Der Strand

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).

Given my love for Lord of the Flies, it’s quite a conundrum that I haven’t read this till now. The similarities within the two novels struck me endlessly; despite the difference in the ages of the characters, and the contrast between a chosen haven or a forced one.

Of course, the nuances of governing a small society of our own are fascinating. Survival, leadership, rebellion and hardship all have to be navigated, and it’s a true joy here to see things develop and adapt. Just like the real world, unexpected problems still arise - it’s not all coconuts and joints - and seeing how changing circumstances change the governance and relationships within the camp is delectable. Human reactions to confusion and chaos are heavily varied, and there was something voyeuristic in being allowed to watch.

Garland’s prose is engaging, despite our narrator becoming slowly both unlikable and unreliable as the pressures of his secret new home begin to crowd his mind. It’s an incredibly unsettling read as we discover the psychological and indeed physical drawbacks to what is considered utopia. Garland doesn’t hold back on the horrors, and although I’d rather stay at home than be living on this beach even in the more glorious times, we see a heavy contrasting emphasis on descent and ruin.

There’s interesting commentary on the desire to escape a built-up world teeming with people and find paradise. But after reading this, I wonder if paradise can exist if we, as humans, descend upon it, bringing our own biases, habits, differences, and rules.

The Beach made a big splash when it first came out and was quickly followed by a movie version starring Leonardo DiCaprio. I was curious to check it out, so naturally I bought a copy of the book and then let it follow me from apartment to apartment before finally reading it nearly 20 years later. I wonder if I would have liked it more if I'd read it back then? Don't get me wrong, this was entertaining, but also flawed: All of the characters (except the French guy) were horrible people, the Vietnam War parallels didn't work for me, and I think there was probably a way to show the main character was (kind of) losing his mind besides having him hallucinate a dead guy over and over—although that felt like a very 1990s touch. Also the writing was kind of meh and their island "paradise" sounded totally horrible to me and I kept hoping they would come to their senses and just get out of there. Still, this was a decent read, fast-moving and enjoyable—just don't expect it to change your life or anything.

Over 430 pages and nothing really happened for 410 of them.
Bit weird

unsurprisingly given the title, a great one to lug down to rockaway & get some sand stuck in the binding; some delightfully tense scenes, esp the descent-esque air pocket in the cave. the vietnam war stuff this reader woulda lopped out altogether -- a tryhard extended metaphor reminiscent of squidward sticking a clay nose on michelangelo's david ("NOW it's art"). you got a perfectly serviceable thriller here! you don't gotta force it to be lit-er-a-tyoor! the ppl of thailand existing as a backdrop tinged w/ varying degrees of criminality was a lil uncomfy as well. still worth packing along w/ the rosé and umbrella

vrlo dobro. i vrlo vješto, s obzirom da je ovo roman prvijenac jednog 26-godišnjaka. idu alexu rečenice, osjećaš se kao da si u luna parku.

priča je jednostavna, a alex je iz nje izvukao maksimum: richard, étienne i françoise, slučajni suputnici u potrazi za "rajskim otokom" negdje u tajlandskom zaljevu, nošeni mladošću, avanturizmom i dopom kreću na putovanje koje će završiti u izoliranoj zajednici u kojoj život, ispočetka, djeluje idealistički i bezbrižno. međutim, nevolje su na pomolu.

stilski britak, misaono brz, logički povezan, neopterećen papirom, samouvjeren i uz to duhovit - eto jedne knjige koja će te držati prikovanim do samoga kraja.

ps. s.: leonardo dicaprio, tilda swinton, robert carlyle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vSsx...

At what point does a book or piece of writing qualify as literature? There's got to be a spectrum, right? Here, I made a handy chart:



I'm not sure what the cutoff is. This book seemed to be right at that delineation. And I don't know which side it falls on. Are there other books like this?

I ended up enjoying The Beach, whether it qualifies as literature or not.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I watched the movie back in the day. I was the market audience for that movie: late teens/early twenties, in Europe - Croatia, and there was Croatian in the movie, if I recall... I remember thinking it was fine, but unsure of all of the points it was trying to make, but certain it was trying to make some.

The book, on the other hand, reads quite well. I don't believe that old cliché that the book is always better than the movie, but in this case it pans out. The book is trippy in ways the movie isn't. And though it's fast-paced and has some action, it takes on a literary quality that a lot of these types of novels miss. The Mr. Duck scenes slide me into the magical realism of One Hundred Years of Solitude, or the ghosts in Dickens or Hamlet. Christo (and Karl) reminded me so of Gregor Samsa.

And it's been compared to Lord of the Rings, and Heart of Darkness.

So, maybe it scores quite high on the literature scale.

I wonder if the movie pushed people away from the book, or drew them to it. The book had a lot of nuggets that were I imagine being passed over in the film, but it's been a while...

"I don't like dealing with money transactions in poor countries. I get confused between feeling that I shouldn't haggle with poverty and hating getting ripped off."

Maybe the best part of the book is that my wife always criticizes my "beach reads." (Not really, but internally, I feel like she's judging me.) Nothing says 'fun at the beach' like Timothy Snyder's "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin." So, this summer, it was nice to be at the beach or pool with a book titled, "The Beach."

Extra at no cost:

"...I couldn't begin to imagine what it would feel like, such extended private access, and the briefness of my own encounter only seemed to make it worse. I felt like I'd been damned by a glimpse of paradise."

...He's talking about the VC here. It' so weird that he's in "paradise" yet only sees the VC as paradise. #foreshadowing #gotproblems

Also, this.

And Christo.

Another excellent book which I forgot to add on here! Definitely need a reread!