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On Chesil Beach: A Novel
 
 
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On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover)


2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Not quite novel or novella, McEwan's masterful 13th work of fiction most resembles a five-part classical drama rendered in prose. It opens on the anxious Dorset Coast wedding suite dinner of Edward Mayhew and the former Florence Ponting, married in the summer of 1963 at 23 and 22 respectively; the looming dramatic crisis is the marriage's impending consummation, or lack of it. Edward is a rough-hewn but sweet student of history, son of an Oxfordshire primary school headmaster and a mother who was brain damaged in an accident when Edward was five. Florence, daughter of a businessman and (a rarity then) a female Oxford philosophy professor, is intense but warm and has founded a string quartet. Their fears about sex and their inability to discuss them form the story's center. At the book's midpoint, McEwan (Atonement, etc.) goes into forensic detail about their naïve and disastrous efforts on the marriage bed, and the final chapter presents the couple's explosive postcoital confrontation on Chesil Beach. Staying very close to this marital trauma and the circumstances surrounding it (particularly class), McEwan's flawless omniscient narration has a curious (and not unpleasantly condescending) fable-like quality, as if an older self were simultaneously disavowing and affirming a younger. The story itself isn't arresting, but the narrator's journey through it is. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist

*Starred Review* In previous novels, McEwan has measured the effect of the cataclysmic moment on personal lives. And he has never shied away from full-tilt exploration of the tensions inherent in human sexuality. These two predilections merge, almost gently, in his new novella, which, despite its short length, is anything but small in its creative concept and the consequent poignancy it arouses in the reader. This achingly beautiful narrative, which seamlessly flows between the points of view of the two primary characters, peers behind closed doors, but never lasciviously, at a young married couple on their honeymoon night. The time is the brink of the 1960s, but the young couple's virginity, and their stiltedness in general and certainly with each other (McEwan makes certain to take several glances backward to fill in their separate biographical and psychological profiles), seems a remnant of Victorian times rather than anticipating the free and easy sexuality of the decade to come. The cataclysmic moment here is simply a case of premature ejaculation during the couple's first lovemaking; and from that incident, which under normal circumstances, with normally accepting and loving individuals, would have been a minor glitch in their marital history, immediately arises a deep misunderstanding that proves disastrous to the marriage. Conventional in construction and realistic in its representation of addled psychology, the novel is ingenious for its limited but deeply resonant focus. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Customer Reviews

15 Reviews
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2.9 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars What a difference a decade makes, Nov 21 2007
By Linda Bulger (Avon, Maine) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: On Chesil Beach (Hardcover)
Was anyone ever as naive and blundering as Florence and Edward? These two young people in their early twenties demonstrate a depth of ignorance that dooms their wedding night. Ian McEwan's novella ON CHESIL BEACH covers the few hours in 1962 during which Florence and Edward eat a mediocre wedding dinner in a hotel suite, move to the bedroom where they botch the whole thing badly, and fail to say the one thing, offer the one reconciliaton that could have saved them.

The overriding gift of this little book is McEwan's beautiful writing, which truly takes center stage. The plot is closely contained within Florence and Edward's relationship and the events of their wedding night, and there is barely enough supporting documentation to justify his clumsiness and her terror.

The point is universally made by reviewers that all this was before the Sexual Revolution of the sixties and early seventies. It hardly seems enough to explain the complete lack of communication between these two, and especially Florence's fear of sex. McEwan throws out a few clues about the relationship between Florence and her father but chooses not to develop them, and it's a noticeable choice in such a short book.

Another choice McEwan made was to define the story so closely. ON CHESIL BEACH is unusual in this regard: it's a book that could have been longer. After the fine dissection of the wedding night, the last section pelts through several decades, as if the only thing about these two worth discussing was over and done with. The harsh last minutes of the wedding night, on the beach, might have been a fulcrum point for a longer story. That was not McEwans' choice, however.

As a character study and an exquisitely disciplined exercise, ON CHESIL BEACH comes through beautifully and is a strong contender for another Booker Prize for McEwan. Yes, there are questions unanswered, but you have to suppose that was McEwan's intent all along. This is a book to be remembered and mused over for a long time.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Fell Flat, Dec 28 2008
By Teddy (Richmond, BC) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: On Chesil Beach (Hardcover)
It is 1962. The story opens with Edward and Florence just married and in their honeymoon sweet eating dinner. They are both nervous, as can be expected of two virgins. Florence is actually petrified. "Where he merely suffered conventional first-night nerves, she experienced a visceral dread, a helpless disgust as palpable as seasickness."

Edward had denied himself any "self-pleasure" for a week so that he wouldn't fail to perform on that all important night. However, once the event starts, it doesn't go well.

That pretty much sums up the story, of course I left out spoilers, which I figured out from the first few pages. The plot is very little and there is not a whole lot to the story. I'm not one to complain that something didn't "blow up". I don't need heart pounding action but I wish something more would have happened. The story was just too flat and one dimensional for me.

That said, I do like Ian McEwan's writing style. He really knows how to write about and capture emotions. I do have other McEwen books on my to-be-read list and do plan to read them.
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars A Talented Wordcrafter Describes an Improbable Honeymoon, Jul 6 2007
This review is from: On Chesil Beach (Hardcover)
If you are easily seduced by beautiful sentences, you'll feel On Chesil Beach is a five-star book. If you love exploring inner dialogue, you'll be even more pleased with this book.

If, however, you like your stories to be compelling because of their relevance and interest to your own life, you'll wonder why in the world Mr. McEwan chose to write about this particular problem of poor communications in the context of 1962. As you delve deeper into the book, you'll be even more puzzled by the book's pivotal event and the characters' reactions to it.

The short book (neither novella nor full novel) is organized in five parts that seem much like the acts in a Greek tragedy. The opening scene shows a couple dining in their room at an inn. "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." The second act describes how they met. The third act takes place in their bedroom in the inn. The fourth act describes their courtship. The fifth act takes place on the beach and in their lives afterward as they attempt and fail to communicate.

Mr. McEwan does a good job of capturing your attention through exploring the couple's growing tension as they move toward the consummation of their marriage. But past that point, the story seemed like a punctured balloon to me: My interest was gone. I suspect that reaction is because I didn't feel close to either character; they are more there to entertain me than to lead me into experiencing the story like the characters do.

Clearly, the story would have worked much better for me if focused around a more universal trial in marriage, such as handling both sets of parents during the birth of a first child. I also thought that Mr. McEwen played the role of the Greek chorus too often . . . telling us what was going on rather than letting us see and hear the action. The fourth part seems clearly out of place; it should have preceded the third part.

Unless you are drawn to beautiful sentences and images, I suggest you skip this book . . . it's a misdirected storytelling foray by a talented writer that is eminently avoidable.
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 		 Most recent customer reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Very indifferent
My feelings about this book are of great indifference. I neither loved it nor hated it. There are aspects that just didn't do it for me - it is a dark story, and seemed to drag... Read more
Published 2 months ago by MD

2.0 out of 5 stars niether loved nor hated it
the storytelling is fantastic - but i was in the end quite disappointed as i had hoped the actual story to be richer. i suppose i just did not understand the characters. Read more
Published 10 months ago by CeeGeeKay

3.0 out of 5 stars The world's longest foreplay
One might expect that in a short 166-page book, major events would occur fairly early on, before the page numbers get too high into the double digits. Read more
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5.0 out of 5 stars Ending makes the novel
The novel comes to a slow boil and its ending is quietly devastating in how acutely it paints the haphazard ways our lives turn and how we will never be able to judge if we did... Read more
Published 19 months ago by BookBabe

1.0 out of 5 stars Unimpressive
Despite the shortness of this novel, I still found this a difficult book to finish (though the fact that it's not as lengthy as the majority of his novels is the only reason that... Read more
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1.0 out of 5 stars Lacking Plot
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3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, but ...
... EXTREMELY overpriced for such a short book, especially when one considers that it originally appeared in the New Yorker for mere pennies, if one has a subsciption.
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