On Chesil Beach Paperback – June 10, 2008

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan This quiet little book is, like the others I’ve read by McEwan, limited to a single, tragically brief honeymoon trip to Chesil Beach in Great Britain. The bride and groom are very much in love, but they are the products of a culture in which sex is weighted down with shame, guilt and secrecy. The book illuminates the courses of their earlier lives have brought them to this nuptial night and a confrontation that sets the course for the remainder of their days. It’s hard not to see the fingerprints of Freudian psychology all over this book. In this it seems capture a moment in the development of Western attitudes towards sex and marriage. The writing is captivating as only McEwan knows how to make it. The compulsions and traumas haunting these two young people are almost unspoken as is appropriate for matters hidden in the subconscious and, as such, may escape readers not attuned to psychoanalytical factors.

It's 1962, and Edward and Florence, both virgins, are having dinner on the first night of their honeymoon at a hotel on England's Chesil Beach. The two young marrieds seem like they're living in 1862, and McEwan seems like he's writing in 1862. She's terrified of sex, and he's roaringly anxious to get it on. The book covers their courtship and their families in detail. Of course the author of the fine novel "Atonement" is deft at telling a story, building suspense, and etching characters, but what he has to say in this novella is unfortunately slight and conventional. It's about a failure to communicate in advance of marriage, so what else is new? Florence's love of music, the violin, and her string quartet and Edward's love of history and nature--these are delineated very well. Of Edward on his wedding night McEwan writes, "His painful craving was building intolerably, and he was frightened by his own savage impatience and the furious words or actions it might provoke, and so end the evening." Florence had always been afraid of hurting other people's feelings, but she fails at a critical juncture. The last two pages of the book are really heart-wrenching because often by not saying something at the crucial time, our whole life courses are altered. It's a beautifully told narrative that can be read in a very short time span. At the beginning the author sets his story in the historical period and chronicles generational changes in behavior, but he, his characters and story seem to creep back into the Victorian era. Newlyweds: Hearken! Talk everything, and I mean everything, out before you get hitched.

Ian McEwan is a master of atmospheric writing, taking a seemingly isolated incident and building a story around it in a way that the reader completely lives in the moment described by his novel. He selects strange topics and then makes them feel so familiar by comparison to each of our lives that exploring the dense background he paints pulls us in like a strong magnet. Reading McEwan is one of the rare pleasures literature lovers find. Few writers of today can match his quiet, subtle, but bravura technique.ON CHESIL BEACH is essentially a study of a wedding night, a night when the two characters involved approach the virginal consummation of their marriage with disastrous results. Florence is bright, a gifted violinist, beautiful and fragile in affairs of the heart and senses: she is frigid. Edward, her new husband, is of lower class than she, but has reached a degree of education and overcome some thorny family obstacles to become a young bridegroom longing for his marriage night, a night he blunders with premature ejaculation. McEwan leads into this evening and its subsequent resolution on Chesil Beach with delicate prose, brings us to the topic of climax, and then offers flashes of background of each of his characters that allows us to understand the subsequent course of events 'doing nothing' brings.In beautiful prose, stunningly elegant writing, and rich observations of life in the early 1960s with all that the decade of 'enlightenment' and changes in England and the world produced, Ian McEwan has created another masterpiece. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, August 07

There is no doubt that the author is a brilliant writer, and that it is thrilling to read some phrases, sentences and passages in this book. However, the story and characters in it are all just depressing, and for me, often very unrealistic as well. Oddly enough as others have stated it feels much more like a short story than a novel. In its awkwardness, it feels a bit too long for a short story, and a bit too short for a novel. I felt that the story in many aspects was formulaic and overly predictable. The reader knows from about page 1 or 2, what is going to happen at the end. Reading about the past history of the two main characters, is not compelling enough, to make reading the entire book worthwhile. Reading about a tragic situation with one parent, just feels like the author trying to wring yet one more Kleenex box out of the reader, to no purpose in this story. I did read the entire book, and at the end, besides feeling sad and frustrated by yet another romance destroyed by lack of realistic communication, my first thought was about how many hours I had wasted reading it. I am very tired of reading the same story over and over, great lovers who are reportedly very intelligent - not stupid - reasonably self-aware - and yet they cannot manage to pull together any form of honest communication. There are some additional things about this book which I am hesitant to write about, as one does not want to give away too much of the plot in a review. However there is an underlying suggestion of pre-existing father-daughter incest which is never fully explored. I suppose since the main female character could not communicate about it, the author decided to mirror this by not communicating about it either. I just found this annoying. The book takes place in 1962, not 1862 or 1762. Meh.

This book was brilliant 🙌McEwen is able to hone in on the tiniest detail with such vividness.It's a third person narrative with dual POV, but instead of feeling like a voyeur, he drags you right into the story so you're experiencing it for yourself. He once again shows how two people can be experiencing something together but their perceptions are so vastly different.He alludes to the metaphorical car crash that's ahead and leads you there whilst building a sense of dread and anticipation. When it happens we're like the rubberneckers on the motorway who are compelled to look at something so horrifying, but all the while we cannot tear our eyes away from it.The main part of the book is a present scene unfolding with backstory to add to the brevity of the climax. The very last part of the book spans decades but as the narrator speeds along this timeline it gives a sense of time slipping through your fingers at an ever increasing speed.This is a story that explores sexuality (specifically; expectations and miscommunications) and the lifelong consequences of decisions we make.There are so many lines I read where I had to pause and re-read them because they were so stunning. McEwen has a knack for intelligent observations that are woven throughout the prose.This was a wonderful book that left me with a bruised heart for days afterwards.A masterpiece. I will definitely be re-reading this.⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The writing and description in this novel are excellent. This is why I gave it four stars instead of three. To be honest the first 80% of the book reminded me of the languor and slowness of The Remains of The Day but far more frustrating. I wanted to shout at both characters to talk to each other properly but, of course the novel is about self sufficiency, poor communication and their consequences. Did I enjoy it? I found it challenging and frustrating, certainly not any of the adjectives in the book’s cover. I would recommend it only for its description of the characters’ inner thoughts and of places.

The troubled wedding night of two British virgins in 1959. Watching the film version of this a few months ago tempted me to reread the book, only 166 pages, which I remember underwhelmed me in 2009.It’s an easy read, a nicely poignant story, and I particularly liked the hints of something formatively nasty in the woodshed in Florence’s childhood, but I was still a little underwhelmed. McEwan uses omniscient narrator to observe and write ‘about’ his characters rather than embedding the reader in their point of view. For me, Edward and Florence were always the author’s inventions. At the story’s climax, the only extended dialogue scene, the author was still there, constructing and analysing the pair’s thoughts and speech. The scene was literary rather than alive, their anger and confusion felt contrived, and I failed to believe or care.The film version (as film versions necessarily do) leaves out the omniscient narrator and embodies characters in flesh-and-blood actors, who breathe life into the story. ‘Show don’t tell’ is a how-to-write cliché for a good reason.

I just hope the film is a lot better than the book, but after reading the book I won't rush to see the film! I agree with many other readers who found it dull & a struggle to complete, it took me ages to read it as I found it a chore & needed a lot of self encouragement to pick it up & start reading more pages in fact I found it so bad that I skipped through many pages.

In all my years of reading and writing I had never read this book. despite it being in my era. Never saw the film either. From the start it intrigued me and I couldn't guess what might happen but the sexual fumblings certainly reminded my of those times! Characterisation is brilliant and the two main protaganists, Edward and Florence, bring the truth to sexual no, no's of the time. If you lived in through the cordial 50's and the in your face sixties you will totally get this book. It's a bit middle class but don't let that put you off. I won't say any more - just readit.