The Beach (original 1996; edition 1997)

Well, I found the travelling and the people, and the thoughts and feelings one goes through while in a strange land and not really having a clue as to what is going on very authentic - Garland captured, for me, what it was like in India, very well. And then we hit the ethic of the group, and realise these things can work, if everyone is willing to do their part and get along.
The problem is, usually the people most vocal in their creation of such a utopia are the fucked up ones, who will turn out to be arch-hypocrites, and screw the whole thing up for everyone else. This, again, totally rang true. Anyone who has spent any time on the hippy trail, or hanging out with reactionaries, revolutionaries, hippies , free-thinkers, etc., will have found a few people who could really carry this off. The problem is, they are not interested in the petty power of control, and such groups are soon dominated by the liars, who believe their own bullshit, but actually, are so self-centred they have absolutely no idea how self-centred they actually are.
As a morality tale, The Beach shows just how many people actually are in this group, only really on the fringes, because no one else will have them. As such, it is a great reflection of the kind of people you meet. It goes a bit bonkers for the ending, but in a very Lord of the Flies way, takes such conclusions about people to an extreme.
I gave this 3 stars before i wrote the review, but going back over what i learnt from it (i read it about 13 years ago), I realise its power and accuracy. I have not seen the film, and from the reaction of 'real' travellers i know, am glad. I will keep the book with all its flaws, because it says a lot about human beings. If you have ever travelled, read it. If you haven't, yes, travel in the far East is really that mental ;-)

As an aside, i once hitched a lift with one of Garland's mates, soon after The Beach went global. He said that most of the characters were based on real people they had both met out in Thailand and the Far East. I can well believe it. ( )

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). ( )

I've put off writing anything about this hoping that I'd be able to drag my weary disinterest through to the end of the novel...unfortunately that never occurred. Maybe it's because of having done the itinerant traveller thing, or maybe it was because the book felt too contrived, or maybe....I expected something else or something more. Whatever. This just didn't do it for me.

If you haven't backpacked through Asia, I guess this book could be an interesting read...and if you had, it might be chock-a-block full of reminisces for you and be worth a trip down memory lane. I think the been-there-done-that syndrome just had me shaking my head at implied-but-insubstantive pseudo insights and the gratuitous self-righteousness of the narrator. All in all, not quite a disappointment but nothing to really write home about. As a tourist, traveller, exile or expat. ( )

When I read Golding's 'Lord of the Flies', I was intrigued by the theme of children's survival on a desert island. Here, I find that this novel goes beyond Golding's masterpiece, as it is fit for a more modern, socially disconnected YA readership (or adult readership too), like a Melvin Burgess novel. The theme is the same, the first-person narrator makes for a deeper reading, the pace is sustained and chapters are short. For a first novel, it is actually pretty good, and, while I haven't read more books by Garland, I'll keep an eye out for his other novels. ( )

Captivating page burner. At the end of the day, it's an ex-pat slacker Lord of the Flies. I don't know that it offers much profound, but it's thoroughly engrossing, impossible to put down and I loved the narrator's voice. Have to give credit, as well, to the fact that real relationships were developed without gimmick or artifice, within the context of the story, I didn't feel as if any element was contrived. Perhaps better: Fight Club meets Lord of the Flies. I'll read another by Garland. ( )