The Beach - Reviews

From Amazon.co.uk

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.co.uk Review

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.

Synopsis

Richard is drawn into a strange conversation in a hotel. He hears of a secret island Garden of Eden hidden in the scattered islands of a Thai marine park. Next morning, he finds a map pinned to his door and the man who put it there has slashed his wrists. The challenge is irresistible and he sets off on a perilous journey in search of Shangri-La.

From the Publisher

PRAISE FOR THE BEACH

‘THE BEACH is fresh, fast-paced, compulsive and clever – a LORD OF THE FLIES for the Generation X. It has all the makings of a cult classic.’ Nick Hornby

‘An impressive new writer has arrived.’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘LORD OF THE FLIES and THE MAGUS lurk at the roots of this novel, but Garland reshapes them with panache into something terrifyingly new.’ MAIL ON SUNDAY

‘Alex Garland is writing a brand new kind of adventure novel. His style is dangerously simple yet altogether captivating.’ Douglas Rushkoff

‘The storyline is winningly compulsive, the writing deceptively simple in this, frankly, brilliantly conceived first novel.’ Q Magazine

‘A gripping adventure and also fascinating jigsaw…Cleanly written, strongly driven, this is a terrific debut.’ THE TIMES

‘A highly confident debut…this incisive novel may well come to be regarded as a defining text in the history of imaginative travel writing.’ DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘An exceptional first novel…An action novel that provokes subtle responses, THE BEACH takes in ideas about man’s inevitable progress from noble savage to social breakdown (and) the related tradition of nature versus art.’ TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

‘A literary adrenalin rush…What Irvine Welsh did for the modern junkie, Alex Garland is about to do for the modern junkie, Alex Garland is about to do for thousands of young adventurers.’ PUNCH

‘Garland has written a powerful and frighteningly believable novel.’ COMPANY

‘Precise and speedy prose, with good old-fashioned romantic adventure spiced up with deadpan authorial irony.’ THE GUARDIAN

‘Brutal but compelling stuff…Pick this up and you won’t be able to put it down.’ MAXIM