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!

I read this novel in the first week of my round-the-world backpacking trip (in fact, I'm writing this review in a decaying hotel in Phuket) when I was and still am disillusioned with Thailand. We arrived on the islands of the Andaman Sea only to find over and over again, on Ko Lipe and Ko Lanta and Ko Phi Phi, that what had once been a beautiful tropical paradise had been ruined by tourism, degradation, and pollution. The beaches are strewn with rubbish. The coral is all dead. The wildlife is gone. The islands are drowning beneath resorts, hotels, bars, hawkers, and endless swarms of Westerners who want nothing more than to get shitfaced somewhere warmer than London or Toronto. It's an awful place, all the more so because it's a corpse of something that used to be beautiful.

The Beach, therefore, fit my mood perfectly well. It's a novel about a young British backpacker named Richard, who sees Thailand the same way I do, who wanted paradise and instead found purgatory. On his first night in the country, Richard meets a crazed Scotsman in the room next to his in a cheap Bangkok hostel, who rants about a wonderful beach and then leaves a map taped to his room door. When he goes to ask the Scot about the map, Richard finds that he has committed suicide.

With a newly-met French couple, Richard decides to hunt down the beach, on an island somewhere in a marine park west of Ko Samui. After paying a fisherman to illegally drop them off in the marine park, swimming across a channel, crossing a marijuana field guarded by Thais with AK-47s, and jumping down a waterfall, the trio discover the idyllic beach, where a group of about thirty Westerners have developed a commune of sorts. They grow and hunt their own food, swim in an unspoilt lagoon, laze around smoking marijuana and generally enjoy paradise on earth.

All does not remain well, of course. The Beach has a very strong Lord of the Flies and Apocalypse Now vibe, delving into the dark heart of the human soul, the things man is capable of, the horror and the violence. There's also explicit influence from the Vietnam War in general. Towards the later passages it's quite gripping; as Richard tries to escape the community, there was also a taste of the climax of Fight Club.

It doesn't always quite stick together. I didn't always buy that a self-reliant, self-sufficient community could turn on itself so easy, and the escalation of violence seemed to be missing a few steps somewhere along the way; there were a few unbelievable leaps. But I bought most of it,and on the whole it was a great read.

It was also, of course, a movie, starring Leonardo di Caprio and directed by Danny Boyle. I haven't seen the movie in years and have only vague memories of it, but it has 19% on Rotten Tomatoes, so you're probably better off reading the book. It was filmed on the southern island of Ko Phi Phi, as the travel agencies there were always ready to tell me, and because the film studio didn't think it looked enough like paradise they brought in a bulldozer to shape the beach a little, removing some trees and adding some more sand. This angered the Thais, who said the producers had damaged the island's natural landscape, and the lawsuits went for years.

If you ever go to Ko Phi Phi, take a look around at the huge piles of rubbish, at the endless rows of resorts, at the longtail motors dumping waste into the ocean, at the layer of scum that clings to the surface of the water all along the coastline, and you decide for yourself who did more damage to the island.

Subtly genius and absolutely overflowing with literary and cultural references. Powerful critique on western exoticization and exploitation of Asia, and the role of recreation in colonization. Very much recommend

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.

n  Gorgeous, Cynical, Well-Observedn

Believe it or not, despite the hints throughout about dark and terrible things to come, this novel doesn't really turn dark until around the last fifth.

Until then it's beautiful scenery, well-observed love triangles and petty dislikes, and a new traveller trying to get to, and then assimilate into, the hidden island paradise known as the beach. However, our boy, English narrator Richard, was originally given a map to the beach by an angry/disturbed guy he met in a Thai hostel, just before he slit his own wrists. So I suppose the darkness is there right from the start.

It's odd that a story so brimming with obvious bad shit happening around the edges manages to stay so pleasant in the main - but then so does the beach itself. It is this amoral hippie oasis - beautiful and hidden, but with drug plantations and the beaten tourist trail so nearby - which makes up the essential dilemma of the piece.

The beach is set up almost like a modern fairy kingdom - a place where time appears to stop, everyone forgets about their lives back home, and the place is apparently run fairly and well - but with a slight hint of menace, too.

I was especially pleased with the narrator character, Richard. Though he does eventually do some terrible things, it's his shrewd observation, thirst for adventure, and just the right amount of cynicism and pettiness to stay entirely believable, which really makes this narrative work.

For large amounts of the story the islanders are simply fishing, or farming, or otherwise working - but it's Richard's keen observation and Alex Garland's tight plotting which keeps undercurrents churning away. Even when the day-to-day activities are repetitive, Richard's growing discoveries about the place and the people mean that the plot never stands still.

(This may not be my most well-thought out review as I only finished the book yesterday, and need to give things time to percolate a little more, but I did really enjoy - and devour - this book.)