poignant book; these are deep water with powerful undercurrents. In the scene in which Midge saves Edward from committing suicide, and in which he proposes to her, Agatha Christie achieved something beautiful, a sort of Dickensian sense of wonder.
Her arms closed round him firmly. He smiled at her, murmuring:
'You're so warm, Midge — you're so warm.'
Yes, she thought, that was what despair was. A cold thing, a thing of infinite coldness and loneliness. She'd never understood until now that despair was a cold thing. She had always thought of it as something hot and passionate, something violent, a hot-blooded desperation. But that was not so. This was despair — this utter outer darkness of coldness and loneliness. And the sin of despair, that priests talked of, was a cold sin, the sin of cutting oneself off from all warm and living human contacts.
I finished reading at about nine o'clock; I got up and walked to the window. The sea was calm, myriads of luminous specks danced on the surface; a delicate halo surrounded the circular face of the moon. I knew there was a full-moon rave party tonight at Ko Lanta; Babette and Lea would probably go, with a good many other guests. Giving up on life is the easiest thing to do, putting one's own life to one side. As preparations for the evening continued, as taxis pulled up at the hotel, as everyone began to bustle in the corridors, I felt nothing more than a sad sense of relief.
----
Chapter 10
A narrow strip of mountainous land separating the gulf of Thailand from the Andaman sea, the isthmus of Kra, is divided to the north by the border between Thailand and Burma. At Ranong, in the far south of Burma, it measures barely twenty-two kilometres across; after that it progressively widens to become the Malay Peninsula.
Of the hundreds of islands which speckle the Andaman sea, only a few are inhabited, and not one of the islands on the Burmese side is open to tourists. On the Thai side, on the other hand, the islands of Phang Nga bay bring in 43 per cent of the country's annual tourist revenue. The largest of these is Phuket, where resorts were developed in the middle of the 80s, mostly with Chinese and French capital (South-East Asia quickly became one of the key areas of expansion for the Aurore group). It is probably in the chapter on Phuket that the Guide du Routard reaches the pinnacle of its loathing, its vulgar elitism and aggressive masochism. 'For some,' they announce first off, 'Phuket is an island on the way up; for us, it is already on the way down.'
'It was inevitable that we'd get here in the end,' they go on, 'to this "pearl of the Indian Ocean" . . . Only a few years ago we were still singing the praises of Phuket: the sun, the unspoiled beaches, the relaxed rhythms of life. At the risk of putting a spanner in the works, we'll come clean: we don't like Phuket any more! Patong, the most famous of the beaches, has been covered in concrete. Everywhere the clientele has become predominantly male, hostess bars are springing up everywhere and the only smiles are the ones you can buy. As for the backpacker chalets, they've had a JCB face lift to make way for hotels destined for lonely pot-bellied Europeans.'
We were due to spend two nights at Patong Beach; I settled myself confidently on the coach, perfectly prepared to adopt my role as a lonely pot-bellied European. The end of the trip was the highlight of the tour: three days at our leisure in Ko Phi Phi, a destination usually thought of as paradise itself. 'What to say about Ko Phi Phi?' lamented the travel guide, 'It's as if you asked us about a lost love . . . We want to say something wonderful about it, but there's a lump in our throat.' For the manipulative masochist, it is not enough that he is unhappy; others must be unhappy too; I chucked my Guide du Routard into the bin at the service station. Western masochism, I thought. A mile or so later, I realised that I now didn't have anything to read; I was going
Her arms closed round him firmly. He smiled at her, murmuring:
'You're so warm, Midge — you're so warm.'
Yes, she thought, that was what despair was. A cold thing, a thing of infinite coldness and loneliness. She'd never understood until now that despair was a cold thing. She had always thought of it as something hot and passionate, something violent, a hot-blooded desperation. But that was not so. This was despair — this utter outer darkness of coldness and loneliness. And the sin of despair, that priests talked of, was a cold sin, the sin of cutting oneself off from all warm and living human contacts.
I finished reading at about nine o'clock; I got up and walked to the window. The sea was calm, myriads of luminous specks danced on the surface; a delicate halo surrounded the circular face of the moon. I knew there was a full-moon rave party tonight at Ko Lanta; Babette and Lea would probably go, with a good many other guests. Giving up on life is the easiest thing to do, putting one's own life to one side. As preparations for the evening continued, as taxis pulled up at the hotel, as everyone began to bustle in the corridors, I felt nothing more than a sad sense of relief.
----
Chapter 10
A narrow strip of mountainous land separating the gulf of Thailand from the Andaman sea, the isthmus of Kra, is divided to the north by the border between Thailand and Burma. At Ranong, in the far south of Burma, it measures barely twenty-two kilometres across; after that it progressively widens to become the Malay Peninsula.
Of the hundreds of islands which speckle the Andaman sea, only a few are inhabited, and not one of the islands on the Burmese side is open to tourists. On the Thai side, on the other hand, the islands of Phang Nga bay bring in 43 per cent of the country's annual tourist revenue. The largest of these is Phuket, where resorts were developed in the middle of the 80s, mostly with Chinese and French capital (South-East Asia quickly became one of the key areas of expansion for the Aurore group). It is probably in the chapter on Phuket that the Guide du Routard reaches the pinnacle of its loathing, its vulgar elitism and aggressive masochism. 'For some,' they announce first off, 'Phuket is an island on the way up; for us, it is already on the way down.'
'It was inevitable that we'd get here in the end,' they go on, 'to this "pearl of the Indian Ocean" . . . Only a few years ago we were still singing the praises of Phuket: the sun, the unspoiled beaches, the relaxed rhythms of life. At the risk of putting a spanner in the works, we'll come clean: we don't like Phuket any more! Patong, the most famous of the beaches, has been covered in concrete. Everywhere the clientele has become predominantly male, hostess bars are springing up everywhere and the only smiles are the ones you can buy. As for the backpacker chalets, they've had a JCB face lift to make way for hotels destined for lonely pot-bellied Europeans.'
We were due to spend two nights at Patong Beach; I settled myself confidently on the coach, perfectly prepared to adopt my role as a lonely pot-bellied European. The end of the trip was the highlight of the tour: three days at our leisure in Ko Phi Phi, a destination usually thought of as paradise itself. 'What to say about Ko Phi Phi?' lamented the travel guide, 'It's as if you asked us about a lost love . . . We want to say something wonderful about it, but there's a lump in our throat.' For the manipulative masochist, it is not enough that he is unhappy; others must be unhappy too; I chucked my Guide du Routard into the bin at the service station. Western masochism, I thought. A mile or so later, I realised that I now didn't have anything to read; I was going
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