Jew, gentile, whore, Turk and just about every homophobic deprecation he can think of. Whatever skill the author may have as a storyteller is completely undone by his bigoted, blighted world view. It would be charitable to say that this is a book written and published before conventions of political correctness could moderate Wouk's mordancy, or to say that the cruel callousness that suffuses the narrative belongs more to the protagonist than to the author. However, "Don't Stop the Carnival" is just too relentlessly and gratuitously crass to concede Wouk that courtesy: this book is utterly poisonous, and not nearly funny enough to palliate its venom. Moreover, as another reviewer here points out, the author imperiously assumes a White male (and very narrow-minded) reader -- and even that demographic must surely find many passages offensive. I was eager to read this book because I once lived in St. Croix, and know well the places, and the quirks of Caribbean life, that inspire the story. Instead of kindling my nostalgia for the Virgin Islands' natural beauty and the spirit of the Cruzan people, though, it brought back wince-worthy memories of the strident, gluttonous, piña colada-swilling scumbags who swanned around in sports cars and speedboats, indulging their Master-race status on the island to distract from midlife crises and sundry failures back in the States. Nothing redeeming in that exercise -- and yet the author somehow feels entitled to have us actually empathise with such boorish boozers. In his 1998 forward to "Don't Stop the Carnival" Wouk writes, "My métier is social portraiture." Spiteful caricature is more like it; peppered with snide stereotyping and imprecation that veers toward flat-out hate speech. He also states that while writing this novel he, "had in mind the feel of a Chaplin movie." Well, the slapstick is certainly there -- minus Chaplin's sparkling humanity. This one belongs in the dustbin. Or better still, the fireplace. My recommendation: Don't read the horrible "Don't Stop the Carnival".
What do You think about Don't Stop The Carnival (1992)?
I picked this up because Jimmy Buffett wrote a musical based on the book, and that intrigued me. The main character, Norman Paperman, is a New Yorker who falls in love with the Caribbean, decides to chuck it all and buy a hotel on a small island called Amerigo. Hilarity and tragedy ensues as he tries to adjust to the peculiar, laid-back lifestyle of the islands. Problems surface that would be unimaginable on the mainland. Like running out of water. I'm grateful for the map of the imaginary Amerigo that is included in the front of the book since I'm a visual person and need to be able to see the action. I loved this book, and it will join the relatively small group of books that I will read over and over again.
—Andrea
The great comic drama - if it could go wrong, it did. Sometimes I found myself covering my eyes (makes it hard to read) knowing already what was going to befall poor Norman Paperman. As I read, some little gnome in the back of my mind kept poking me, asking "and you think you want to run away to the tropics and never come back? See what happens?" Well, yes, I still do (and the gnome can just shut UP already) - a fun look back at New York society of years gone by, and of island life that is probably just about the same today as when Mr. Wouk wrote his semi-fable. My biggest problem with this book? Not only did I want to miss work & curl up on the couch to finish reading it (it's mid winter in Illinois, what can I say), I also ended up with Jimmy Buffett songs playing endlessly in my head. Not usually a bad thing, but there are only so many days I can wake up with "We're Kinja! Still Kinja!" in my head before I start to get a little freaked out. Sorry, not a professional review, just a little fun from someone who had a lot of fun reading a great book. It'll get you thru the last of the winter 'mush' if you're in it. And if you're not, if you're already on an island somewhere? Well, I'm jealous. Maybe you should read a book about driving on ice or dog sledding or something, just to make us northern folk feel better.
—Tami
I was standing in the office of a tire shop in my small, East-Texas hometown. The air conditioner was ineffectually humming, failing to contest the heat coming through two doors open to the stale baked air outside. A small man was hunched over a small desk, fingers pecking awkwardly at a keyboard, squinting into an undersized monitor. There was a 2013 calendar on the wall. I can't tell you how I would have felt witnessing this scene before reading "Don't Stop the Carnival" - but I can tell you that I had nothing but overwhelming fondness for everything around me. The mechanic, regaling me through broken teeth with his heroics as a young man. The customer in sneakers, white socks and camouflage shorts - chewing on his mustache and scratching at a faded tattoo. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to pour burnt coffee into a Styrofoam cup and help them whittle away their pre-lunch hours.
—conrad
