Beach, The MP3 CD – MP3 Audio, August 11, 2015

I imagine the elevator speech for this book being, “’Lord of the Flies’ done Paul Theroux style.” While that may or may not sound appealing, this is one of the most gripping novels I’ve read recently.“The Beach” will have its greatest appeal with travelers because understanding the mindset of a traveler versus that of a tourist (vagabonds versus regular folk, if you prefer) is essential to being able to feel the realism in the behavior of the book’s characters. (If you don’t know the difference between a traveler and a tourist, it’s safe to say that you are a regular person who travels as a tourist.) Like “Moby Dick”, this is a book about all consuming obsession, but the obsession is in finding and protecting the traveler’s paradise. (Such a paradise is partially defined by a complete lack of tourists.) Unlike “Moby Dick”, “The Beach” isn’t rambling, and it maintains tension throughout.The story beings on Khao San Road in Bangkok, a familiar haunt for backpackers and other low budget world travelers. The protagonist, Richard, has just gotten in to Bangkok and checks into a hostel. Rooming next to Richard is a Scottish man named “Daffy” who seems to be a complete lunatic and who keeps talking aloud to himself about a “beach.” Owing to the accent, Richard first thinks Daffy is talking about a “bitch,” but soon realizes the man’s obsession is with a patch of sand. Richard has a brief and unusual interaction with Daffy, who throws a lit joint onto Richard’s bed. In the morning, Richard finds a meticulously hand drawn map on his door with “the Beach” prominently labeled. When he goes to see why the crazy stranger left it for him; he knocks on Daffy’s ajar door to find the man has committed suicide.The beach is on one of the small islands that are kept off-limits as part of the Thai National Parks system. Richard teams up with a French couple who was also staying next to him. While Richard had heard their amorous sounds through the thin walls on the night he met Daffy, he didn’t meet the couple until they were all called in to talk to the police about Daffy’s suicide. For some reason Richard is unwilling to tell the police about the map, but he does tell the Frenchman. The map leads them to the island. It isn’t easy to get to. Once on the island, they discover they must get through a grove of marijuana guarded by heavily armed locals to get to the fabled beach.It turns out a small community of travelers has already set up on the idyllic beach. As with any group, some people get along well and others rub each other the wrong way. We get the best insight into those individuals who become the friends and enemies of Richard, and many of the others are the novel equivalent of movie extras. At first, all is well on the island. Richard and the French couple have to do work a few hours a day on the fishing detail, but otherwise they are living in their Eden. However, as things begin to go wrong—and they do go frightfully wrong—Richard and others begin to be confronted by the question of what they are willing to do to protect the Beach, and how will their personal moralities be twisted in the process.Garland uses a couple of interesting techniques in the book. First, Richard is plagued by dreams featuring Daffy, and later--as the burden of secrets to which he is party piles up—he begins to have hallucinations of Daffy during the day. In both cases, it seems that the dreams and hallucinations are an attempt to help him work out the mysteries of the Beach. No one on the island will tell him about Daffy, and he is desperate to know what drove the man mad—or whether he was always like that. There’s one character, Jed, who goes off every day and no one seems to know where he goes or what he does. Eventually, Richard comes to be in on some of these secrets (e.g. becoming Jed’s partner), and the burden of knowledge doesn’t improve his state of mind. In the end, Richard seems to realize that he is the new Daffy, and what drove Daffy into madness will surely do the same for him if he doesn’t get off the island.Second, Garland uses what—for lack of a better term—might be called foreshadowing. However, it’s not so much a matter of subtle hints as a bold statements such as [paraphrasing], “It’s too bad _________ would die, especially in the way he did.” This should have seemed ham-handed, but there’s always enough mystery about what will come next that the these tips were like lighter fluid to intensify one’s reading so one could find out what would happen next and how.I whole-heartedly recommend this novel, and think it’s one of the best pieces of travel-oriented writing that I’ve read. It’s a page-turn from beginning to end.

The Beach focuses on the main character of Richard, who finds a map to a hidden beach paradise while traveling in Thailand. After becoming friends with two other travelers, they set out on an adventure to find this beach. After discovering the seemingly "Edenic paradise" on a island in a Thai National Park, Richard soon finds that it's not as much as a paradise as he first thought. He comes to learn that sometimes civilized behavior tends to break down in a situation such as this, cut off from modern society, that the utopia that the founders tried to create here is harder to maintain then he originally believed.Now first I have to say that besides being a very avid reader, I also love movies. The Beach is one of my favorite movies and for some reason I was unaware that it was of course based on a book. I have seen the movie probably 20 times, so I was afraid that might ruin the book for me. However, I was very wrong. First, like a lot of book to movie adaptations, the movie is much different from the book, the plot line is not the same, huge scenes are left out or changed and a great deal of detail is missing in the movie. Second, I have to say that although I was impressed by Garland's writing, I imagine that not everyone would enjoy this book. Garland has a unique writing style and it is also very descriptive. Even if you have never seen the movie, the way he paints the picture of the beach and lagoon is amazing. I feel like I can see the whole layout of the island. There are part of this book that are quite violent and Garland's writing made them stand out to me that much more.Richard is the only character that I feel like I really got to know, although we do learn a lot about the other characters involved, there are so many people interacting with Richard on a daily basis. It would have been difficult for the author to describe each one of them in as much detail as Richard. The book is told from Richard's point of view and starts off when he arrives in Thailand before ever meeting Daffy or acquiring the map to the beach. The "feel" of the writing, is that Richard is writing this story a year or two after is happened, but then some chapters sounds more present tense. I don't really know how to explain it, but it worked really well. The book is also broken down into both sections and then chapters within those sections.Overall, I really enjoyed this book; it's a lot different then what I have been reading lately. If you have seen the movie, the book is not only a lot different, but I also enjoyed it a lot more. The things the movie left out, make the book. The way it ends was absolutely perfect after the events leading up to the "climax". It is most certainly a book I would recommend to anyone looking for something a bit different, happy reading!

I, like most other people in their early twenties when this book was published in 1996, read this when it first came out and was spellbound by it. It was a book like nothing else around at the time; Lord of the Flies for the MTV generation. It was one of those books that just captured the zeitgeist of that moment and, as a result, was a debut publishing phenomenon.I, personally, was particularly obsessed with it because I was entranced by the idea of just taking off on a backpacking adventure. At this point, I was in the midst of the hard graft of my two year training contract that aspiring lawyers needed to complete to qualify as a solicitor. This involved working long hours and studying for exams at the same time, so daydreaming about laying back on a perfect tropical beach, living some self-sufficient fantasy, was the perfect antidote to this grind for the few minutes I managed to allow myself each day to engage in such escapist nonsense. This was never going to happen for me and, by the end of this book, I was fairly glad of that.Hollywood made this into a not-entirely-terrible film starring the entirely un-terrible Leonardo DiCaprio but, whilst the film was okay in and of itself, it was fairly disappointing interpretation for the novel’s diehard fans. If all you know of this book comes from watching the film, you need to approach the novel version with this parental advisory ringing in your ears – the book is much, much darker. This being said, don’t let it put you off because the book is also much, much better.I thought Leo did a reasonable job of carrying over some of the darkness that dwells within Richard’s soul into the film, but the cartoonish nature of the scenes in the jungle distract from this a bit. Unfortunately, its inevitable that a book which relies so heavily on the internal thought processes of the main character to fully round out the plot is going to struggle somewhat in translation, so we can’t entirely condemn Danny Boyle, I think he did the best he could given those limitations. But the book will give you an entirely different perspective on Richard’s nature, and the behaviour of the other travellers in the camp. And the romance with Francoise? Forget it- fabricated by the scriptwriters to please the vagaries of Hollywood moguls. Plus they changed the ending, and not for the better but, once you read the book, you’ll probably understand why this was necessary.So, coming back to this book 24 years after my first reading of it (I have read it a couple of times inbetween), how has it faired, given that both I and the world have changed beyond recognition in the interim? Did it still move me in the same way as it did in my youth?No, of course not. Whenever we read books from our youth later in life, we inevitably react to them differently, influenced by the life experiences we have had inbetween. However, it did still move me. I just drew different things from it this time around. And, despite the fact I have read this book half a dozen times, and watched the movie four or five times too, the book still retains the power to shock and thrill me, even though I know everything that is going to happen. This is the power of great writing. It can survive the decades, survive the moving on of the world, of technology, of our own characters, and still find ways to excite and challenge us, new ways that hadn’t occurred to us previously and which keep the reading experience fresh and interesting, as well as being comforting and familiar at the same time.I would be very interested to see what a reader in their twenties now, who grew up in a world that has moved on from the one Alex Garland was writing about back in 1996, makes of this book and if it resonates in any way with them. Someone who does not have the same emotional attachment and desire to tap in to the vestige of their youth that is tied up in this book for me. Any volunteers? The fact that this book remains in print, and was given an updated cover and new release for its twentieth anniversary, would indicate that new readers are still finding that this novel speaks to them in some way.

I first read this when it first came out in paperback, and like most people I saw the film as well, so it was good to re-read this book so many years later. For those of us who are of the Generation X this is our novel, and so for younger readers there are things mentioned here, such as music and gadgets that some will not have heard of or heard of but never seen. This thus sets this novel squarely in a place and particular time, which as the years have gone by becomes a little more important.Narrated by Richard, who is backpacking and is in Thailand, so it starts with the person staying in the room next to his at a hostel. The man, known as Daffy, offers Richard a joint and then in the morning leaves a map for him of what should be a sort of Eden, whilst taking his own life. Richard, sharing this map with a French couple thus try to find the beach, that is hard to get to and not legally supposedly accessible for them to stay. We then read of their journey, and the problems they have on the way to find this supposedly idyllic place. As the three arrive on the beach on an isolated island so they find there is a small community there, and the area is shared with drug growers, but both sides leave each other alone and seem to live quietly, with the small community just taking a few leaves of the crop for personal use.Living then in what seems to be a utopia so this story is told by Richard as he looks back on what happened. We read of some frictions, making friends, and enemies, and what daily life is like for these people who have cut themselves off from the rest of society, except for occasional forays to get rice and other supplies. We thus have here as we read something of a modern Lord of the Flies, but there are other themes coming through. We all know what it is like nowadays, by the time you have heard of a nice tourist spot so many are already there that you do not want to go, that is unless you were one of the earliest visitors. This book then makes you think about what you should do, because the place has remained relatively secret, apart from a few overhearing directions, and of course Daffy giving out a map, which Richard then himself manages to do.Surprisingly with young men and women, drugs and homemade alcohol there is not that much sex mentioned here, but then this concentrates on what happens to our narrator, who never really sees that it is his boredom and destructive tendencies that leads to his madness and causes what happens next, along with power plays by others. Intelligently written and giving one pause for thought this still then makes for a good read.

Richard is a very young man, an experienced traveller. It’s only recently, aged 17 that he added India to his list of backpacking achievements. He’s a capable lad; can find his way round a boat’s outboard motor, can hold his breath while he swims ninety feet through a flooded cave, can put into practice tricks he’s seen in tv cop dramas, and he's addicted to Gameboy. In THE BEACH by ALEX GARLAND, the reader finds him in early 1990s Bangkok arriving at a guest house in the Khao San Road. Richard is cocky, an inveterate smartarse, and as the reader soon discovers, he’s a sociopath. He has a dependence upon excitement, drama, and danger, and he’s about to satisfy that need with alarming amounts of all three.At the guest house he meets Mr Duck (Daffy), a noisy pest who is occupying the formica-lined sleeping cell next to Richard’s. In the morning, Richard finds a mysterious map pinned to his door from Mr Duck, but when he goes to Duck’s room to find out more, he discovers Duck dead with his wrists slashed. The map gives instructions on how to reach a tiny island where there is a small self-sufficient community living by a hidden lagoon. Richard feels compelled to get there, and shares the secret with two French travellers, also staying at the guesthouse. But it won’t be easy, it’s one island further than all the other inhabited islands, and it’s strictly forbidden to go there, so they’re on their own.Not having seen the film of the same title, I had no idea what to expect, other than to say I expected something more superficial. The blurb with its emphasis on ‘drug-fuelled’ exploits, and comparison with the heavily anthropologically-themed Lord of the Flies – though not disingenuous - seem a trifle misleading. For me, this is a novel which very effectively explores topics of secrecy, leadership, loyalty, and governance, deeply undercut with a comment about colonialism. My only criticism is that - and this is only my view, others may see it differently - the writing style reads more like a maquette for the making of a film, rather than a stand-alone piece of literature.Richard is not only the main character, he’s also easily the most clearly-defined. What I mean by that is that once he joins the secret community, he's not merely an observer, he becomes a dominant character, and though not often confrontational he's manipulative. That's unusual for the narrator of a novel to be so (viz The Great Gatsby, Dance to the Music of Time etc...) Don’t be put off – as I almost was – by the feebly drawn characters early in the narrative; Etienne comes over as no more than ‘the Brit’s’ idea of a token Frenchman, and similarly his rather sourpuss, hole-in-the-air girlfriend Francoise. When the three of them actually reach the beach and join ‘the camp’ – as it’s referred to - the cast is numerous. It is as follows; Bugs, Cassie, Christo, Daffy, Ella, Gregorio, Jed, Jean, Jesse, Karl, Keaty, Leah, Moshe, Sten, the Yugoslavian girls x 2, and Unhygienix the cook. They are led - one hundred percent autocratically - by the plump but charismatic Sal, who can smell out a lie, or clock it in a person’s body language. There’s Bugs (Bunny – yes, Daffy and Bugs, twee but sinister), Sal’s ‘man’ and a person preoccupied with the pursuit of the machismo. I include Daffy Duck because, though dead, he is ever present to Richard as a ghostly spectre, eventually threatening the destruction of the community.With so many characters on board it’s interesting that Garland only once uses the 1st person plural, and that coincides with the point at which the problems - which eventually overwhelm the community - begin. For the most part the narrative is in the 1st person singular, but I was also interested to see the use of – in almost Muriel Spark like style – the author telling the reader what the fate of such-n-such a character is, and only then showing how. Unusual. The evolution of writing style caught me by surprise, it starts off in social realism, but as it progresses, there are pockets of magic realism – such as the way the lagoon and camp community are geographically – and sometimes unaccountably dislocated from the rest of the island. And when the dead Daffy Duck starts making appearances – eventually in full camouflage battledress and carrying a rifle – the reader is drawn into the realm of the paranormal.The beach community may at first seem like Eden, but soon it begins to unravel, and Richard must decide if and when he is to escape, and who he takes with him.

Seeing that it was the 25th anniversary made me realise that I have failed to visit the stunning Location in all that time. Maybe I’ve missed the boat on that one, but this is still an amazing read after all that time. I still have the book in paperback, however added this to my digital collection.I remember reading this in my youth and I was gripped, and couldn’t put the book down. I was of course sorely disappointed when the movie come along as it wasn’t very good at all. But of course it’s rare that a movie can emulate its book. Hopefully the movie didn’t put to many people off from reading this amazing book.One line that will be lost on the world of today is “I don’t travel with a camera … My holiday becomes the snapshots and anything I forget to record is lost.“ In todays society where the world is seen through the lens of a smartphone, I doubt very much a single tourist leaves without a photo. I wonder what the modern society would make of ‘The Beach’, my son is only a few years off from the age I was when I read the book, and would be I treating to see if it gripped him like it did me back then. However that would require him to actual put his smartphone down from some nonsense TikTok video or his Xbox controller, and actually do something different. If that ever happens maybe I’ll come back and update the review.

This is one of those books i have been meaning to read for an age (since I watched the movie, all those moons back) and just never seemed to get round to it. Well I may have took my time, but it was worth the wait!There has been, as often is, a few changes the movie made in comparison to that of the book. I can see why, as sometimes it's just not as easy to put words to screen and create the same feeling as that imagery in one's own imagination. Though I say I can understand the changes, from a movie point of view, I am glad I got to see this version and have to say I prefer it.I would recommend this book to any lover of books, regardless of preferred genre!