The irresistible novel that was adapted into a major motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio.The Khao San Road, Bangkok — first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard’s first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveler slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to “the Beach.” The Beach, as Richard has … The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend among young travelers in Asia: a lagoon hidden from the sea, with white sand and coral gardens, freshwater falls surrounded by jungle, plants untouched for a thousand years. There, it is rumored, a carefully selected international few have settled in a communal Eden.
Haunted by the figure of Mr. Duck — the name by which the Thai police have identified the dead man — and his own obsession with Vietnam movies, Richard sets off with a young French couple to an island hidden away in an archipelago forbidden to tourists. They discover the Beach, and it is as beautiful and idyllic as it is reputed to be. Yet over time it becomes clear that Beach culture, as Richard calls it, has troubling, even deadly, undercurrents.
Spellbinding and hallucinogenic, The Beach by Alex Garland — both a national bestseller and his debut — is a highly accomplished and suspenseful novel that fixates on a generation in their twenties, who, burdened with the legacy of the preceding generation and saturated by popular culture, long for an unruined landscape, but find it difficult to experience the world firsthand.
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This was at once a suspenseful, surreal, creepy, and in the end, horrifying read. It also made me miss Thailand and travelling dreadfully. I was most struck by the masterful way in which Garland rendered his characters, and especially the psychological make up of the protagonist, Richard. A highly recommended read for those who love travel fiction and are familiar with the backpacker scene in Asia.
Kept me thinking and wondering all of the way through.
It’s kind of awful.
Already reviewed it after reading it.
cerebral, analytical, creepy emotional and mental interactions between characters, strange read but written in a setting that was interesting with its private island beach set up for strangers’ social experiment living together. This seems to be written about people who are so unsettled they need to keep moving in the world until they gravitate away from the familiar toward the uncomfortable, away from their past normal to something almost bazaar. I almost put the book down but there was enough in it for me to want to see how it would end.
Great character development with twist galore.
A good book to read when you want to escape your life.
Unusual.
Very improbable, gory, read!
This novel opens with our main character – Richard – visiting Bangkok, Thailand. While staying in a seedy motel, Richard is next door to a guy who kills himself his first night there. Richard wakes up to discover the man dead, and a map left to him titled “The Beach”. Richard talks to a young French couple who were also staying at the hotel, and tells them about the map. The three of them decide they are going to try and get to this Beach- which is legend among Asian travelers.
When they arrive, The Beach is everything they thought it would be- a hidden gem away from the tourist who flock to Thailand’s main islands. They find others who have lived there for years – hidden from the world. Richard and the two French travelers are taken in by the existing group and allowed to stay.
Richard soon discovers that The Beach and its inhabitants are not what they seem. It is becoming clearer why the guy who gave Richard the map killed himself. Richard soon discovers that there is too much danger in staying on the island for much longer, and plans a way to escape.
This book was fine. It has its highs and lows. It is an easy read, but not all that exciting. Well – I take that back – it SEEMED like it was going to be exciting. That there was going to be some big mystery about the beach and the people who lived there. But it never really lived up to my expectations. The ending was a let down. The characters were not overly developed. The plot is kind of all over the place. I was hoping for better – more suspense.
This is a no-frills look at the less sunny side of travel and adventure. It’s realistic and visceral and frustrating. The juxtaposition of this doomed, annoyingly free-spirited community against the beauty of Thailand is intriguing. Personally, I love to travel, but can think of nothing that would annoy me more than hanging out with the characters in this book. It’s an undeniable page-turner from an absolute legend of an author and is well worth a look. There aren’t really enough of these gritty contemporary travel-adventure books out there.