The Beach was the 1996 debut novel by Alex Garland, a British writer who's gone on to pen the screenplays for an impressive bunch of UK-produced science fiction films. Garland authored 28 Days Later (2003) and Sunshine (2007), adapted Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go (2010), as well as the comic book Dredd (2012), the version that was actually good. His name first materialized on screen in 2000 with The Beach and despite the dismal reception of that film -- the script for which Garland did not write -- I was very eager to read his source material.The novel begins with a British backpacker named Richard arriving alone in Bangkok. Richard -- who we later learn is mending a broken heart with as much exotic travel and dope as he can fit in -- narrates the story with the self-awareness of a twenty-something who's consumed every Vietnam War movie ever made, beginning with Apocalypse Now. He checks into one of the many guest houses on the Ko Sanh Road which cater to young French, German, Swedish or American backpackers looking to escape whatever future awaits them back home. Adjusting his circadian rhythms to Thailand, Richard finds the thin walls of the guesthouse afford him no peace from the French teenagers having sex next door and worse, the guest across the hall, a Scot who repeats the word "bitch" so many times that Richard realizes he's saying "beach". The Scot peers over the wall to bedevil Richard with lunatic ramblings that make even less sense through his jet lag. The next day, Richard discovers an envelope has been left on his door. Inside is a map to a beach. Entering the Scot's room, Richard finds the man has slashed open his wrists and bled to death.After submitting to police questions about the dead Scot, who registered under the name Mister Daffy Duck, Richard introduces himself to one half of the French couple, a handsome teenager named Étienne. Having kept it a secret from the police, unsure of what sort of trouble it could lead to, Richard shows the map to Étienne, who recognizes the beach as part of the Marine Park declared off-limits to tourists. He theorizes that perhaps an intrepid few have braved the route and set up their own private resort there, a paradise untapped by commercial tourism. Étienne wants to try for the beach and when he shares the map with his lovely girlfriend Françoise, she's equally game. Richard, Étienne and Françoise set off from Bangkok by night train to Surat Thani, where they catch a bus to Donsak and a ferry to the island of Koh Samui. Étienne secures a fishing charter to transport them into the Marine Park while Richard attempts to keep his desire for Françoise in check. Their plan is to be dropped off at Koh Angthong, where it's legal to camp for two nights, and make the swim to the next island, the site of Mister Duck's mysterious beach. The night before, Richard meets two Americans, Zeph and Sammy, Ivy League stoners who regale them with a legend they've heard:Think about a lagoon, hidden from the sea and passing boats by a high curving wall of rock. Then imagine white sands and coral gardens never damaged by dynamite fishing or trawling nets. Freshwater falls scatter the island, surrounded by jungle--not the forests of inland Thailand, but jungle. Canopies three levels deep, plants untouched for a thousand years, strangely colored birds and monkeys in the trees. On the white sands, fishing in the coral gardens, a select community of travelers pass the months. They leave if they want to, they return, the beach never changes.Before shoving off into the unknown, Richard makes a fatal decision to copy Mister Duck's map and leave it for Zeph and Sammy, insurance in case Richard and his companions disappear. The travelers encounter several obstacles on the road to paradise. There's a swim through open sea which forces them to abandon their backpacks. Once on the island, their hike inland brings them to the largest marijuana field they've ever seen, where they realize their presence is definitely not welcome. They then find a waterfall between them and the beach, a final test that Richard takes and passes. The beach is everything that Richard, Étienne and Françoise hoped it might be. Fifty or more travelers their ages have spent years building a self-sufficient community (almost) immune to the outside world. They've constructed a longhouse and huts. They've redirected a running stream for sanitary purposes. Work details (Fishing, Gardening, Cooking, Carpentry) are assigned. Marijuana, as much as Jed can steal from the Thai farmers they share the island with, is imbibed liberally. Their leader is Sal (alias SAL-vester), who founded the beach with her boyfriend "Bugs" and one other, the late Mister Daffy Duck.Garland uses the work details to not only build an alternative society, but to expose a rift between Richard and one of the other characters. I love reading novels about people at work and part of that always comes back to how co-workers get along, or in some cases, don't get along. The story stays on the move, a neat trick considering how content most of the characters would be to sit in one spot, get stoned and discuss video games. Garland keeps stirring the pot, introducing potential friends and enemies, materializing threats and alluding to secrets, the meat and potatoes for a good page turner.The Beach exists in a temperate climate that I loved, right between literary fiction and genre fiction, between what could have been remarkable tedium or sexed up intrigue. There is a prologue that promises an obnoxious, pop culture infused trip into the author's favorite movies or books, but once the story gets going, Garland tempers much of that (a directive from his editor, maybe). As a narrator, Richard does settle on the bland side. I was never convinced he was British, that he'd come from anywhere or was in any way unique to anyone else in the book. Garland maintains that his travelers have come to the beach to escape who they were and where they came from. That would explain the absence of character histories, but not character passions. The female characters in particular -- Francoise and Sal -- are devoid of life. They seem like either a 5th grader's perception of women, or the imaginings of male author writing his first novel. Flat.The Beach is a novel of imperfections, but imperfections I was able to cast off, submitting myself to the journey the author wanted to take me on. This is a deeply layered, imaginative and thrilling book that in some way seems keyed in to the moment it was written. In the mid-1990s, the Internet was beginning to connect the planet and some of us were ready to get off already. I wouldn't call this a Generation X manifesto, but can't argue with those who do. Tackling big ideas make the novel feel bigger than its parts.Among those who heard the piper's call of The Beach was filmmaker Danny Boyle, hot off Shallow Grave and Trainspotting. Boyle's go-to screenwriter John Hodge adapted a screenplay and Ewan McGregor was promised the lead role. This changed when Leonardo DiCaprio was looking for his follow-up to Titanic and expressed interest in working with Boyle. Twentieth Century Fox ponied up a $50 million production budget and in return, concessions were given to make Garland's vision palatable to a mass audience. It didn't work out well, though Tilda Swinton's performance as Sal and the photography by Darius Khondji are worth the watch.
This is one of those novels that I had been waiting to read for years. Circumstances just always prevented it, even after I'd seen the movie three or four times. I could never find a copy in China where I was living, I'd forget about it each year I came home and wouldn't order it from Amazon. But finally, I picked this up for my Kindle (bootleg, as it doesn't seem to have an official Kindle release) and dove right in. I started it at the perfect time, too: on a bus ride through central Malaysia, on the way to a beach on the east coast of the country!With all that said...maybe it's just been built up too much for me. Lord of the Flies for Generation X? If this is the modern take on it, then please send me on a time machine back to the Golding days (pun intended) when LotF was released.Other reviewers are correct about the storyline itself: the book just breezes by. Because I had it on Kindle, I never knew how many pages it was in paperback. I read this book in three days, a feat usually reserved only for Michael Crichton novels and travel books. So I will hand Garland that. The guy can certainly spin a yarn, and there were times when this novel was genuinely exciting, especially en route to the island and beach themselves.But this novel has so many things that just bugged me in the end, both as a reader and author. On the technical side, Garland's dialogue is just full of adverbs in the quote tags and ellipses in the speech, two things I consider poor writing and have other greater writers to back me up on. The chapters (if you can call them that, as they're more like segments or something, and only last a few pages each, like an early Ellis novel) often have immature or outright pretentious titles. Come to think of it, the novel itself seemed rather juvenile at times, with gratuitous foul language and pop culture references, as well as video game motifs that did not fit in with the book at all (much like the video game sequence in the movie).Now on to the plot itself. Spoiler alert... The frequent lapses into Mister Duck hallucinations and sidebars got old for me, fast. And then they just stop the moment he leaves the island? Garland steams ahead to an ending that seems both bizarre and unlikely, with a "blood orgy" of sorts involving a bunch of crazed, stoned (only on weed and palm wine) islanders tearing some tourists' bodies to shreds, then attacking the narrator. Did I mention this is all during Tet? And that a bunch of dope farmers have shown up? It just all seemed contrived and a bit improbable to me. I didn't like the movie's ending much either, but it actually met with less incredulity from me!But again, I finished this in three days. I couldn't finish one of my own novels in that short a time. Garland can weave a tale, no question about it.
What do You think about The Beach (1998)?
I've never seen this movie, but I have seen the commercials for it. I have always thought this book was a thriller and picked it up based on that assumption. But... It wasn't. Or, it mostly wasn't. The last 25 pages (minus the epilogue) were thriller-esque, but that's not what this story is about. What was it about? I'm not really sure. It feels like one of those books that are kind of infinitely interpretable. Every person who reads it may see something different in it. For my part, I didn't really feel like there was much of a story at all for most of the book, but then, maybe I just didn't see it because I'm not the type that would. I'm not the adventurous traveler type. I like to do fun things that I've planned for, and I'm not the pick-up-and-go-on-a-whim type. This book is full of jaded travelers... they've been everywhere that's anywhere, and crave something different, something that hasn't been turned into a tourist trap, something that still remains pure. So, our intrepid travelers find the beach and are enchanted with it and the little commune of people who live there. Awesome... Except I don't get it. There were a lot of inconsistencies that just didn't work for me. Like our main character narrowly escaping armed guards on one part of the island, and then chatting up the next person he sees without a care in the world. No suspicion that this is another guard, just "Hey, how's it going?" I also didn't really get the allure of the beach, or the Borg mentality surrounding it. I can understand wanting to preserve a secret place, but it just seemed that everyone was so extreme. I couldn't identify with really any of the characters except for Etienne. Actually, I take that back, I liked the main character, Richard, in the beginning, and then lost it as I kept reading. It was incredibly weird, because it was like as the story went along, I found myself kind of staring incredulously at my nook, wondering what the hell was happening, what everyone was thinking, what was wrong... I couldn't put my finger on any of it. Nothing was really happening at all, but it just kept feeling more and more "off" the longer I read. Maybe that's what the author intended. It could be, and it would make sense. There's a definite surreal quality to this book, where things are and are not at the same time, and you're not really sure what we should believe and what we should dismiss. And it's told in 1st person, and Richard is not exactly a reliable narrator, so that only adds to the confusion and chaos... which again is out of place, because there's this underlying feeling of confusion and chaos, but very little is actually happening in the story, plot-wise. It's very off-kilter, and isn't really my cup of tea. But, even so. I'm giving this 3 stars, because even though the surreality and oddity and lack of tangible plot aren't my thing, I applaud the author's skill at writing this story, and doing so in a way that I felt all of these things while seemingly nothing was really happening. I'll admit that's pretty impressive. And honestly, I'm not even sure what it is about the writing that was so great. It wasn't written unusually, or with any gimmicky style or anything, just straight prose, but it was effective. During the Tet scene, I felt the chaos in the clearing, the celebratory vibe, I could almost hear a kind of primal drumbeat setting the tone... So, while the story wasn't my thing, I thought the writing was very good, and justifies my giving this a higher rating than I would if it were based on story alone (which would likely be two stars, if you're curious).
—Becky
A fortunate find at the anniversary Big Book Sale with S and K on my first day of vacation. I'd been toying with reading this after something triggered my memory of the awful movie (perhaps after hearing Porcelain or another decade-old Top 40 soundtrack song at some store in the Bay Area, as is prone to happen around here), and after toying with the idea of going backpacking before my window closes, i.e. before I truly become too old and curmudgeonly. Thank goodness I read this rambling book and got some sense knocked into me. I will now content myself with reading S's sister's excellent travel blog and leave the backpacking to young, cheerful people.By virtue of Wikipedia I have learned that Alex Garland wrote this, his first book, at an early age (his bio blurb in the back notes the year of his birth, which is publishing-speak for "hot young thing") supposedly to excoriate the backpacker culture of privileged hot young things trying to out-backpack everyone by being the first to get there and experience, whatever. While no longer a new concept, this was done decently enough. Like when Richard the narrator asks the creepy, fascist leader Sal (played by a very creepy Tilda Swinton in the movie) what the idyllic secret beach community is, she screws with him by saying it's a beach resort for travelers on holiday. Richard frowns to himself: "It seemed so belittling. I had ambiguous feelings about the differences between tourists and travelers - the problem being that the more I traveled, the smaller the differences became. But the one difference I could still latch onto was that tourists went on holidays while travelers did something else. They traveled."Like those deep thoughts, the rest of the book is not that good or profound. There are a distracting number of really old and nonsensical pop culture references. The worst were the long and strangely specific analogies to Nintendo-era video games (e.g. discourses on the abilities of the various players from Streetfighter) -- basically the paperback equivalent of the endless, inane lectures on video games your college boyfriends tortured you with -- only here it's better because you can skip them all. The emotions are also far too overwrought to make the Lord of the Flies-esque ending believable -- but it's kind of enjoyable to watch the house of cards tumble. Depending on your mood, the whole thing can be enjoyable but I can't think of anyone I'd recommend this to.
—Sarah
Hmm, this is one of those books that I don't know how to rate. On one hand it was a fantastic first novel and I don't want to diminish that. On the other hand, it was not fun for me to read it. For most of the book it revolves around bunch of people talking, eating, fishing, swimming, helping each other, and accusing each other when something goes wrong. Besides the thing that happened at the end, most of the book consists of the variations of the things I've listed above. I also predicted correctly how the book will end. For the most part, I was right. During one part of the book I was just aimlessly reading the beginnings of the chapters and few sentences at the end and I felt like I really did not miss much, if anything. This is one of those books that rely a lot on the interactions of characters instead of the story. A lot of the times the characters were doing the most mundane things yet the conversations kept the story moving in some way. Whether it was character development, tasks ahead of them, life on the beach, connections being created, or the thoughts of home, the conversations always manage to say something. There was not much of a suspense going on. Sure, sometimes characters have concerns but it usually turns into something easily resolved. Besides the ending which was about 20 pages of actual suspense (at least to me), nothing too surprising happens. I do like the appeal of the Beach. Away from worries, smoking dope all day long, swimming, helping others, chatting with friends, and creating a strong sense of family. It was in a sense an Eden. There was no worries of how to make a living or where to work every day. It was all about working together to eat and survive another day. I liked it. Some of the characters are one dimensional with no discernible characteristics. They were not memorable and their "disappearance" was not really missed. Overall a not so memorable book. Nothing special about it besides its clean prose and very simple story. Again, a great first novel.
—Rade
