The Beach (book)
I mean, I like the place, too. Being near water is ideal. Sand is pretty cool. I like waves. But. That's not what this entry is about.
The Beach, written by Alex Garland, is my favorite book. It is the novel I recommend most to people looking for something to read.
It's...I don't know, like, suspense, adventure? It's a mindfuck at times, sooo, a psychological thriller? Travel fiction?
So it's about this British dude going to this island in Thailand with a sexy French couple. And there's this little beach community doing it's thing, living all peacefully and commune-like on this perfect little beach, hidden from the sea by a cove, rock wall formation or whatever. There's friendships between our hero, Richard and the many multi-cultural, colorful travelers. Readers glimpse just the tiniest hint of romance (shockingly, no sex scenes whatsoever). We get a description of the little village that makes any sane person desperately want to go to this place off the coast of Ko Phangan. The chacters are so original and believable and I want to live with them in a little hut eating rice and fish forever.
The other half of their island is inhabited by Thai gardeners. Gardeners who garden huge amounts of marijuana and might really want to shoot all the beach dwellers. Enter, suspense. The ending literally creates physical anxiety for me. It is truly, truly intense.
It makes me think of Lord of the Flies a little bit but with twenty-somethings. In Asia.
Our main character is reasonably likable, in a way, but so fuckin' real, so true. A sort-of asshole who we imagine being handsome and self-centered...maybe like a guy you've dated. I think he's also pretty much bat shit crazy. In one scene, he is speaking to the man he frequently hallucinates after extreme stress (stress caused by his new assignment, spying on some uninvited travellers making their way towards the "secret" beach and planning how to stop them).
"It's broad daylight, Mister Duck!" I said it angrily because I felt obscurely insulted by the brazen nature of his apparition.
"Broad daylight," he'd replied evenly, "is what it is."
I paused. "...I'm not dreaming."
"True."
"Then I'm going insane."
"Do you want an honest answer?"
"Yes."
He shrugged. "I'd only queary the tense. But I'm not a professional, so, you know, seek out a second opinion."
I fucking love that conversation.
Books like this are called "page turners". You will probably want to read it in one sitting, all 430 pages. I personally have read it no less than twenty times, without exaggeration. There are references to Vietnam, and clever chapter titles, and inner monologue that is both unexpected and entirely relatable.
Alex Garland has written some other pretty wicked shit, and he certainly will get his own entry one day because I am, in fact, obsessed with him.
But this novel. Oh my god, The Beach. Ahhhh I love it so much. Seriously, I am obsessed with this book.