From Tiny Library:
Wonderful Wednesdays is a meme about spotlighting and recommending some of our most loved books, even if we haven't read them recently. Each week will have a different theme or genre of book to focus on.
This week's theme is novels set in another country.
For this week I choose the novel The Beach by Alex Garland. This book is about a Gen Xer named Richard and his quest to find this elusive, mystical beach founded by this man named Daffy Duck and his friends. Supposedly this beach is untouched by tourist. He, along with this French couple, finally finds this island only it already has a whole group of people living there under the rule of Daffy's friends and their camp is surrounded by a ruthlessly guarded marjuania plantation. At first, this place seems like paradise living off the land and Richard gets to commune with nature and the others on the island who are of the same mind as him, but it soon turns into a Hell on Earth much like the island represented in The Lord of the Flies. Side note: This novel does have the honor of being called The Lord of the Flies for Generation X by the novelist Nick Hornby. As a Gen Xer, I enjoy all books about those who exemplify this generation, so I was hooked from the very beginning. This, however, is the first book about a place that I have never been that has made me want to go there. While I am not brave enough to buy a one way ticket to anywhere, I am enamored with the idea of buying a one way ticket to Thailand and hanging out there in the hot sun, bright hotel lobbies and stark rooms until I decided to leave...becoming a traveler, not just a tourist. I remember reading this book and thinking I want to be Richard and travel to a world I hardly know looking for a little adventure, eating native foods and staying so long I learn the language and customs.
