The Beach by Alex Garland

[My my, it looks like i have the pleasure of putting in the first geeko post! Am not going to do a review about Medicine and Ethics (though it may be quite useful to some of you, actually, ALL OF YOU, to know your stand in the healthcare area...just in case somebody gives you acid to fry your brain...) but perhaps sometime soon when i come across an interesting topic...]

"The Beach" - the movie with Leonardo Dicaprio, i think, is based on this book. Have heard polarised reviews about the movie...but the book, my geekos, is a book you guys ought to read. It's basically about Richard, this worn out traveller avidly in search for some (any) adventure. Based in Thailand, he meets a weird old man who gave him a map (just before he killed himself) to "the beach", where it's apparently one of the only places in the world which hasnt been covered in thick layers of oil and all sorts of excretion and waste. Richard, being the jaded but hopeful person that he is, goes and takes on this challenge in finding this obscure and so-called 'traveller's haven'...only to find that there are already a bunch of people there. They weren't just any ordinary tourists making their way around Thailand...they were a community.

What attracted me most about the book is how the author splashes his voice in both Richard and Richard's subconsciousness (which happens to be the dead old man); and how he has these internal conflicts within himself about who he is and who the people around him really are. This community at the Beach basically live very simple lives. As each of them have their designated chores to do - farming, construction, cooking, fishing... they don't have much to worry about. No bills, no dogs to bring for walks, no family to feed, no high street shopping for corporate "uniforms", no 8am-beat-the-traffic-rushes, no obligations to anybody else apart from themselves, no real relationships to have heart aches, no laws, no pollution, no tall buildings or car honks....basically the ideal way for those who just want to disappear. The only rule? Nobody else outside the community must know about this Beach. They smoked marijuana all day, went swimming everyday, took showers under waterfalls, picked strawberries for dessert, had shark meat for dinner, coconut juice on a sunny hot afternoon......you have to understand that these people WANT to live simple lives. Think : Ultimate escapism. They don't mind just hanging around doing nothing...being idle doesnt mean you're not doing anything, it means you're free to do anything. They just aren't allowed to go back to mainland to tell the world about this. Selfish selfish...

....But what happens when one of them gets bitten by a shark and is in need of hospitalization? ahh...that's for ME to know and for YOU to find out.

haha TA-DA! i know lah...it's a damn stupid review and written drearily in all ways... but whatever la...im telling you now that it's a good book!!! Talks alot about humanity, relationships, self-discovery and it's also something for travelling enthusiasts to dip their tongue into. Garland wrote it in quite a unique way i can't quite describe. In a way, i think he's depicting how we all are at the end of a busy and abominable day at work, with your boss spitting at your face, and your legs are just too heavy to move from one tile to the other...the phone is buzzing, the house is empty, the landlord's at your front door...with all this happening, and all you can think of is to retreat to that one place in your mind where solitude meets peace...i think that's when you know you've escaped reality.


Fancy going Thailand, anyone? (serious...im thinking about going in January 2006. lemme know!!!)

Till next time...

Karmern