The reason it takes half of Garland's moody tale for Kerouac's ghost to tap the reader on the shoulder is that the feel of the two novels could not be more different. Each novel, in its style, captures the style of its generation, and can be read by bemused elders as a shrewd caricature of disaffected post-childhood wanderers desperate to avoid adulthood. Lombok, next week or next month or in another life, Loh Liang or Zanskar. Garland writes as they travel, without emotion or opinion or allegiance. With a young French couple, flaccid Etienne and wanly beautiful Francoise, he manages to find this Eden, whose legendary sands can be arrived at only by jumping from the top of a high waterfall.
Weeks go by without exhilaration or despair.
The beach dwellers fish, steal a little marijuana from an illicit plantation and work on their tans. Eventually, perhaps because everyone has read Lord of the Flies, things fall apart nastily. They grab sandals and rucksacks and move on. Richard reports all this a year later from London, where he is tethered to an unspecified job. His tone is one of mild regret, which seems to be the author's view as well, though that's hard to say.