On Chesil Beach | Ian Mcewan

On Chesil Beach | Ian Mcewan | So much feeling in so few pages

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On Chesil Beach

	On Chesil Beach Ian Mcewan Anchor, 2008 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 200 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

In 1962, Florence and Edward celebrate their wedding in a hotel on the Dorset coast. Yet as they dine, the expectation of their marital duties weighs over them. And unbeknownst to both, the decisions they make this night will resonate throughout their lives. With exquisite prose, Ian McEwan creates in On Chesil Beach a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

on chesil beach

Unlike McEwan's "Saturday", this story does not take place all in a single day,but still, most of the story centers on the events of a twenty-four hour period. The author's inimitable use of foreshadowing made this reader want to climb into the story and "do a little counseling". The inability of the two central characters to communicate their inmost emotions leads to unbelievably sad and irreparable consequences for them.
Fortunately, the story can be read in one or two sittings, so the final resolution isn't long in coming.

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So much feeling in so few pages

Some reviewers are complaining that this is really just a short story. Uhhhhh, ok, maybe, but the author has packed it full of emotion and feelings that make it a page turner. Who hasn't said the wrong thing at the wrong time and regretted it later, sometimes much later? Or who hasn't stood by and done nothing to save a relationship out of pride or fear of rejection? And who hasn't wondered decades later about the paths not taken? Most of us can relate to at least some of the feelings that Ian McEwan so masterfully depicts.
If it's a "short story," it's definitely the best short story I've read in many years.

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Why those times aren't now.

Plot Spoilers--

Like someone else here, I read Atonement and wanted to try another one of Ian McEwan. This was it.
I understand what he was aiming for in the fact that "back in the day", couples didn't discuss their fears of sex. The story was a good one. It flows nicely, with the evening of the wedding night being gently interrupted by their thoughts on the past. We get glimpses of why Florence has problems being physical and why Edward has fears on performance standards.
Regardless, the ending was really disappointing. Time and time throughout the book Florence really had me believing she would go through with it. She told him lets go to the room, and did small gestures for him. Florence was freaking out, but at the same time everything was flowing nicely along. She started to calm down and let Edward come toward her. As long as she didn't see his erection, she might be able to make it.
But Edward, in all the tension and excitement, accidentally "lets loose" a little early.
She basically went running from the room, he found her down by the beach and because they couldn't discuss sex like how we do now today, it was over. The best she could do for him was "I'll be with you, but you have to have sex with others and never me." Smartly, he refused. I think it's unbelievable because as a woman, (if I were Florence) and I really loved a man as much as she said she did, no matter the level or ignorance, this would have been discussed in the most private of terms.

K.K.Jolliffe

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