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A review by saralynnburnett
Don't Stop the Carnival by Herman Wouk
5.0
This book... objectively is a 3-4 star read but I’m too close to it to be objective (this is a reread for me). Bad news first: its attitudes towards women, Caribbean people, and the LGBTQ community are ANTIQUATED. Capitalized. Underlined. Antiquated.
However, considering that it was written in 1965 it’s ‘forgivable’ in that it does accurately capture the zeitgeist of the time.
The good news: the story is a tragicomedy about the illusionary paradise of running a hotel as an outsider in the Caribbean and it really, really is just like that. What can go wrong will go wrong and often in the most uproarious ways. The author would know as Herman Wouk did spend some time running a hotel (The Royal Mail Inn) on Hassel Island in the US Virgin Islands before writing the novel.
The title of the book is a cheeky play on the Caribbean meaning of the word carnival = party / fete, and the western meaning = circus. Hotels really are sort of like freak shows... especially down here where people tend to take on their ‘cutting loose’ vacations with vehemence.
I was handed this book with a wink and a smile when I started in the Caribbean hospitality industry and read it then, and now a few years in it warranted a reread to see just how accurate this ‘field guide’ is. And it is. Unfortunately here in the Caribbean a lot of the antiquated attitudes are still accurate too, but that aside, whenever something goes wrong at one of the hotels I work with (which it inevitably will, even things you never imagined could go wrong) I often hear the phrase (or I say it myself) ‘don’t stop the carnival’ uttered in reference to this book. When nonsense occurs that you want to fix, ignore, or mask you simply don’t stop the carnival!
However, considering that it was written in 1965 it’s ‘forgivable’ in that it does accurately capture the zeitgeist of the time.
The good news: the story is a tragicomedy about the illusionary paradise of running a hotel as an outsider in the Caribbean and it really, really is just like that. What can go wrong will go wrong and often in the most uproarious ways. The author would know as Herman Wouk did spend some time running a hotel (The Royal Mail Inn) on Hassel Island in the US Virgin Islands before writing the novel.
The title of the book is a cheeky play on the Caribbean meaning of the word carnival = party / fete, and the western meaning = circus. Hotels really are sort of like freak shows... especially down here where people tend to take on their ‘cutting loose’ vacations with vehemence.
I was handed this book with a wink and a smile when I started in the Caribbean hospitality industry and read it then, and now a few years in it warranted a reread to see just how accurate this ‘field guide’ is. And it is. Unfortunately here in the Caribbean a lot of the antiquated attitudes are still accurate too, but that aside, whenever something goes wrong at one of the hotels I work with (which it inevitably will, even things you never imagined could go wrong) I often hear the phrase (or I say it myself) ‘don’t stop the carnival’ uttered in reference to this book. When nonsense occurs that you want to fix, ignore, or mask you simply don’t stop the carnival!