The Beach (novel)
First edition
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| Author | Alex Garland |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Viking |
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Publication date
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14 October 1996 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages | 439 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 59624863 |
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. It was influenced by such literary works as Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies, and the anonymous memoirs of an escaped Australian prisoner.
In 2000, it was adapted into a film directed by Danny Boyle and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In 2003, the novel was listed on the BBC's survey The Big Read.
In a cheap hotel on the Khao San Road in Bangkok, Richard, a young English backpacker, meets a mentally disturbed Scotsman going by the alias of Daffy Duck who gives him a hand-drawn map, with directions to a beautiful island with a hidden lagoon and beach, located in the Gulf of Thailand and inaccessible to tourists. Shortly after receiving the map, Richard discovers that Daffy has committed suicide. Wanting company in his search, Richard befriends a travelling French couple, Étienne and Françoise, and the trio sets out to find what they hope might be an untouched paradise.
On their way to the island, Richard gives a copy of the map to Sammy and Zeph, two American Harvard students he meets on Koh Samui. When the three finally reach the hidden beach — after bribing a local boat pilot, swimming from an adjacent island, discovering a cannabis plantation in the jungle and avoiding the armed owners, and eventually jumping over a waterfall — they discover a group of around 30 backpackers that have largely shut off the outside world to live a slow-paced 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 there in 1989. They live in a village of hand-built wooden huts and tents, located near a large and beautiful beach and lagoon that is encircled by cliffs and connected to the sea by underwater caves.
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