The Beach: September 8, 1900 Summary and Analysis

The book opens during the night of September 7, 1900. Isaac Monroe Cline is experiencing odd weather phenomena and awakes to the sense that something is very wrong. Since Isaac typically sleeps soundly, it is an unusual event that he has awoken in the middle of the night. The narrator goes on to describe Isaac as a man of his time, a man who sleeps soundly through the night because his belief system is so solidly in place. Many men who meet Isaac find him initially modest and self-effacing, but upon further study would find he possessed a confidence that bordered on conceit and a hardness that made him the ideal worker.

Isaac considers himself to be a scientist and physician who happens to also study and record temperature and barometric pressures. He records this data for the U...