The Beach

The realistic travel scenes blended with the creeping horror of isolation makes The Beach compelling, although the intensely early-twenties-ness of the story can be annoying at times.

In the beginning of the novel, the backpackers aren’t likable or unlikable, good or bad, as much as they felt familiar. Backpackers staying in hostels with no privacy, as they try to experience Authentic Wherever, knowing they can pay a couple bucks in bribe/fines to get out of any trouble they find, ready to find something no one else in their gap-year circle has seen. When they first hear about the unspoiled beach, far from tourist hordes or Thai residents, it seems perfect, and come on, could you receive a map to paradise without at least checking it out?

The story is told by the older version of this adventure-seeker,  relating his past Thailand experiences with a pragmatic, direct tone. He’s sometimes emotionlessly practical, in almost a Convenience Store Woman kind of way, especially as the story turns darker, and at other times, he’s disconnected from the actual events on the island, seamlessly imagining himself in Heart of Darkness or a survival videogame. There’s a heavy secrecy around the beach and what individuals do for the beach community, blending a reasonable worry that their lovely spot will be spoiled by too many visitors with a creeping sense that the residents will do anything necessary to keep it secret at any cost.  

As the story grows to the somewhat disturbing climax, the residents of the beach started to feel familiar, probably partly because I’ve spent a certain amount of time in expat bars, where’s always a guy talking about the amazingly authentic no-tourists-allowed place he’s just visited. Even in a secluded Eden, some people are kind of bad at their jobs, some people are good friends, and some people are jerks. The kind of guy who’ll claim credit for a successful client meeting will also claim he found the new papaya grove, ugh. The believable characters made the shocking resolutions darker.

There were more than a few times I rolled my eyes at the very early-twenties of it all (which is part of the story — our narrator is looking back on his younger self) but overall, the story about the freedom to travel and the horror of isolation was exactly what I wanted to read in yet another month of covid quar.