![]() ![]() When reality arrives, he escapes, and when he cannot escape physically, he escapes by dividing part of himself into the apparition of the dead stranger, Mister Duck. He causes events to happen just to see what the reactions of the people around him. Richard's character lacks depth and emotion. He does not want to assume responsibility for anything that he does. His purpose in life is to satisfy his own urges to smoke cigarettes, marijuana, play video games and see interesting and exciting things. Richard goes through life as a curious observer without regard to anyone's feelings but his own. Richard has a need to blend in and to belong to the country he is in, but that need does not extend to learning the language or the needs of the people. Richard lusts after Francoise, clumsily spies on the Thai guards, craves excitement, obsesses about video games, is a chain smoker and a marijuana addict, tortures a deranged man, murders Christo and causes the downfall of the beach commune. Dissatisfied with paradise, Richard manipulates the occupants, plays out his Vietnam war fantasies, and eventually ruins the paradise for everyone through his behavior and selfish attitude. He joins forces with a young French couple, and with the help of a map given to him, locates the beach and begins living in the commune. In this novel, Richard lands in Thailand without a specific agenda, and chooses to find a hidden beach reported to be a exotic paradise. He feels comfortable enough in foreign countries to purchase dope, stay in guest-houses that are off the tourist trail, and speak to strangers. Richard is a young British man in his early twenties who has developed a habit of using travel to exotic destinations his version of escaping reality. Spellbinding and hallucinogenic, The Beach by Alex Garland - both a national bestseller and his debut - is a highly accomplished and suspenseful novel that fixates on a generation in their twenties, who, burdened with the legacy of the preceding generation and saturated by popular culture, long for an unruined landscape, but find it difficult to experience the world firsthand. Yet over time it becomes clear that Beach culture, as Richard calls it, has troubling, even deadly, undercurrents. They discover the Beach, and it is as beautiful and idyllic as it is reputed to be. Duck - the name by which the Thai police have identified the dead man - and his own obsession with Vietnam movies, Richard sets off with a young French couple to an island hidden away in an archipelago forbidden to tourists. There, it is rumored, a carefully selected international few have settled in a communal Eden. The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend among young travelers 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. ![]() On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveler slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach." The Khao San Road, Bangkok - first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. ![]()
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