The Beach
by:
Alex Garland (author)
In our ever-shrinking world, where popular Western culture seems to have infected every nation on the planet, it is hard to find even a small niche of unspoiled land--forget searching for pristine islands or continents. This is the situation in Alex Garland's debut novel, The Beach. Human...
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In our ever-shrinking world, where popular Western culture seems to have infected every nation on the planet, it is hard to find even a small niche of unspoiled land--forget searching for pristine islands or continents. This is the situation in Alex Garland's debut novel, The Beach. Human progress has reduced Eden to a secret little beach near Thailand. In the tradition of grand adventure novels, Richard, a rootless traveller rambling around Thailand on his way somewhere else, is given a hand-drawn map by a madman who calls himself Daffy Duck. He and two French travellers set out on a journey to find this paradise. What makes this a truly satisfying novel is the number of levels on which it operates. On the surface it's a fast-paced adventure novel; at another level it explores why we search for these utopias, be they mysterious lost continents or small island communes. Garland weaves a gripping and thought-provoking narrative that suggests we are, in fact, such products of our Western culture that we cannot help but pollute and ultimately destroy the very sanctuary we seek. --Amazon.com
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Format: hardcover
ISBN:
9781573220484 (1573220485)
Publish date: February 10th 1997
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Pages no: 371
Edition language: English
Category:
Adventure,
Novels,
Travel,
Literature,
European Literature,
British Literature,
Cultural,
Literary Fiction,
Mystery,
Contemporary,
Asia,
Thriller
For me “The Beach” does not fall into any specific genre. I think it is part philosophy, horror, thriller and adventure story. It is also funny as hell. Richard and his friends find a secluded beach in Thailand with a community of hippies. Richard is a young backpacker on vacation when he finds ...
Disappointingly over-rated. The Tesseract was a far better piece of writing.
Sort of wish I hadn't seen the movie before reading the book; I think I would've liked the book more than I did had that been the case.
"I have fallen out of the habit of writing reviews for the books that I've been reading but upon completing The Beach, I felt compelled to share with others how great a book it is.I could not put this book down. It was gripping from beginning to end. I loved how despite Richard's worsening mental...