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| On Chesil Beach | 
 enlarge | Author: Ian Mcewan
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  207 reviews
Sales Rank: 2157
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 0307386171
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780307386175
ASIN: 0307386171
Publication Date: June 10, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Such is Ian McEwan's genius that, despite rambling nature walks and the naming of birds, his subject matter remains hermetically sealed in the hearts of two people. It is 1962 when Edward and Florence, 23 and 22 respectively, marry and repair to a hotel on the Dorset coast for their honeymoon. They are both virgins, both apprehensive about what's next and in Florence's case, utterly and blindly terrified and repelled by the little she knows. Through a tense dinner in their room, because Florence has decided that the weather is not fine enough to dine on the terrace, they are attended by two local boys acting as waiters. The cameo appearances of the boys and Edward and Florence's parents and siblings serve only to underline the emotional isolation of the two principals. Florence says of herself: "...she lacked some simple mental trick that everyone else had, a mechanism so ordinary that no one ever mentioned it, an immediate sensual connection to people and events, and to her own needs and desires...." They are on the cusp of a rather ordinary marital undertaking in differing states of readiness, willingness and ardor. McEwan says: "Where he merely suffered conventional first-night nerves, she experienced a visceral dread, a helpless disgust as palpable as seasickness." Edward, having denied himself even the release of self-pleasuring for a week, in order to be tip-top for Florence, is mentally pawing the ground. His sensitivity keeps him from being obvious, but he is getting anxious. Florence, on the other hand, knows that she is not capable of the kind of arousal that will make any of this easy. She has held Edward off for a year, and now the reckoning is upon her. McEwan is the master of the defining moment, that place and time when, once it has taken place, nothing will ever be the same after it. It does not go well and Florence flees the room. "As she understood it, there were no words to name what had happened, there existed no shared language in which two sane adults could describe such events to each other." Edward eventually follows her and they have a poignant and painful conversation where accusations are made, ugly things are said and roads are taken from which, in the case of these two, the way back cannot be found. Late in Edward's life he realizes: "Love and patience--if only he had them both at once--would surely have seen them both through." This beautifully told sad story could have been conceived and written only by Ian McEwan. --Valerie Ryan
Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 202 more reviews...
 Almost June 15, 2007
185 out of 189 found this review helpful
A brilliant book, but such a sad one; it would be unfair not to say so up front. Ian McEwan is a master at dissecting emotions. Every page of this wonderfully-crafted novel gave me the uncanny feeling of living within the skins of the two main characters, Edward and Florence, just married as the book opens. When they fall in love, nurture ambitions, experience happiness, I feel these things too. But when happiness eludes them, the pain is unbearable, not least because the author never lets us forget by how small a margin their happiness was missed.
In his last major novel, SATURDAY, McEwan pulled back from the multi-decade scope of ATONEMENT its predecessor, choosing to confine himself to the events of a single day. Here, the essential action occupies a mere three hours, described in a book which is itself unusually compact, a mere novella of only 200 delicate pages. In an opening that is surely a homage to Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," the new husband and wife sit in a hotel room within sound of the sea on England's South coast. They eat a mediocre meal in one room; in the next, their bed stands waiting. They love each other, there is never any doubt about that, but they are inexperienced and secretly afraid. The book tells how they came to that moment, and what becomes of their love and fears as they move from one room into the other.
I have not known McEwan to write before in such detail about sex, but his writing is never prurient. Every detail serves to illustrate the psychological intercourse between these two talented and caring young people. On this particular night, as in a high-stakes game, their honeymoon bed becomes the board upon which all the other pieces of their relationship must be played. By going back to the early 1960s, that dark hour just before the dawn of the sexual revolution, McEwan performs the remarkable feat of undoing the modern liberation of sex from marriage and returning to a mindset in which marriage was not only a contract for sex, but sex might also be a prime reason for marriage.
But not the only reason. The focus on the bedroom also makes you consider all the other qualities that these two bring to their marriage, and before long you feel that you know them very well. [Exceptionally well in my case, since I was also born in Britain in the same year (1940), and share qualities with each of them; readers might take this into account when weighing the objectivity of my reactions.] Edward is a bright young man from the country who has recently achieved a first-class academic degree. Florence comes from a more socially sophisticated family, though she herself is naive in most things. The one exception is her calling as a violinist; here as in SATURDAY, McEwan is extraordinary in his use of music; the sections describing Florence's quartet playing are right up there with Vikram Seth's AN EQUAL MUSIC, my touchstone for sensitive writing about musicians. So both are bright, both are talented, both feel the stirring of new possibilities, but there are big differences between them, socially and culturally (Edward, for example, is into rock), and they each want different things. But the most heartbreaking things in this book are not their differences, but how often and how close they come to making new connections; just an inch more, a moment longer, and everything might be all right.... Almost.
But McEwan does not end the story in the bedroom or on the beach below. Much as in ATONEMENT, though in only a few pages, he adds an epilogue continuing the story forward several decades. At the time, I felt it was too brief to settle all the emotions stirred up by the preceding pages, but now as I write, several hours after closing the book, I begin to see its rightness and appreciate its consolation.
'This is how the entire course of a life can be changed - by doing nothing.' August 31, 2007
123 out of 129 found this review helpful
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
By Doing Nothing-An Entire Course Of A Life Can Be Changed June 7, 2007
88 out of 137 found this review helpful
"They were young,educated and both virgins on this wedding night, and they lived in a time when conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible."-Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan placed this novel in 1962, just before the Sexual Revolution. What a difference a few years would bring to the lives of those who were lucky enough to belong to this generation.
"The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s were marked by profound shifts in the mores and attitudes towards women's sexuality, homosexuality, and freedom of sexual expression. It was the culmination of the intellectual contribution of radical Freudian theorist Wilhelm Reich and the empirical sex research of Alfred Kinsey; the battles of pornographers, performers, and literary writers to secure the right of sexual speech; and the permissive context created by the social movements of the period, especially the counterculture movement, the women's movement, and the gay and lesbian liberation movement. It freed the woman to express her sexuality which in turn freed the man." Art Friedken
Don't you want somebody to love?
Don't you need somebody to love?
Wouldn't you love somebody to love?
You better find somebody to love.
- Jefferson Airplane
Two lonely souls, fleeing their family roots meet and over the course of a year fall in love. Both are virgins. Their courtship begins and progresses slowly. Not only is the subject of sex not spoken, the expression of sex is verboten. Florence, a talented musician, who wants to appear in concert and Edward a history major at the University of London marry and as this novel begins are entering their first evening together. Ian McEwan with great skill interweaves the past of both into the present as this one night is played out. Florence,who loves Edward so but has some difficulty with sexual expression. Edward, who adores Florence and seemingly understands her extreme shyness. The dinner is partially eaten and then the evening begins.
I have had an on and off affair with Ian McEwan and his past books. 'Atonement' was not a book I relished. 'Saturday' set me at ease. 'On Chesil Beach' McEwan does not display any dazzled effects; he moves forward with superb writing and a feel for the emotions of both men and women. His tale of Florence and Edward will rank among his finest works.
We, who entered, survived and flourished during the 60's sexual revolution, and those after us, might understand how Florence and Edward could overcome their difficulties-it seems so simple, really. They are innocent and cannot talk frankly. There is a lesson to be learned here, and Ian McEwan has been able to depict these two people who are afraid to talk openly and the consequences there-in. This is one of the most superb books of the year.
Highly Recommended. prisrob 6-07-07
Saturday Book
Atonement: A Novel
Simply impeccable. Sad, but impeccable. August 22, 2007
45 out of 49 found this review helpful
Nowadays, in premarital relationships, sexual compatibility is something that most couples do not wait too long to find out about. Typically, we're getting to this part quicker and quicker it seems, and I would venture to say that this is an area fraught with less mutual confusion than say for instance, the depth of true "love" between the two people. Compatibility in other realms taking a [shall we say] front seat while the people themselves are [ahem] in the back one!
In other words, [generally speaking now], courtship includes sexship!
Yeah! Well!
? Meet Edward and Florence.
We are told in the very first sentence [the author does not court his reader long]... They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible.
When was this time?
1962.
Pre-sexual-revolution England.
Thing is, Edward and Florence are in love. They've got that part of things in order.
They're 22 years old. They've got the world by the tail.
Florence, daughter of wealthy parents, has her musical interests.
Edward loves history, and dreams of being a writer.
McEwan paints a rather idyllic sort of atmosphere surrounding the couple, Edward becoming increasingly involved with the Ponting family, even moving into their villa just off the Banbury Road. He plays regular tennis with Geoffrey, the future father-in-law, and lands a job working in the family business.
What could be wrong in this picture?
Well, in the midst of all of this splendor and promise, there are things that both of these youngsters avoid confronting, on a communicative level.
Edward, well aware of his own sexual inexperience, is startled to find that even his slightest advances toward Florence are met with seemingly undue resistance. Yea, even revulsion.
Florence, we are told in one brief, almost hidden away sentence, thinks that Edward has been with many women, before her. This misinformation fuels her reticence and fear.
McEwan seems to suggest [albeit so subtly that the reader must guess at it] that Florence has experienced sexual abuse at the hands of her father in the past.
Point being that lack of communication, like termites, is eating away at what could be a perfectly good building.
And so here we are at The Wedding Night.
We are on Chesil Beach, at this resort.... well, not us, but these two are there.
And McEwan writes so forcefully that we cannot help but become wicked voyeurs.
Yea, we lean in closer, to be sure we hear every word... see every eyelash flicker.
They are having a very lackluster, fear-fraught dinner.
And then the moment arrives.
The bed.
False signals are flying every which way, like penalty flags at a soccer match.
McEwan is all about moments. About antecedent causes, and how moments in time can change us forever.
Well, for those of us who appreciate this aspect of his work, [and I am one of them] he is not about to disappoint us here. Everything about this novella is compact and quick, and believe me, it comes to a ragingly lopsided climax now.
Quickly. No words wasted.
It is not spoiling anything here for me to say that the bed scene is an absolute disaster. An emotional armageddon.
But the true tragedy is yet to appear.
On Chesil Beach.
Not to over-moralize here, but the book made me ask myself a question.
At what point do we attend to the physical matters of relationship?
Is the correct answer to be only after the wedding day, as many religions [and presumably, "God"] would tell us? As Edward and Florence did?
Far be it from me to attempt an answer to that question that would suit all people.
But, this book surely provides one look at the devastation that can result from an unrealistic commitment to delayed gratification and lack of open communication.
Whatever else we want to think about sex, one thing that rings true in this book is that it is profoundly important.
And to think otherwise, and enter into marriage in a state of mutual sexual ignorance, can be life-threatening.
And yet, On Chesil Beach is not even about sex.
It's about "love and patience" which, as Edward realizes on the last page, [and decades later] could have saved the day. Could have "seen them both through."
We are given hints that Florence has learned the same thing, too.
Sometimes, [in fact, perhaps all the time] to do nothing, is to have done too much.
The armageddon of the bedroom scene was fixable.
What an amazing, amazing book!
Days later, I re-read the last 50 pages or so, aloud, to a friend, and even knowing it all ahead of time, had to stop several times. Couldn't go on.
The last chapter, the fifth one, is among the most moving pieces of writing I have ever encountered.
On Chesil Beach is the eighth McEwan book I have read.
I've loved each one, but I think I like this one best.
So, in my opinion, Chesil Beach is five stars out of five!
It will become a beloved novel to everyone who will have, or is having, or has had a love relationship with another person. And you've gotta admit, that's a huge audience.
Such is the appeal, of On Chesil Beach.
brilliant little book September 1, 2007
39 out of 42 found this review helpful
This book was so good-packed with history and a message. I was captivated by it.
He painted the political and social climate of the time in such a vivid manner. His insights were perfect and his historical detail was too good for words. He puts the reader back into 1962-even if the reader had not been born yet.
It begins on the wedding night of two virgins, Edward and Florence. He's ready and willing to go, but she is filled with dread. She tries to have sex with Edward out of a sense of wifely duty.
Their childhoood's are related. She is raised by emotionally distant parents, Violet and Geoffrey; and he is reared by a handicapped mother and a over-whelmed father. Both Edward and Florence try to escape their past lives with their marriage.
The ending was sad, and, I was surprised. This book is worth reading-it is a historical treasure and tells an interesting and perplexing story.
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