The Beach

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So why the mediocre rating? Well, it also had some things that I don’t typically enjoy such as a lot of underlying political/social messages the author was trying to get across . . . . I was especially pleased with the narrator character, Richard. Though he does eventually do some terrible things, it's his shrewd observation, thirst for adventure, and just the right amount of cynicism and pettiness to stay entirely believable, which really makes this narrative work. However, things soon turn for the worse and the community begins to fragment. This hints that despite looking like it was a stable community it was anything but. Alex Garland nailed the writing. Rarely have I come across a character so real like Richard is a narrator. The young British dude is exactly what you'd expect him to be. He's just an average dude who isn't old or wise enough to understand everything that is happening to him, he feels a lot, but can't understand everything. He likes to think about the girl he fancies just as much as he likes to play with his Gameboy. Likely to think about himself first and also probably thinks he's a lot smarter than he actually is.

Garland prefers to avoid discussing the twists of Ex Machina – the film’s power comes from regular and unsettling contortions – but he does accept there is a lot of himself in each of the three main characters. Even in Nathan, the nutty megalomaniac styled on Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now? It just doesn't get boring. There just always is something rummaging, something happening. The chapters are short and so engaging that I caught myself multiple times thinking I would just "read one more" and then still find myself reading an hour later. It's also extremely atmospheric. I felt like I was on that beach as I was reading it. (Which gave me summer holiday cravings, unfortunately, considering summer is still a good few months away...)

Table of Contents

The Beach was the 1996 debut novel by Alex Garland, a British writer who's gone on to pen the screenplays for an impressive bunch of UK-produced science fiction films. Garland authored 28 Days Later (2003) and Sunshine (2007), adapted Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go (2010), as well as the comic book Dredd (2012), the version that was actually good. His name first materialized on screen in 2000 with The Beach and despite the dismal reception of that film -- the script for which Garland did not write -- I was very eager to read his source material. Not all of Garland’s film work has enjoyed the same success as 28 Days Later – Sunshine, Never Let Me Go and Dredd (which he adapted for screen from the comic strip) were well-received but all lost money – and each production has provided valuable lessons for Ex Machina. Mostly he has learned – personally – that he really hates having to acquiesce when he believes he’s right. And – professionally – that you are given a much longer leash if you are not beholden to a huge financial investment. “If what you’re focused on is creative freedom for that particular project, make it cheaply,” says Garland, smiling. “That or be a hotshot famous film-maker. But if you’re not that, make it cheaply.”

Later, Sal spots the American surfers on the neighboring island and angrily charges Richard with the task of watching them so he can obtain the map and destroy it. While he's waiting for the surfers to arrive -- they stay on the other island for days, much to Richard's frustration -- Françoise shows up, furious and heartbroken, saying that Sal has told everybody about her tryst with Richard. Richard cannot cope with his task and retreats into the forest, where he becomes temporarily insane, believing that he is communing with the long-dead Daffy. He evades the other islanders and sets lethal traps in an attempt to keep them at bay, at times hallucinating that he is a character in a video game. The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend among young travellers 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 rumoured, a carefully selected international few have settled in a communal Eden. Controversy arose during the making of the film due to 20th Century Fox's bulldozing and landscaping of the natural beach setting of Ko Phi Phi Le to make it more "paradise-like". The production altered some sand dunes and cleared some coconut trees and grass to widen the beach. Fox set aside a fund to reconstruct and return the beach to its natural state; however, lawsuits were filed by environmentalists who believed the damage to the ecosystem was permanent and restoration attempts had failed. [16] Following shooting of the film, there was a clear flat area at one end of the beach that was created artificially with an odd layout of trees which was never rectified, and the entire area remained damaged from the original state until the tsunami of 2004. [17] I began working as a novelist and would spend, broadly speaking, two years in a professional capacity alone,” says Garland. “And I didn’t like it. It’s lonely. I didn’t intend to be a novelist. I didn’t intend to be anything. I thought I’d be a journalist. I grew up around journalists; for whatever reasons, a lot of my dad’s friends were foreign correspondents. I kind of thought that would be my job; hoped it would be my job. But I found writing nonfiction terribly difficult and felt comfortable with fiction. Then I discovered – I felt unreasonably – that I’d turned into a novelist and I thought: when did I sign up for this?” Staffan Kihlbom, Jukka Hiltunen, and Magnus Lindgren as Christo, Karl, and Sten, the beach community's Swedish fishermen.

Two devices I particularly enjoyed were the passage of time (which pretty much flies by for us and the characters in such a way that you don't even notice it is) and the way Garland gives the reader small breaks from the island by delving into memories of sweet childhood. Very nicely done. During his travels, he discovers a map which leads to a beach he visits with a French couple. There they find a group of fellow travellers living in a self-supporting community. 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, like Keaty, a fellow Englishman hooked on his Game Boy; Unhygienix, the Italian head chef obsessed with soap; Jesse and Cassie, two lovers; and Jed, the loner of the group. Sal has assigned Jed to be the island's guardian: He watches the sea and shores of neighboring islands for any signs of people attempting to discover the beach. Jed also has a sideline of stealing cannabis from the Thai farmers' side of the island. After the film premiered in Thailand in 2000, some Thai politicians were upset at the way Thailand was depicted in the film and called for it to be banned. The depiction of the drug culture was said to give Thailand a bad image and having a statue of Buddha in a bar was cited as " blasphemous". [21] Possible spin-off [ edit ]