Eternal Fantasy?

For Richard, the main character in The Beach by Alex Garland, it was important to see the world; and even more important so to see what he wanted to see. He sought a unique travel experience, where nobody would obstruct his personal views, and where he could “walk into any conversation at any time between anybody…” (Garland, page 174) The beach's utopian nature legitimizes Richard's fantasies as they play out through his actions of game playing, obstructing realities, and interacting with people. With his actions legitimized, his fictional sense of experience, challenges, and interaction with people go uncontested.

While at the beach, Richard’s reflex for recording fictional experiences is revealed. Richard discusses with colleagues on the island that he was traveling for an experience of a different sort. He does not take pictures and he doesn’t “keep a travel journal” (197), claiming, “I did, it was a big mistake.” (197). He says that by keeping a journal, he could only remember what was captured in images or written down. This outlook on traveling is good in theory, but the problem is that Richard’s memories only reflect what he feels is important. In this way, Richards’s memories of his travels are only fictional misrepresentations of what actually happened. Certain instances in the story key us in that he actually does misrepresent memories, like when he mentally reconstructs the image of the dead man from the beach in Koh Phangan. His memory recalls the man “lying on his back, a clean skeleton grinning through his loose covering of leaves, dappled in a few pinpricks of sunlight” (271), but the reality is that an object on its back cannot grin toward the sunlight. Richard “revised the image to make it more aesthetic.” therefore making it fictional. In another instance, Richard misrepresents images of his fishing duty, remembering Francoise “as an Amazon, frozen with a spear poised above her head, concentrating fiercely on the shapes beneath the water.” (216) This memory lets the reader know that Richard is not concerned with representing Francoise factually, simply remembering her how he wanted to see her. If what Richard seeks is a different travel experience, it is possible that he feels he can only get it by remembering it differently than anyone else.

Richard often has a hard time facing challenges realistically, often playing games or idealizing getting in a tough spot. There are many instances where Richard has these problems, most often in the DMZ or in the lagoon. While in the DMZ, Richard’s main goal on his detail with Jed was to steal grass, but he often makes a game of a potentially dangerous situation. He idealizes an encounter with one of the dope guards, saying, “it would have been interesting” (255) In another instance in the DMZ, Richard is following Jed down the hill that leads to the dope fields when he creates a game. “If I snapped a twig, I triggered a land mine, and if I rustled a leaf above a particular volume- a rustle that couldn’t pass as a regular jungle sound- then id been shot by a sniper.” (294) Once again, Richard creates a fantastical experience through what he views as a challenge. The challenging area that he calls the DMZ is something he recalls as “a glimpse of paradise.” (282) In the lagoon, Richard also made a game of the challenge