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What are readers saying about On Chesil Beach?
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-06-02 06:42:03.
(Language: English)
  
I love it, first because I could read it in two seatings (big novels are, how can I put it, intimidating, and lose me in the middle). OK, seriously: this is the second McEwan that I read (the other was Saturday), and every time I am enchanted by his craft, i.e. the way he forms sentences that flow and go back deep in the train of thought of his characters to tell you how they ever got where they are now. So, would anyone say, how can he keep you reading this story about the failure to have sex on the night of one's honeymoon?For one, it talks about a huge myth, the one that makes people hang soiled sheets at the honeymooners' window in Sicily. While reading it, I thought, "shouldn't they just relax about it and talk, maybe see a counselor?" And that is what people don't do. People assume they're deficient. They build tension on trifles just because Love was suddenly distilled to intercourse and everyone has a degree of discomfort with that.But at the end of the day, this novel is about intense love, the one that is trivialized now but that is the foundation of oneself. At the end of the day, it isn't how much sex you've had, it's about how you connected, and how you experience this abstraction called Love. When you reach the last pages of the book, that is where the author has taken you, and nothing else. There's no moral, no lesson learned, just the hint that you too, could have been so close to that ideal. I just love books like that.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-04-21 11:15:54.
(Language: English)
The rather sleazy beginning creates an apprehension on the readers to proceed further into the book. However the later parts surpass the rather dampening start as it takes one into the journey of two newly weds and their nervousness about the wedding night. Fidgeting and restlessness entwine the couple as they are constantly battling their inner demons of deficiency.The confrontation on the shores of chesil beach draws similarities to the unexpected stance of the crashing waves that hit the sands in a tumultous manner. A wave of varied emotions engulf the main characters as chapters take the readers back to their past lives and the reason for their restive and complicated personas. It makes one realize that failing to make one gesture or communicating something can change the course of a life or even lives forever. Just like a failure to steer an oar of a boat takes one in a direction far from his/her expected destination.
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Enrique posted a review at 2010-12-03 09:19:28.
(Language: Spanish)
Breve novela sobre relación de pareja entre dos jóvenes de desigual extracción, cuyo amor se expresa superficialmente, sin ahondar en las implicaciones sexuales del compromiso de amor por la influencia de una sociedad reprimida, digna heredera de la época victoriana, en la que no fluye la comunicación, ni se manifiestan los afectos. La caracterización es inmejorable y la descripción detallada de la frustrada noche de bodas es magistral. No quedo satisfecho con las últimas páginas en las que se narra el resto de sus vidas muy rápido y sin profundizar. Aún así, su prosa es una joya y vale la pena ser leída.
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-08-20 02:22:23.
(Language: English)
I loved this book, perhaps because he managed so well to be less weird than with other books of his... and his knowledge of the classical musical world which I know a bit was convincing... and what a story. Also, pleasant to read about Oxford and Oxfordshire people. My favourite of McEwan so far. And I think it was my favourite book of the year (that year when it was published) I liked it so much I decided to have it for the English as a Foreign Language section / litterature selection for my work place (which is a library)
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-02-03 10:18:43.
(Language: English)
PART 2 ...His descriptions seem to stretch time as another reviewer said, so as to show all of these experiences more fully and realistically. That being said, his seemingly professional and wordy writing sometimes falls into extravagant sexual comments which are laughable and can take away any mood that was apparent.Overall, I just cannot see how this is Britain's PART 1 ... Just finished the book. What can be said? Well, on first thoughts this is a fairly depressing and average book about a sexual encounter. On second thoughts, it seems to capture the spirit of the pre-1960's era as two people struggle to come to terms with changing attitudes towards sex.It is mainly, to me, a crisis of understanding between two people blinded somewhat by love, into believing that they know one another, when, in fact, their love is a bundle of secrets. One demands and the other submits with fear.I have to admit that McEwan's writing style is something different and fantastic at times. Just because he can so easily portray experiences and feelings we can all relate to. This is what he's good at. He seems to have captured things we have all felt but not been able to describe so easily. These aren't just feelings, however, but sights, sounds and atmosphere. We have all been to the fields, dry summer rooms and the beach in this novel...
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-03-08 03:39:05.
(Language: English)
I think that Ian McEwan is a marvellous writer and I just took out three more of his books from the library. There is no denying how adept he is at getting into his characters' heads and I love the way he can move around a timeline without making the story confusing. That said, I found On Chesil Beach painful to read, as I knew where it was going and could hardly bear the inevitability of the ending. Just started the short stories in First Love Final Rites and was utterly repelled by the second one. Will see how the rest go...
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-08-31 11:26:56.
(Language: English)
I've only sampled a handful of McEwan's works, but from what I have read, they tend to come across as a little hit and miss. 'On Chesil Beach' was most definitely a miss. In what was essentially a character study, this novella fell rather short. The characters were neither original, engaging or in the slightest bit remarkable. The relationship between the two characters is at times nauseating, the aggressive over-sexualised male meets passive frigid female. While reading it, the most banal accusations of misogyny kept circling through my mind, as if I was a 1970s feminist pouring over a text from the 1950s. Admittedly the author goes to some efforts to describe the setting of England in 1962 as existing prior the sexual revolution in every which way. Perhaps I'd be willing to accept this explanation, if not for the fact that this particular angle on male-female relations that he describes is then replicated in so many of his other novels which he has set in the present day. Should 'On Chesil Beach' take out this year's Booker, I wouldn't be at all surprised.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-06-25 03:20:18.
(Language: English)
This book was a total disappointment....Talk about an author with nothing to write about....one who wants to make a quick buck!!! The jacket of the this crappy book is worth more than the few hundred pages that are contained therein.....And just to save you the disappointment because I wish someone had done me the favour...this pile of wet toilet paper is about a sexually inexperience couple getting married and their wedding night....talk about milking the prelude to the marriage bed for more than it is worth..now I am not talking about foreplay here because there was none!!! They didnt even get to bump uglies and after the whole ordeal or lack thereof, the book spiraled into the insignificance of the lives of the pathetic characters in the aftermath of their accidental marriage, all in a few pages which lacks any substance whatsoever...Ian McEwan should be ashamed of himself!!
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-03-15 05:20:07.
(Language: English)
Given the scale and scope of McEwan's previous work this book is a surprisingly simple love story which focuses right down into a few hours of a wedding night, with the background to the relationship being filled in as the story progresses. McEwan demonstrates a light, playful touch when describing the otherwise normal love affair and family life of the two central characters, and draws the reader in with a familarity that anyone who's ever fallen in love will recognise. But underneath the bubbling stream of their blossoming love runs a deeper, darker undercurrent which foretells something menacing. And this tension sets the book apart from being 'just another love story'. The conclusion, when it comes, knocks the breath out of you.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-10-10 11:12:16.
(Language: English)
It's the 60s: things fall apart: Empires, colonies, stray islands in the sea. Against this backdrop two people, young, flustered, overwrought, must consummate their marriage, and salvage their fragile selves. McEwan, skilled craftsman that he is, weaves histories around what is-- only a moment. His narrative moves, backward, forward, in maddening circles, and eventually rests, still. In the midst of such stylistic maneuverings, the author probes into the minds of Florence and Edward, unearths their motivations, their reasons for struggle and cold-blooded apathy. He watches them in their inarticulateness, their vagueness, their silence. Admittedly, the novel is about a generation far removed from the present. Yet, strangely enough, it's as though, time is static: the concerns remain the same. What lies between speech and speechlessness? What do we lose-- what stands to be gained-- by leaving gestures incomplete? How much of a lifetime hinges on a moment? Keenly perceptive, yet heart-wrenchingly sad, this is one book that makes you wish that phrases were transparent.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-09-02 06:32:26.
(Language: English)
On Chesil Beach is a book like Ian McEwan’s Saturday or Graham Swift’s Tomorrow, in the sense that it’s central focus spans a few hours, in this novel, only one evening. There are other features to observe in the background and the frame but the small canvas highlights the exquisite description of ordinary actions, the concentrated attention on small details, the magnificent selection of words and the timing of silences that are both enjoyed and endured. McEwan’s plot for this short novel involves two virgins on their wedding night staying in a hotel at Chesil Beach, Dorset, England, in the year 1962. After a brief account of the wedding in Oxford and their first meal alone as husband and wife the novel describes their movements and feelings from the dining table to the creaky, four-poster bed. The relief of knowing that the wedding day went off without a hitch, the sound of waves and the scent of flowers, sets the stage for some warm and intense fellowship. The themes of fluidity and stiffness are captured well by McEwan in this description of the hotel meal: “The altered breeze carried through the parted French windows an enticement, a salty scent of oxygen and open space that seemed at odds with the starched table linen, the corn-flour-stiffened gravy, and the heavy polished silver they were taking in their hands.†The author sketches the way that “the times held themâ€, with the sexual mores of the pre-Pill 1960s, the shaping power of their parents and the one thousand “unacknowledged rules that applied when two people were alone.†One of the many amusing incidents involves the bridegroom battling with the terror of ‘arriving too soon’ and hitting on the steadying technique of concentrating his mind upon Prime Minister Harold McMillan, “who was everything that was not sex and ideal for the purpose.†The book identifies the apprehension and anxieties in an evolving relationship, and the often conflicting dynamics of curiosity and coyness, fantasies and fears and nakedness and concealment. It is about the challenge of people in a relationship to patiently learn the language needed to name the unnamable and muster the courage to share true feelings. While the book revolves around a marriage relationship, it provides a useful catalyst to conversation for people in other types of relationships and implicitly stresses the need for communication and negotiation. On Chesil Beach is about the power of words spoken and left unspoken, not only those that are solemnly expressed in wedding services but the decisions that are made on beds and beaches which then determine the course of people’s lives. Geoff Pound
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-02-04 09:48:02.
(Language: English)
McEwan is an extraordinary writer and has a definite gift for characterization. I couldn't wait to read this book after reading the first chapter in the New Yorker's winter fiction issue a full year ago. I read the excerpt two or three times over. I would have preferred to keep my impression as the anticipation of something great. McEwan digs deep into the characters and their ideas of love and society in the subsequent chapters. It's deep, and thoughtful, and I enjoyed it. I read the entire book in one sitting. But - and this is a big but - the end was so disappointing it ruined the book for me. Throughout the entire book, McEwan has been building and building towards what you could call the climax, in both subject matter and literary terms. And after it happens, he totally drops the reins of control he has over his characters. They both act in a way that completely undercuts everything the reader has come to believe about their relationship. It's a question of sex versus love and McEwan chooses to chuck the whole discourse rather than honestly answer. I would have thrown this book away too, except that it was a library book and I still have respect for McEwan as a writer. However, his position as a favorite writer (after Atonement, Cement Garden, and Between the Sheets), is rapidly eroding. Amsterdam also had a crap ending, and a trend is building. Come on, McEwan. Your book is not worthy of being called a masterpiece if the ending sucks.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-01-16 07:54:53.
(Language: English)
No word is wasted in this brief, immaculate account of a wedding night doomed to failure. Edward and Florence are in their early 20s when they marry in 1962 - the end of an era in which youth is an embarrassment and eve of the modern sexual revolution. What follows in this novella – it is a slight book and can be read in a couple of hours - is a mixture of excruciating, very English comedy – with an ensemble of awkward waiters, rubbish food and sexual awkwardness – and a meditation on chance and destiny. Edward, uptight, pious and fairly unlikeable emerges as a tragic figure, while the fate of Florence is only hinted at. McEwan conjures a lost England, standing on the precipice of vast social change. It is less his subject - though that is in itself interesting - and trenchant social commentary that make this book great than its linguistic precision and force. It is a superlative novel, gentler than anything McEwan has previously produced and yet more evidence that he is a writer not only at the very height of his powers, but the best novelist that this country has. Finally, a note on the fate of the Booker Prize 2007. There’s a sense that 162 pages, this somehow isn’t a ‘proper’ novel and one wonders if McEwan had stretched it out another fifty pages the award may have gone to him. Certainly this is an easier read than Enright’s The Gathering and a subtler book, while the prose is infinitely superior to anything I’ve read this year. Then again, the wisdom of the Booker judges is always beyond me: why else would McEwan have won it with Amsterdam a decade ago, when it was one of the weaker books of his career?
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Carla posted a review at 2007-11-20 04:58:59.
(Language: English)
I finished reading last night and can't really make up my mind, what to think of it. I neither loved, nor hated it, it somehow leaves me indifferent. Oh yes, it's beautifully written and I enjoyed parts of it, but found others boring and dull. I think the few remaining chapters that did draw me in, do not justify this having been published as a book on it's own. It's not a novel. It's more like a short story and those I like to find in a collection. I can imagine that some people who bought this (expensive) small hardcover, felt more or less disappointed, even cheated upon, quantity wise. It's as if the publisher must have thought, that it would sell anyway because McEwan is such a well known author, no matter how little value the reader would get for his money!!! It did not make enough impression to remember it as a "good read". The only thing that will stay with me, is what McEwan already made clear to me in "Enduring Love": Your life can change completely in a split second by just one event, one word, one misunderstanding. I got the message by now!
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-09-12 09:48:46.
(Language: English)
Amazing - beautifully written book which moved me to tears at the end. The story of a young couples wedding night, is spliced with recolelctions of their realtionship and what lead to this marriage. The frigid Florence is a difficult character to feel much empathy for but there are parts which suggest some underlying reasons for her frigidity. The book is superbly written and I was completely immersed by the writing. A simple story told with great style which and it even more powerful for me. Loved it.
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coinoperated posted a review at 2010-08-14 06:03:49.
(Language: English)
On Chesil Beach was a beautifully moving story of the wedding night of a young, innocent, virginal couple. He was trying to be brave and masterful in the face of his fear, and she was trying anything she could to escape the inevitable consummation of their wedding vows. In the end, they both walked away from something magical, without really trying to fix it. It broke my heart. The novel was set in Oxford which made it even more wonderful for me, as I watched this young and perfect couple walk through the places I’ve walked a hundred times. I really disliked the first McEwan novel I read – Enduring Love – but he certainly redeemed himself with Chesil Beach.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-03-24 10:10:42.
(Language: English)
Excelente retrato sobre la fragilidad de las relaciones humanas, sobre su compleja delicadeza: exigen fuerza y arrojo para no reservar los deseos y los temores, sino expresarlos con honestidad en el momento. Su acumulación comporta el riesgo de transformarlos súbitamente en ira o en terror, siempre incomprensibles y contundentemente hirientes para el otro. Sin embargo, este hecho común a todo intento de conexión profunda entre personas, y cuya dificultad se ejemplifica con maestrÃa en la novela, no incorpora con igual profundidad lo que sucede después de la crisis en la psique de cada personaje. El libro salta de la minuciosa descripción del acontecimiento vivido por las dos partes a una ráfaga de elipsis que constituyen únicamente el rápido recuento del personaje masculino cuando ya se ha hecho mayor. Las últimas páginas simplifican la enorme dificultad de comunicarnos a una explÃcita reflexión sobre la imposibilidad de expiar la culpa y la enorme dimensión emocional que significa la pérdida del primer amor. AsÃ, lo que nos resultó sorprendentemente cercano en el relato especÃfico de una noche de 1962, se transforma en frases hechas autoflagelantes, de esas de las que echamos mano en cada borrachera y que utilizamos para creer que pudimos tener un destino mejor ¡Si tan sólo hubiésemos sido lúcidos, pacientes y maduros, aquél dÃa! ¡Por favor! la condena está siempre en nosotros, y ya quisiéramos que pudiera levantarse con un único acto de fe. Pero hace falta mucho más que un acto para resolver nuestras múltiples e intrincadas tramas.Le pongo 5 estrellas a la narración de la noche de bodas, pero le pongo media estrella a la reflexión que sobre ésta se hace al final del libro.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-01-18 06:35:07.
(Language: English)
FANS of Ian McEwan still reeling from director Joe Wright’s botched film adaptation of Atonement (and, indeed, the disappointment of the author’s recent Saturday) will find much to rally their spirits here. In little more than 160 pages, this brilliantly compressed novella takes its primary focus – the 1962 wedding night of two educated sexual innocents – and conjures entire worlds of fear, repression and missed opportunity. For Edward and Florence, this is the pivotal moment of both their lives. McEwan meticulously portrays their characters, shows us their first meeting from both sides and describes their differing anxieties about their new marriage before, in a brilliant closing flourish, sketching in the aftermath, the subsequent decades, with an elegance that shades into tragedy. Don’t put off by the book’s brevity – this is superbly written, McEwan’s best book for ages.
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-07-09 11:10:12.
(Language: English)
It's a little like a cold Wednesday evening with nothing to do, a bit bleak. However, it does hide a very significant point in a simple story, and it's expertly crafted. In essence this story is about what could have been, if only. The consequences of the right thing not said and how huge they are in ordinary ways that you'd miss if you didn't think about it. You know the sort of thing, sliding doors with the wrong train taken. It does provoke the imagination, I'm sure we all wonder from time to time how our own stories might have been different, and a life can turn on one conversation, but for me the profoundness of it all still didn't add up to a great read, more of a philosophical point well made.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-09-25 04:06:09.
(Language: English)
This is how the entire course of a life can be changed - by doing nothing. Just how does he do it? It feels like yesterday that i read McEwan's last novel, the sublime Saturday. And yet here we are, with another Booker Prize in the air, and another great novel under his belt. On Chesil Beach is oh so short, but oh so densely crammed with a wonderfully poetic narrative. The plot is framed by just a few hours, but the months and years before and after are crucial in the lives of our two protagonists, brought together on what should be the happiest day of their lives; their wedding day. They each have their own fears of what's to come, but will they be able to articulate these to each other? McEwan has always had a talent for exploring the rawest, most sincere of emotions, whilst never being scared of raising taboos, and i'm pleased to say that this novel doesn't disappoint on either count. It's not even close to being his best work, but it's still one of the best novels this year.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-03-04 02:28:04.
(Language: English)
What an amazing read! In relating the events of (a 20-something couple) Edward and Florence's wedding night, with some digressions into thier growing up years and how they met, McEwan manages to convey a powerful message. If you walk away from something without closure, it can only bring you regrets, never victory or peace. Florence's pain and lack of readiness to give herself up completly, mingles with Edward's sexual frustrations and unfulfilled desire to consumnate thier union, to create a toxic potion of anger and hurt. Instead of communicating thier true feelings and fears to each other, the couple chooses to play act thier expected roles, albiet to a disastrous finish. It's a simple enough story, but McEwan's delivery is poignant and moving. The description of the moments spent in the bedroom could be almost comic, if it wasnt so heartbreaking.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-08-31 01:58:07.
(Language: English)
I had heard a little of this book on Radio 4 a while back and mentally marked it as one I would like to read. I found the story very touching, but also frustrating - especially at the end when Edward reflects on how things may have turned out 'if only'. It made me reflect on how much of our own lives must be altered (or not) by those few words we were going to say - but never did. It was also sad and poingnant that - until a crisis precipitated it - these two people were not able to articulate what their feelings were towards each other. I am almost of the same generation as the characters, and whilst I can relate personally to a lot of the comments and descriptions, I cannot remember such a limiting society as that described. All in all I enjoyed the book, but it did leave me feeling rather melancholy. An interesting look at the complexities of human relationships.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-09-04 03:54:00.
(Language: English)
A relatively weak book from McEwan. The lyric and pastoral/poetic tone is so overdone that it borders on self-mockery, and makes the reader think we're in the Victorian Era, although we learn that we are, in fact, in the 1950/60s. I see the point that the text tries to make: Social and sexual mores don't change as quick as the language does, I appreciate it, yet, i also couldn't shake the feeling that the text felt like one big example of hyperbole. Coming from a country where intimate relations between the sexes are extremely cramped (Turkey) i was surprised to read that sexual liberation found its way quite late in England. However, i found the characters to be quite simple, too ordinary to be interesting. This is not to say that literature has to deal with extraordinary individuals, no, but it does make it more interesting to read. The couple in On Chesil Beach are insufferably un-interesting. Drab language coming out of their mouths, mingling with the overexposure of McEwan's lyrical poetics, just didn't do it for me.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-09-21 08:55:54.
(Language: English)
I enjoyed reading about someone else's formative sexual experiences - it was sad, but I also felt Edward and Florence's perceptions were crushingly real for them- and as I was reading it I was in awe of McEwan's ability to make a reader squirm. McEwan didn't explicitly spell out sexual abuse in Florence's past- and maybe the relationship with her father never transgressed sexual abuse, but I thought her discomfort had a lot to do with how she related to her parents, particularly her father. There was a lot of debate in the book world about whether that night could ever have happened, if two people, even in 1960, could be that niave. I think their wedding night (or lack thereof!) could happen now- because it wasn't so much about mechanical knowledge of sex- but knowledge of self. Sure, a young couple could know all the ins and outs (pun intended) but we still don't actually teach young people how to enjoy sex in a respectful, caring and fun way. What I took away was that we place too much importance on the act of sex, as a milestone into adulthood, and not enough importance on the concept of pleasure. We rush in and hold back at the same time as culture and if someone had any hesitation at all, as Florence did, the mixed messages, lack of real information and significance we attach to sex would be overwhelming.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-11-20 06:43:21.
(Language: English)
Hmm, this is a funny one. I've only ever read one other McEwan novel, "The Child in Time", and found it irritatingly pretentious, but it's been a good few years since he wrote that one so I thought I'd give him another chance, in case he'd improved with age. I started off thinking that he definitely had. In fact, I'd say that I found the first half of this book utterly compelling: I liked the sparse style, and found myself really investing in both of the protagonists. I also thought the layering of the narrative was brilliant: the way he builds up that first scene to a sort of intense cliffhanger, before cheekily deserting the present situation in order to delve into the characters' respective back-stories, is both provoking and brilliant. But then, about halfway through, it suddenly got shit! I don't understand why, but all of a sudden it was like the self-important McEwan of "The Child in Time" reared its ugly head, and there was no going back! When I talk about McEwan being "pretentious" or "self-important", what I really mean is his maddening compulsion to parade his cleverness around at every turn - whether the subject is medieval history, classical music, theoretical physics, or whatever, there's always got to be some intimidating body of knowledge on display, as though to proclaim his superior intelligence. It's like a big fat flashing neon sign that reads: "I AM CLEVERER THAN YOU POOR SAD PLEBS! BOW DOWN TO THE THRONE OF MY SUPERIOR INTELLECT!" And in my view, it totally ruins what would otherwise be really stunning work. It's not just that it's irritating; it actually diminishes your engagement with the characters, because no one in real life is ever as bloody smart as these know-it-all clever-dicks - and if they were, you'd probably smack them. McEwan's great flaw is his smug irony, his self-congratulating wit, which undermines and pollutes the intricate stories that he weaves. Ultimately, it diminishes the truthfulness of his work, because you start to feel that what you are reading is an intellectual exercise, rather than an observation of real human behaviour. And the end of the book went from bad to worse. Why did he feel the need to explain away the rest of Edward's life? To crudely summarise, when the rest of the narrative drew its vitality from its closeness, and acute attention to detail? Sure, I saw what McEwan was driving at, but I could equally have guessed it from the telling clues dispersed throughout the narrative, which, had it been left open-ended, would, I think, have been a thousand times more powerful. I should have cried at the end of that book, but instead I merely felt frustrated.Despite the powerful psychology of the earlier chapters, I simply didn't feel convinced by the outcome - I just didn't believe that it would have ended so abruptly. So, in short: McEwan, climb out of your own arse for one moment and just tell us a good story! You can clearly write, so why do you feel the need to dress everything up in a mantle of self-conscious cleverness? GET OVER YOURSELF! And breathe...
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