Ian McEwan

ON CHESIL BEACH.

On Chesil Beach

bianca

He could have called out to [her], he could have gone after her. He did not know, or would not have cared to know, that as she ran away from him, certain in her distress that she was about to lose him, she had never loved him more, or more hopelessly, and that the sound of his voice would have been a deliverance, and she would have turned back. Instead, he stood in cold and righteous silence in the summer’s dusk, watching her hurry along the shore, the sound of her difficult progress lost to the breaking of small waves, until she was a blurred, receding point against the immense straight road of shingle gleaming in the pallid light.

All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them.

And even if [he] had read that review, he could not have known—no one knew but [her]—that as the house lights came up, and as the dazed young players stood to acknowledge the rapturous applause, the first violinist could not help her gaze traveling to the middle of the third row, to seat 9C.

You know I love you. Very, very much. And I know you love me. I’ve never doubted it. I love being with you, and I want to spend my life with you, and you say you feel the same way. It should all be quite simple. But it isn’t—we’re in a mess, like you said. Even with all this love.

She thought he was looking at her in the way he often did—it was a look of wonder—whenever he was about to tell her that she was beautiful. She never really believed him, and it bothered her when he said it because he might want something she could only fail to give.

How un-free she was, her life entangled with this strange person from a hamlet in the Chiltern Hills who knew the names of wildflowers and crops and all the medieval kings and popes. And how extraordinary it now seemed to her, that she had chosen this situation, this entanglement, for herself. 

Her marriage was eight hours old and each hour was a weight on her. 

It was the brooding expectation of her giving more, and because she didn’t, she was a disappointment for slowing everything down. Whatever new frontier she crossed, there was always another waiting for her. Every concession she made increased the demand, and then the disappointment. Even in their happiest moments, there was always the accusing shadow, the barely hidden gloom of his unfulfillment, looming like an alp, a form of perpetual sorrow which had been accepted by them both as her responsibility. She wanted to be in love and be herself. But to be herself, she had to say no all the time. And then she was no longer herself.

He was gazing at her, and nothing registered in his expression to show he had heard her. Even in her difficult state, she marveled at his soft brown eyes. Such kindly intelligence and forgiveness. Perhaps if she stared into them and saw nothing else, she might just be able to do anything he asked of her. She would trust him utterly. But this was fantasy.

How could he fail to love someone so strangely and warmly particular, so painfully honest and self-aware, whose every thought and emotion appeared naked to view, streaming like charged particles through her changing expressions and gestures? Even without her strong-boned beauty he would have had to love her. And she loved him with such intensity, such excruciating physical reticence.

This was still the era—it would end later in that famous decade—when to be young was a social encumbrance, a mark of irrelevance, a faintly embarrassing condition for which marriage was the beginning of a cure. Almost strangers, they stood, strangely together, on a new pinnacle of existence, gleeful that their new status promised to promote them out of their endless youth.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE The #1 bestselling author of Saturday and Atonement brilliantly illuminates the collision of sexual longing, deep-seated fears and romantic fantasy in his unforgettable, emotionally engaging novel. The year is 1962. Florence, the daughter of a successful businessman and an aloof Oxford academic, is a talented violinist. She dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, the earnest young history student she met by chance and who unexpectedly wooed her and won her heart. Edward grew up in the country on the outskirts of Oxford where his father, the headmaster of the local school, struggled to keep the household together and his mother, brain-damaged from an accident, drifted in a world of her own. Edward’ s native intelligence, coupled with a longing to experience the excitement and intellectual fervour of the city, had taken him to University College in London. Falling in love with the accomplished, shy and sensitive Florence--and having his affections returned with equal intensity--has utterly changed his life. Their marriage, they believe, will bring them happiness, the confidence and the freedom to fulfill their true destinies. The glowing promise of the future, however, cannot totally mask their worries about the wedding night. Edward, who has had little experience with women, frets about his sexual prowess. Florence’s anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by conflicting emotions and a fear of the moment she will surrender herself. From the precise and intimate depiction of two young lovers eager to rise above the hurts and confusion of the past, to the touching story of how their unexpressed misunderstandings and fears shape the rest of their lives, On Chesil Beach is an extraordinary novel that brilliantly, movingly shows us how the entire course of a life can be changed--by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

Shelby Doherty

azliana aziz

those last chapters were astoundingly sad. a good kind of sad.

logan chung

Wow, these sentences are good
Struck me at a very notable moment
4.5 stars

Silvia Sants

Izza

3.5 stars | This is the kind of novel I have to constantly remind myself to take my time reading; that reading a book is not a race. I initially had no plan of ever picking up this novel, but then I saw there was a movie adaptation with Saoirse Ronan, and decided I had to read the book before seeing it. 

I actually really liked this book. The writing is beautiful, the story is intriguing. I love the peaceful and quiet sort of storytelling (is that even a thing? Hopefully y’all get what I mean).

I had a problem with Edward’s attitude though (I get that it’s set in the 60’s, but that’s not an excuse), calling Florence dishonest because she doesn’t need, like or want sex, and him accusing her of not really loving him and being incapable of love “as a man and a woman should”. He called her frigid and a fraud, acted as if he were a saint for putting up with her “prude manners” and as if because they were now married, she owed him a freaking orgasm.
That being said, I was really pleased with the ending.

Cindy Lieberman

A sad novella about two inexperienced young people in the 1960s who have different hopes for their wedding night. How a lack of honest communications, or one small misstep, can change the course of a life forever.

Kali Olson

i just do not like ian mcewan. i recognize that he is an excellent writer, but i never like his characters, and i don't want to spend time with them, and therefore i don't want to read the books.

Likes:
- Things started to pick up for me during the argument on the beach, but otherwise quite a slow book.
- I really enjoyed the part about Edward's family, especially detailing his mom's condition and how the family copes with it.
- Enjoyed the thoughts at the end regarding inaction forming a large part of one's life.
- Some good quotes about communication, inaction

Dislikes:
- Very slow book, most of the time nothing is really happening. Felt like it could have been a much quicker read than it actually was.
- A lot of talk about British politics from the 1960s which I was not into
- Not interested in the sexual parts of the book. I'm a bit of a prude in this regard and these scenes are always off-putting for me, but this book had quite a bit of them (as should be expected given the blurb)
- I can understand where Edward's anxieties came from but it is still not fully clear to me where Florence's come from. Her past experiences? Asexuality? Discomfort engaging in new things? Or something else entirely? I wish this would have been fleshed out a bit more as it sounds interesting to explore in further detail.
- I didn't really feel any connection with either Edward or Florence and didn't particularly care if their relationship failed or succeeded.

A Novel

Melody Izard

On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan –a newly wed couple in 1962, both virgins, are on their honeymoon at Chesil Beach. He is worried about premature ejaculation and she is absolutely not interested in sex at all and is worried that she will find it vile and disgusting. Such a very simple, short story that is full of intense visual, emotional and psychological imagery.

nora

It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student who unexpectedly won her heart.

Natalie Manuel

I enjoyed this short novel about two young people on their disaster of a wedding night.

It loses a star because I think some of the details of their own lives were boring, which made me lose focus. The inclusions of their political stances didn’t feel smooth and just bogged it down. I would have preferred more of their time together before the wedding.

I enjoyed the tone and the sadness, I enjoyed the subtlety of the writing when it came to the main reason why Florence was repulsed by sex. I can tell by the reviews that some people didn’t even pick it up, but this aspect of the book made it even sadder. 

All in all, I think it could have been written a bit tighter so that the end had even more impact, but a solid 3.5 stars.

Trevor Berrett

McEwan is, as always, a great stylist. He manages to show seemlessly how much history goes into one little act and how that one little act goes on to affect the future. He manages to show how the characters feel based on each movement and how their feelings change as the surroundings change.
The reason I don't give this book a higher rating is because the ending, the last 10 pages, does not match the 190 pages prior. Themes seem to change in those 10 pages, and they seem to be there only to show how the wedding night affected the rest of the young couple's lives. But the other themes that are wonderfully subtle throughout the novel go by the wayside.
That said, it's still masteful writing.

Meri Lancis

I liked the development of the situation and how the context was explained. But I would have liked more information about Flo.

Chesil Beach

Luca Conti

McEwan rende magnificamente i pensieri dei due protagonisti. Questo elemento da solo vale la lettura.

Erin 

2.5 stars. While the writing style is impeccably detailed, and while in any other instance I would be thoroughly impressed, this book did just not work for me. It hardly has a plot - it's about a newly married (as in 8 hours ago) couple who struggles to have sex on their wedding night. The husband wants it desperately - the wife does not. The husband pressures her. She blames herself. It's not a healthy book at all. By the time the ending comes around, he yells at her for not putting out, and she runs away and files for divorce. The latter half isn't the worst in the world but it barely makes up for the dreadfully slow and boring first half. If it wasn't for Saoirse Ronan playing Florence in the film version (though why anyone would think this is good film material, I have no idea), I wouldn't have picked it up at all. I would have given it a lower rating if that didn't feel like betrayal to a wonderful writing style. It's the content that's the issue.

I'm not sure why I waited so long to pick up McEwan, who, here, has created utterly charming and devastatingly flawed characters. 

I find a couple of things about this book fascinating. First, the juggling act. The juxtaposition of the irrational fears of each character is fascinating in and of itself. That is life, after all — quirks and fears and irrationalities walking around, pretending to know what they're doing — and McEwan mirrors the nitty-gritty of it well. To present the reader with that juxtaposition, of the opposing forces of will that come in a new marriage — and on a honeymoon, no less — makes the entire novel feel like a game of tug-of-war. 

That's not to mention the prose, which is heartbreakingly beautiful at times.

That's all I'll say here. Recommended read.

ON CHESIL BEACH.

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