The Beach

The Beach, by Alex Garland: A bored limey Gen Xer travels around the world because he can find nothing better to do.  In Thailand, he runs into a mysterious figure who babbles incoherently about a legendary beach paradise populated by bohemian drop-outs.  The mysterious guy then kills himself, but not before leaving the limey with a map to the beach.  The opening of the novel, when the limey learns of the beach and then hooks up with a French couple to make the journey, is extremely well done—moody, with dark foreshadows of ménage à trois conflicts and a Garden of Eden-type fall. Unfortunately, once the plot reaches the beach, nothing of interest happens. The story drags through page after page of tedious description of the tedious beach life, before completely collapsing with a ridiculous out-of-left-field climax that is an absurd cross between Apocalypse Now and The Night of the Living Dead.