The Beach is a 1996 novel by English author Alex Garland. Set in Thailand, it is the story of a young backpacker's search for a legendary, idyllic and isolated beach untouched by tourism, and his time there in its small, international community of backpackers.
Richard, an English backpacker, is given a map to a hidden island beach by a mentally ill Scot going by the alias of Daffy Duck at a hotel in Bangkok. Daffy tells Richard about the beautiful island with a hidden lagoon and beach, located in the Gulf of Thailand, and shortly after leaving him the map, Daffy commits suicide. Richard is intrigued and, with travelling French couple Étienne and Françoise, set out to try to find the beach. En route, Richard gives a copy of the map to Sammy and Zeph, two Americans he meets on Koh Samui.
When the three finally reach the hidden beach - bypassing the island's cannabis field on the way - they discover a group of approximately 30 backpackers who have shut off the outside world to live a slow-paced, largely self-sufficient life of leisure under the de facto leadership of an American woman called Sal and her South African lover Bugs who, along with Daffy, founded the community. Initially suspicious of the newcomers, the group accepts the trio when they explain about Daffy's map and his death back on the mainland.
For several months, Richard finds life on the island idyllic, fishing in the mornings and relaxing the rest of the time. He befriends a few other members of the community including fellow Englishmen Keaty, from London, and Jed, the loner of the group and the island's assigned guardian.
Things start to unravel when an unfortunate food poisoning incident leads to a divide in the group, and the Swedish fishing detail is attacked by a shark: Sten succumbs to his injuries, Karl suffers severe emotional trauma, and Christo is initially missing but found by Richard. Seriously wounded internally from the shark attack, Christo is tended to by Jed, leaving Richard as lone sentry.
Spending long hours alone in the forest as he hikes between lookout spots, Richard begins to experience hallucinations in which Daffy appears, and they converse and patrol together. Richard comes to understand why Daffy killed himself, and why Daffy gave him the map and spread rumours about the beach.
Zeph, Sammy and some German backpackers make their way to the island via makeshift raft; however, they are discovered and killed by the cannabis farmers.
When Sal obliquely asks Richard to kill the seemingly now-insane Karl because of the threat he poses to the group's now-fragile social integrity (who is soon discovered to have taken the group's only boat and escaped), Richard convinces Étienne, Françoise, Jed, and a paranoid Keaty to leave the beach for good, spiking the food for the Tet celebration to allow them time to escape. This plan is disrupted when the armed cannabis farmers arrive, beating up Richard for the map and leaving the backpackers' bloodied corpses as a warning. At the sight of this, the extremely intoxicated group experiences a collective mental breakdown, ripping the corpses apart in a frenzy then attacking Richard. He is saved by Françoise, Étienne, Keaty, and Jed armed with fishing spears, and they successfully make their planned escape on the raft.
In the epilogue, it is revealed that the five friends got away and split up when they reached the mainland. Richard still maintains contact with Keaty and Jed. Richard wonders whether anyone else got off the island, particularly Unhygienix, whom he liked, and finishes by saying he is content with his life, although he carries a lot of scars: "I like the way that sounds. I carry a lot of scars".
Characters
Main characters
Richard – a young English traveller and the main narrator of the novel.
Daffy (Mister Duck) – A Scottish traveller and one of the three original founders of the beach; appears as a mental apparition in Richard's consciousness in the later parts of the novel after his suicide.
Étienne and Françoise – both French; two young lovers who befriended Richard during their initial encounter in Bangkok, and subsequently join him in searching for the beach after Richard shows them the map.
Keaty – English; becomes close friends with Richard, and shares a Game Boy addiction. Invited by Sal and Bugs to the beach after they enjoy going on a jungle trek with him over the Burmese border.
Jed – English; becomes close friends with Richard, and is the island's watchman. Turned up on the beach without a personal invitation, having overheard a rumor of the island while traveling in Vientiane. Daffy is the sole person in the community completely against his uninvited arrival.
Sal – American; one of the three original founders of the beach, and the unofficial leader of the community.
Other characters
Zeph and Sammy – The two stoner Americans to whom Richard leaves a copy of the map to the beach.
Bugs – South African; Sal's boyfriend, one of the three original founders of the beach, and the community's head carpenter; has a mutual dislike with Richard.
Gregorio – Spanish; member of Richard's fishing detail. Invited by Daffy to the beach after a robbing incident in Sumatra.
Unhygienix – Italian; the community's head chef and is friends with Richard. Invited by Bugs to the beach after cooking him an excellent meal in Srinagar.
Ella – Works in the cooking detail next to Unhygienix. Invited by Sal to the beach after bonding over a backgammon game whilst on an eighteen-hour bus ride together.
Jean – French; leader of the gardening detail. Invited by Bugs to the beach after working together picking grapes from a vineyard in Blenheim.
Cassie – English; girlfriend of Jesse; works with Bugs in the carpentry detail.
Jesse – New Zealander; boyfriend of Cassie, and works with Jean in the gardening detail.
Moshe – Israeli; head of the second fishing detail. Invited by Daffy to the beach after catching a street thief attempting to steal his backpack in Manila.
The Yugoslavian Girls – Two unnamed females from Sarajevo in which Richard comments their names are hard to spell out or even pronounce, and are thus dubbed as the Yugo Girls. He gets the impression that they are haughty and aloof, and never gets to know them very well. They work with Moshe exclusively in the second fishing detail, as Sal regrets inviting them to the beach seeing as they aren't capable of doing anything else.
Karl, Sten, and Christo (The Swedes) – all Swedish; Considered the best fishing detail since only they are comfortable with swimming through the submerged caves to fish in the open water. Only Sten is fluent in English, with Christo having fair knowledge, and Karl knowing only a few words. Like Jed, the Swedes arrived uninvited, as they learned of the beach's existence after overhearing Sal discussing with Jean about the island during a Rice Run.
The cannabis farmers – A small group of Thai farmers armed with assault rifles, who live in and maintain a large illegal cannabis field on the far side of the island, presumably exporting it to the mainland for sale. They've been on the island longer than the backpackers, but Sal, Daffy and Bugs came to an agreement with them early in the community's history. Part of Jed's and later Richard's job is to periodically sneak into their field and steal cannabis off the plants for the village's supply. When Richard is assigned to watch duty alone, he takes to stalking the guards through the jungle simply for the thrill.
Influences
Although set in Thailand, Garland wrote the book while living in the Philippines and, in particular, was inspired by similar geography on the island of Palawan.[2]
Reception
Novelist Nick Hornby referred to The Beach as "a Lord of the Flies for Generation X", and the Sunday Oregonian called it "Generation X's first great novel". The Washington Post wrote that it is "a furiously intelligent first novel" and "a book that moves with the kind of speed and grace many older writers can only day-dream about."[3]Publishers Weekly wrote that "Garland is a good storyteller, though, and Richard's nicotine-fueled narrative of how the denizens of the beach see their community shatter and break into factions is taut with suspense, even if the bloody conclusion offers few surprises".[4]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
