whoa. words fail me right now, yet clearly they never did author Alex Garland.


The voice of my generation, in a way. I really enjoy watching the world through this narrator's eyes, so much that I'm willing to follow him down a sinkhole of madness. What a beautiful demise to paradise.

Don't worry, not a spoiler alert. The narrator is fine in the end. In the movie version. How is the book different?
I dare you to read it and tell me for yourself.


The adaptation was all I knew of this story, and that was so trite. That is to say so sugar coated, that it was offensively dilute in comparison. I guess that is what adaptations have to do, but crikes.


All that director did well was pick awesome music and coreograph fun beach scenery set scenes to fit them. His choice of actors was also nicely apropos. An early DiCaprio set against a myriad of contemporary exciles (except for Sal, the exquisite Tilda Swinton.) But whatever, this isn't a movie review.
My point is that I know only now that it was underdone; it could have been so much more. Richer, thicker, pulpier, less perky.

I managed to read this in about 18 hours with a baby on my hip. The book transported me so that I felt like I was in Thailand at first, and thickly glad I was not at the end. Books like this, books about psychology, insanity, drug use are astoundingly hard for me to read.
The second and third times it was in a weekend go during the school year.
Reading a book such as this is intense:
At once I feel hyper-aware, insane, and drugged.

BY READING A BOOK.
What I thought would be a silly, sweet story about backpacking travelers in southeast Asia.

A Gen-X novel of paradise found, and lost. Or was it even paradise to begin with? It would be hard to talk about The Beach for very long without mentioning Lord of the Flies or Vietnam movies, but it's also sort of like The Magic Mountain in a funhouse mirror. In contrast to Mann's novel about a new arrival to an isolated hermetic community who finds himself eerily well-suited to the community's timeless inertia, The Beach is about being ill-suited to such a place, growing bored with it, and about people discovering that they've been searching for something very different than what they'd thought. 

I was really impressed with this, and I'm glad I decided to read it again after about twenty years. Garland ratchets up the tension, and also leaves you with something to think about- the best of both worlds.

Плажът е халюцинация за възвърнатия Рай. Падението е неизбежно.
Като твърде консервативен тип турист, не бих си и помислила за това откъсване от цивилизацията, в името на авангардното удоволствие.
Но определено е интересно да четеш за чуждите преживявания, особено когато са така бурно разиграни сред тайландската екзотика.
Много харесах "Плажът" на Дани Бойл, първоизточникът също не му отстъпва.

The Beach does what it does (what Moby Dick does) without ever philosophizing, perhaps two lines by the end (unlike Moby Dick), keeps things obscure, and rarely shares anything intimate, yet somehow manages to do that Moby Dick thing, making you want to get out in the wild, while inevitable evil looms over, wanderlust and all that, but careful, paradise is pure baloney.

"Beaucoup bad shit, too beaucoup."

"..I felt like I'd been damned by a glimpse of paradise."
"...Eden to Hell in the space of a few seconds."



darker and more gruesome than the film..I like both though. The Beach starring Di Caprio is one of my fave movies and visiting Phuket Island in Thailand, Maya Bay in Ko Phi-Phi (where the film was shot) is still on my bucket list.

A story that stresses the point, if you think you've found perfection,
brace yourself cause there's no such thing and you're just insisting on living in a facade.
Facades fade away. And then you're left stripped naked for the world to see just how easily you were tricked into thinking perfection exists; into putting your energy and focus into it.
Love this story. It holds a high rank in the soul journey and the human condition.

I basically devoured this book. Started on Friday, finished by Monday. Part of it has to do with the way the book is written (short, three to four page vignettes that make it easy to say, "Oh I'll just read one more") but a larger part has to do with the momentum of the story. it doesn't really ever let up. i was never bored reading this book in fact I almost compulsively needed to know what would happen next. The whole thing kind of plays out like a really well-done summer popcorn movie.

Two devices I particularly enjoyed were the passage of time (which pretty much flies by for us and the characters in such a way that you don't even notice it is) and the way Garland gives the reader small breaks from the island by delving into memories of sweet childhood. Very nicely done.

Some criticism: the only thing about this book that really made me groan was pretty much everything involving *ahem* Daffy Duck. Dream sequences, hallucinations, awareness of hallucinations. It all felt too contrived and horrifically self-aware for me. And then, once he's off the island, no more craziness. Too there's-something-funny-about-that-island for my taste.

On the back cover of this edition Nick Hornby(!) called it a "Lord of the Flies for Generation X." Generation X schma aside, this book is a great update of Golding's classic and well worth the weekend (or long plane ride) of non-stop reading you're bound to spend with it.

Lord of the Flies for twenty-somethings.

A ghost story? A descent into madness? Both?

Whichever, this is a cracking good thriller.

The message at the end of this novel was not exactly original or anything. The search for a perfect paradise usually ends in death, violence and disappointment. Remember The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux? The Beach is well written - it inspires a sense of adventure and reminds you of what it was like to be young and free. Garland keeps it all very mysterious with Richard's hotel mate bestowing him with a map to some remote island. Usually, great writers inspire movie makers with great taste in books. But Garland is clearly a man with great taste in movies. The ghost of Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now might have entered Richard. Richard is nowhere as haunted as Willard. He is more of a young 90s kid. His relationship with the French couple and the sexual tension between the three of them adds an erotic element to the largely idyllic setting of this novel. The film ruined the relationship between Ewan McGregor and Danny Boyle because Boyle favored Di Caprio over McGregor to play the part of Richard. Boyle did say it helped him build a house. Babyboomers. Gen X! All corrupt! The whole lot of them. The movie was shit! But really great book.

The Beach started out as a tense thriller with an interesting array of characters, rich descriptions and a real sense of mystery and adventure that slowly seeped into my mind and satisfied my love of character driven storytelling. However, at about a quarter of the way in, I just found the pace far too slow and there was huge chunks of writing where nothing was happening. I felt as though I was spending too much time in the main characters head with his strange inner monologues and his ‘conversations’ with Mr Duck started to irritate me.

I absolutely loved the film adaptation, having watched it numerous times, but I have a feeling that this had a detrimental impact on my reading enjoyment. The movie was ‘jazzed up’ to entertain more, making the original story feel slightly lacklustre. That said, had I of not seen the film, I still think I would’ve found the story a bit of a drag.

I am pleased I’ve finally read it, as it’s been on my TBR for years, but I’m even more pleased that it’s over.

⭐️ ⭐️ - It was okay

I know I read this, sometime after the movie came out. Which I saw first, I think. I really don‘t remember anything about my reading experience, but have the vague impression that I liked this.

Плажът е рай за едни – и ад пак за тях: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/p...

Историята навярно е позната на мнозина – младият англичанин (не се подвеждайте по задната корица) Ричард отива да дири приключения в Тайланд. Той е обсебен от филмите за Виетнам (има много интересни препратки от тях), което в един момент се разчовърква здраво из разума му. Преди това обаче получава при зловещи обстоятелства карта за едно тайнствено кътче на защитен остров, намира си и спътници в лицето на двойка млади и красиви французи. След ред приключения и препятствия (включително криеница от наркодилъри сред собствената им конопена плантация) те се добират до лагуна, в която малка група скици са си създали работеща утопия. Изолирани от света, тримата се потапят в тази общност, докато наглед простичките отношения между членовете постепенно се усложняват.

Издателство АЛМА
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/p...