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Learn to COOK - Don't Stop the Carnival : A Novel
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List Price: $13.95
Our Price: $10.05
Your Save: $ 3.90 ( 28% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 416
Publication Date: 1992-05-15
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Editorial Reviews:
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DON'T STOP THE CARNIVAL is Herman Wouk's comedy about living out your fantasies on an exotic Caribbean island.Norman Paperman, a successful Broadway publicity agent, has long dreamed of escaping his high-pressure Manhattan life.In a fit of bravado, he chucks it all and buys an old hotel on tiny, primitive, lush Amerigo island.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Don't stop the Carnival
Comment: Haven't had a chance to read this book but am anticipating the read. Book presents nicely
Customer Rating:
Summary: A delightful splash of reality
Comment: This is the book for anyone who has considered throwing it all in and running away to the Caribbean. Wouk paints a hilarious picture of a mainlander trying to make it as a resort operator in "paradise." We soon learn that swaying palms and stunning sunsets aren't always what they're cracked up to be. Although "Don't Stop the Carnival" is fiction (right down to the name of island where it takes place) it's a wonderful behind the scenes look at what could be going on while you're basking on the beach sipping your rum punch on vacation. I highly recommend this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: More suspenseful than I'd expected
Comment: I finally got around to reading this after years of listening to the Jimmy Buffett musical (which, contrary to what some earlier reviewers seem to think, already exists). I therefore already knew how the story ended, but with a hundred or so pages left to go I was involved enough to hope they'd changed it from the book. No dice, unfortunately, but it's still a far more engaging story than I was expecting.
If you're wondering - as I was - how a story of a guy who buys a hotel could possibly be entertaining, don't worry. I don't know quite how Wouk did it, but he did. The sequence of events sometimes does seem a bit Hollywood-ish, in the sense that you think things can't possibly get any worse for Norman Paperman and friends, but oh look, they just did. For that matter, they sometimes also get better faster than you'd ever expect in real life. Still, the story does draw you in and make you root for Norman to tough it out regardless of what the island and its cast of loony characters throw at him next. Speaking of which, Wouk is a genius when it comes to original yet strangely convincing characters. Even if the action dragged (which it doesn't), the book would be a fun read for them alone.
Through it all, you just might find yourself wanting to run off to the tropics and start life over again too. Perhaps unintentionally on Wouk's part, the Papermans' lifestyle back in New York comes across as so dreary that it's easy to believe Norman would rather cope with disaster after disaster than go home! It is, of course, easier to say that when we're only reading about the big adventure rather than living it. But it does make for a fun read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It's a 'Fawlty Towers' in the West Indies
Comment: A very funny and entertaining novel. It slightly recalls the above British TV comedy, but with a self-exiled NYC Jewish Theatre man dealing with a new world for him- a fish out of water. He finds himself among other exiles from America and Europe but who seem to float through their lives there while he is buffeted by constant ups and downs. The story has the feel of the late 50s, and does reference 'the new year' of 1960 at one point. One of the charaters, Iris Tramm, is a failed Californian movie star who, it is implied, may have been a casualty of the blacklisting craze of the early 50s. If they had ever made a movie of this, she could have been played at one time by Sally Kellerman. The comedy turns to tragedy by the end of the story.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Mostly fun - suspend disbelief
Comment: I just read this after a trip to the US Virgin Islands and it certainly helped prolong the vacation for me. Anyone who has ever unsuccessfully tried to superimpose our northern sense of urgency into any minor crisis in the tropics, such as lost luggage, missing captains, etc., can relate to this book. Set in 1959 (and written in '65 I believe), the book treats such hot topics as inter-racial romances, non-traditional families and ethnic stereotypes with a respect that our society has yet to catch up to, in my opinion.
My only two beefs are 1) at times it was too over-the-top in comic misery - like one of those action scenes that goes on longer than you can even pretend possible, and 2) the very ending is simply out of place and almost a cruel trick - I can't say any more without revealing it.
Fans of Jimmy Buffett's novels will see a likely source of inspiration for Jimmy's writing style in this book.
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