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On Chesil Beach | 
| Author: Ian Mcewan
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  205 reviews
Sales Rank: 2835
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 200 more reviews...
 Just Say Something! October 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"On Chesil Beach" is pure Ian McEwan and I mean that in a good way. There is so much packed into this short novel with so little of the writing relying on action. McEwan is a master of character study, of coming to terms with the discrepancy between what is in a character's head and what he or she actually does. This is the story of two lovers, Edward and Forence, brought together under censorious circumstances -1960s England. Their wedding night is the point about which the entire story turns, one plagued by embarrassment and misunderstanding that will change their lives forever.
Alright, that sounds a little too much like a movie trailer for a book that is so simple and pure, but that does not make the drama any less true. I opened the front cover with a "let's see how he can possibly follow up Atonement" frame of mind. Perhaps that was not fair, but in some ways this story has some similar elements found in "Atonement," but much more concentrated due to its brevity. McEwan deftly weaves his characters with grace and compassion willing the reader to shout "just say something!" We are moved to frustration and pity in a way that is as wonderful as it is heartbreaking.
On Chesil Beach-A short novel which is on target to capture the love of its readers September 26, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
On Chesil Beach is another short novel by the fine English novelist Ian McEwan. As he has done so often before the novelist has the ability to focus on the defnining moment in a relationship. He does this with lush prose used to tell this poignant tale of lost love, impatience and lost opportunities. This feeling of "what might have been if only..." resonates with this critic and the hoardes of eager McEwan fans who enjoy intellectually sharp tales well told by a master of the craft.
Edward is 23 and his longtime fiance Florence is 22. The two are honeymooning at a hotel near Dorset in the English West Country. Both of these bright young people are sexually inexperienced virgins. Edward comes from the home of a dysfunctional familiy. His father is an underpaid schoolmaster; his mother has mental problems; his siblings bore him. Edward gets a first in History and meets Florence in Oxford. He is smitten with her big boned beauty and interest in preventing nuclear warfare. The two decorously begin a prim and proper romantic relationship. Some kissing and fondling occur but no sexual intercourse.
Florence is an outstanding musician who graduates from the Royal Academy of Music. Her string quartet is on the way up the musical ladder. She is very prim and straight-laced. She fears intimacy with a man even though she loves him very much. Florence comes from a wealthy family but Edward has no trouble ingratiating himself with her well heeled flock.
On Chesil Beach occurs on their first night together as husband and wife. They suffer through a routine meal knowing their initiation in sex awaits in the marital bed. A terrible incident occurs when Florence provokes Edward into an early orgasm. This situation leads to their ultimate estrangement. Years later Edward will look back and realize if he had only been more patient with Florence their lives would have been happier. Edward knows that he has never loved anyone as much as Florence but it is too late to revive his relationship with her. Like all of us we all have regrets as we grow older.
The novel is filled with flashbacks to the pasts of Edward and Florence helping the reader to understand what motivates these two characters We also return to the more formal era of the early 1960s which McEwan introduces through the means of hotel guests commenting on the news on the hotel's televison. This era of propriety now seems so distant in our anything goes amoral society.
McEwan has a few brief sex scenes but they are tastefully and sensitively presented. He has a keen eye for the beauties of nature and also is keen in his love for and appreciation for classical music.
This novel is short but one which will stick in your mind for years to come. Edward and Florence are two of McEwan's best characters. Romeo and Juliet were not the last star-crossed lovers in fiction as this smart novel shows us so well!
Another Beautiful McEwan Novel Writ in a Minor Key September 23, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
McEwan's books are like an Irish Ballad: beautiful, haunting, forlorn and difficult to forget, Chesil Beach is no exception. It is difficult not to finish the novel swiftly after reading the first sentence: "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 novel continues with another of McEwan's trademarkes, weaving together unspeakable sexual intimacies with everyday happenings followed by the private thoughts of his characters. If one was disappointed at Atonement's ending I would suggest not reading Chesil Beach. But becoming well acquainted with McEwan's characters and seeing how their tragedy is a product of their time period is a process that will only broaden one's understanding of humanity.
One marvels at McEwan's command of the English language. It is good to see that in this age of haste there is an author who can remind one of life's subtleties; like the nervous tendency to brush aside a hair that isn't there. Somehow, McEwan manages to put into words those tiny moments that we all experience yet never consciously consider, and make them relevant, even central to the novel's theme. For this, McEwan's acuteness to words, I give his novella five stars. It is from these intricacies that the story is built and McEwan's moral of hindsight and failure hopefully help the reader appreciate all the imperfections in their own life.
 very dated September 12, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
As always McEwan writes very well but as often his material is uninteresting and even dated. The only saving grace of the book (which is more like a novella), and the only reason I even finished it, is that you can read it in under two hours. McEwan seems to have fallen prey to the unfortunate fate of many famous authors (and rock stars); he is too isolated from the realities of daily life that he is lacking in good ideas on which to use his outstanding talents.
Sublime...my choice for the Booker last year September 8, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Ian McEwan is the only contemporary fiction writer today with the talent and the craft to transform what in lesser hands might pass for a rather slight novella into a tremulous, gorgeously detailed work of art. "On Chesil Beach" may be less ambitious in its scope than McEwan's earlier masterpieces such as "Atonement" but it is no less satisfying for the effect it strives to achieve. McEwan isn't a writer who grows on you. His writing strictly eschews sentiment, so the reader expecting to be moved should look elsewhere. His words - razor sharp, cold and brutal - either hit you like an ice pick on the forehead or leave you with an unpleasant aftertaste.
It is also his favorite thing to use copious amounts of page space to display in slow motion every flicker of thought or emotion running through the minds of his characters. In "Saturday", the opening night scene of the protagonist observing the descent of an airplane from his bedroom takes up more pages than one would imagine. We get plenty of that kind of thing here.
Ironically perhaps, the thwarted lives of Edward and Florence must seem the saddest story ever told. Born into an age when sex expects to follow love in marriage like hand in glove, the quiet desperation consuming the couple as they head for the bridal chambers on their wedding night, each not knowing what to do, yet willing himself/herself to do the right thing by the other, becomes the subject of this deceptively slight novella. McEwan is in his usual commanding form, wielding his arsenal of killer sharp precision words to devastating effect to achieve just the right nuances. He reveals a comic side in an unexpected scene when Edward deliberately conjures up Joseph Stalin's face in his mind's eye to avoid his first calamity. An unbelievable sleight of hand ! As the narrative lurches fatefully towards its inevitable conclusion, McEwan uses flashback to plug the gap in the couple's back story for us to make sense of their present dilemma.
The wasted lives of Edward and Florence seem a needless cruelty today. McEwan, writing at the top of his game, succeeds in evoking pathos and sadness without the usual mawkishness that accompanies such sentiment. A brilliant book. Most definitely, my choice for the Booker last year !
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