The Beach
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Jerrett Taylor, Avid, and smellyknee.
Book Details
Written by Alex Garland.
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($15.00)
Editorial Review (from Amazon.com)
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 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 is a look at 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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Lin Snow thinks this book is Excellent.
I flew through this book in 2 days! It made what could've been an awful rainy weekend quite enjoyable.
Garland is a very good writer, and The Beach is very intense. Unlike a lot of "popular" novels, however, the narrative lends itself to a deeper understanding, and is full of rich imagery.
Action sequences are real page-turners and for the first time in a long time (since the horror novels I read in highschool), I found my heart pounding and my fingers itching to flip to the next page. Certain parts really appealed to some of my phobias and had my skin itching. Well done, Garland!
I have to admit that I enjoyed the flawed main character, Richard. His actions were shocking at times, but as he was a very well developed character, they meshed perfectly with his motives. Supporting characters were also very likable and very human. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Garland modeled them after his real-life friends.
I enjoyed the pop-culture references, especially the ones that mentioned videogames. The novel is definitely aimed at people who are very familiar with the 90's!
Thailand is painted beautifully here and it makes me excited to travel there next year! The book does not spend pages on description, but the information that is given hits hard and is memorable. I was sure I was going to wake up one morning on that beach!
An outstanding novel that has jumped onto my favourites list and I will be hunting down more by Garland. Bravo!