The Beach (novel) The Beach (novel) The Beach is a 1996 novel by English author Alex Garland. Set in Thailand, it is the story of a young backpacker's search for a legendary, idyllic and isolated beach untouched by tourism, and his time there in its small, international community of backpackers. In 2000, it was adapted into a film directed by Danny Boyle and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In 2003, the novel was listed on the BBC's survey The Big Read. In a cheap hotel on the Khao San Road in Bangkok, Richard, a young American backpacker, meets a mentally disturbed Scotsman going by the
On the Beach (novel) The story has been adapted twice as a film (in 1959 and 2000) and once as a BBC radio broadcast in 2008. The phrase "on the beach" is a Royal Navy term that means "retired from the Service." The title also refers to the T. S. Eliot poem "The Hollow Men," which includes the lines: Printings of the novel, including the first 1957 edition by William Morrow and Company, NY, contain extracts from the poem on the title page, under Shute's name, including the above quotation and the concluding lines: The 2000 film ends with a quote from a Walt