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On Chesil Beach

by Ian McEwan

3.43 · rating details · 17,579 ratings · 3,049 reviews

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.

...moreSuch 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

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Paperback, 166 pages

Published 2007 by Jonathan Cape

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Community Reviews

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Sep 09, 2008

brian rated it

· review of another edition

i read this book in one sitting, on a plane from l.a. to nyc, and it just knocked my socks off. and i came up with a scenerio: imagine if i was flying cross country for some kind of mcewanesque purpose … suppose last time i had been in new york I had met a girl, had spent only a few hours with her, but came back changed. i walked around los angeles buzzed, different, everything slightly altered, colored with that feeling… alright, yeah, it sounds stupid, but go with me (and mcewan) on this. wha...morei read this book in one sitting, on a plane from l.a. to nyc, and it just knocked my socks off. and i came up with a scenerio: imagine if i was flying cross country for some kind of mcewanesque purpose … suppose last time i had been in new york I had met a girl, had spent only a few hours with her, but came back changed. i walked around los angeles buzzed, different, everything slightly altered, colored with that feeling… alright, yeah, it sounds stupid, but go with me (and mcewan) on this. what if i just couldn’t get her outta my head. i mean what if this girl was just perfect, like so ridiculously smart and funny and beautiful and just had that ineffable 'thing' that only very very few people that you ever meet in your life have... i mean, what if, prick atheist that i am, i just knew that this was something important?

does one behave cautiously and cower before the impossibility and impracticality of a geographically-challenged love affair? does one cower before doubt and fear and insecurity and the unknown and the possiblity of failure?

or does one shove all that useless stuff aside and burst forward, chest out and fists clenched, and grab one’s fate by the throat rather than be content as ‘attendant lord’?

well… this is the stuff of mcewan’s fiction. he’s obsessed with that one moment and all the various possibilites which extend outward into time and space --- whether it be a shared glance while hanging from the dangling ropes of a quickly ascending hot air balloon or the reaction to a disastrous night of naïve lovemaking or being attacked by two canine rapists (seriously) or, as in my case, a magical but unrealistic night spent knocking around lower east side bars…

and one can’t help but wonder, in reading his books, if one were put in the place of one of mcewan’s protagonists, how he/she would react…

as per my 'imaginary' scenerio: would one go for it? or would it be smarter to think with the mind over the heart (you want what you can’t have, grass is always greener, love is a biological imperative necessary for survival of the species), to consider the negatives (3000 miles is a lot of space between), to be practical (plenty of girls in los angeles)…

would i go for it? would i jump on a plane for her? would i risk looking like a crazy person? would i risk rejection and heartbreak? would it be the smart (fuck smart) move to get involved with someone i would rarely see in person? would i throw caution (fuck caution) to the wind and make some kind of grand gesture to a girl i’ve only actually seen in the flesh about 4 days in my life? would i blow off the world and take her down to, say, south america for a week?

or perhaps i would -- as so many of mcewan’s tragic protagonists do -- take the reasonable route and allow fate to determine my course?

hmmm….

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Sep 17, 2007

Sarah rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: students of literature, dirty old men

The first thing you should know about this book is that, like the other Ian McEwan books I’ve read, it is about the most uncomfortable, awkward, and squirmy thing you’ll ever read. Don’t believe me? What if I told you that the book – which is 200 pages long – only covers about two hours of time: the first two hours of a newlywed couple’s honeymoon in which they fumble to consummate their marriage? And that both of them have very embarrassing sexual dysfunctions?

Well, that’s what the...moreThe first thing you should know about this book is that, like the other Ian McEwan books I’ve read, it is about the most uncomfortable, awkward, and squirmy thing you’ll ever read. Don’t believe me? What if I told you that the book – which is 200 pages long – only covers about two hours of time: the first two hours of a newlywed couple’s honeymoon in which they fumble to consummate their marriage? And that both of them have very embarrassing sexual dysfunctions?

Well, that’s what the book is about. The reader looks on helplessly and squirmingly as two virgins, Edward and Florence, sit in a hotel room on the beach embarrassed out of their minds. It’s 1962, on the cusp of the sexual revolution, and the pair have neither the presence of mind or even the vocabulary to communicate openly with each other. There is only a handful of words spoken until the very last chapter of the book (it was tough for me not to use the word climax here, but I try to stay classy).

For the first 50 pages or so I was convinced that McEwan was just selling a freak show to us (again) – that he’s a popular author because people like reading about sex and other people’s weirdo sex problems. Who needs a plot or well-executed sentences when we could have incest, brain damage, erectile dysfunction, and a 30,000 word sex scene? Bring on other peoples’ guilt and shame!

But I kept reading and I’m glad I did. Through a number of seamless flashbacks, the history of the couple unfolded before me – so slowly and steadily and adeptly that I am now convinced that Ian McEwan is a genius. A dirty old man genius.

It made me think back to a few years ago when Ben and I were lucky enough to interview Jim Shepard, Ben’s favorite contemporary writer and a visiting author at the University of Montana (visiting because Ben requested him, no less). We sat in the Union Club sipping straight whiskeys and Jim Shepard told us that the truly great books (he was specifically talking about Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping) are books that are constantly revelatory.

And that’s exactly what I though about On Chesil Beach. Everyone – we’re talking about the characters and me – were learning and understanding more and more deeply with each page. It felt like a blossoming or, to be less lame and corny, like a picture very slowly coming into focus. Many times when authors reveal information it seems cheap or as if they were withholding it from you in order to keep you reading – dime mystery book stuff. But McEwan’s real gift is in the natural and subtle ways that he presents information to the reader. In fact, many of the biggest revelations in the book are never said outright, but only seep into the story until you understand each one as truth. It’s really pretty well done.

So – if you can handle cringing non-stop for three or four hours and have a strong stomach, you should pick up this book. And let me know if you can figure out exactly how McEwan does what he does, because I’d like to know about it.
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Mar 24, 2008

Jason Pettus rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. (The much longer full review can be found at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

Regular readers know that this month CCLaP is taking an extended look at the nominees for the 2007 Booker Prize; and regular readers also know that so far I've been mostly disappointed by the nominees I've read, finding most of them to be inconsequential little wisps of stories, many of them well-written but certainly not weighty enough to be called "The Best Novel o...more(The much longer full review can be found at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

Regular readers know that this month CCLaP is taking an extended look at the nominees for the 2007 Booker Prize; and regular readers also know that so far I've been mostly disappointed by the nominees I've read, finding most of them to be inconsequential little wisps of stories, many of them well-written but certainly not weighty enough to be called "The Best Novel of 2007." And thus do we come to the fifth Booker nominee to be reviewed here, as well as the one easily most well-known, Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach; and let me tell you, if a common complaint about this year's Booker nominees is of their slight and inconsequential nature, On Chesil Beach isn't helping matters at all, in that it is such a non-excuse for a novel as to almost not exist. In fact, I can literally give you the entire plot of this 200-page, paperback-sized book in literally 177 words; and this is a major spoiler alert, by the way, because I'm not kidding, I really am about to tell you the entire storyline of On Chesil Beach from beginning to end, without skipping a single detail, in 177 words. Ready?

A young middle-class couple get married in England in 1962, and spend their wedding night on Chesil Beach. He only got married because he's horny as hell and lives in middle-class 1962 England, where getting married is the only chance you're going to have to get laid, and as a result has now become a cuckold employee of his upper-class father-in-law; she despises the very idea of sex altogether, but is too much of a coward to tell her husband, instead spending months psyching herself up into performing her upcoming "wifely duties." The wedding night arrives. He gets so excited that he has a premature ejaculation on his wife's stomach. She becomes so disgusted that she flees the room in a panic. He chases her down the beach, where they have an explosive argument based on mutual misunderstanding of each other's behavior. She leaves him that night and their marriage is annulled (presumably). And he spends the rest of his life thinking about "the relationship that was never meant to be."

No, dude, seriously, that's it; that's the entire freaking plotline of the book. Which, fine, I don't necessarily mind when it's a 10,000-word short story in a literary magazine, that I'm reading on a boring Sunday afternoon down at my neighborhood cafe; but seriously, as a standalone book for 22 damn dollars? And that the Booker committee has the gall to nominate as the best novel of the entire year? Seriously? Are you kidding me? It's hard for me to...(less)

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Sep 13, 2007

Cody rated it

Shelves: favorites, contemporary

I hadn't intended on reading any Ian McEwan in the near future, and this wasn't even atop my McEwan "to-read" list. However, as it is short-listed for the Booker, and since I have a tendency to hardly ever keep up with contemporary literature, I was inspired to pick this up at the library yesterday. Then, I proceeded to read it in one sitting.

Of course, this rapid reading was very much aided by the length of the book, but this is ultimately an inconsequential reason for m...moreI hadn't intended on reading any Ian McEwan in the near future, and this wasn't even atop my McEwan "to-read" list. However, as it is short-listed for the Booker, and since I have a tendency to hardly ever keep up with contemporary literature, I was inspired to pick this up at the library yesterday. Then, I proceeded to read it in one sitting.

Of course, this rapid reading was very much aided by the length of the book, but this is ultimately an inconsequential reason for my fixation. As with *Atonement*, the only other of his I've read, McEwan here displays the most amazing ability to create such honest and well-developed characters, that it is, for me, seemingly impossible not to attach yourself at least somewhat to the “their stories”.

While I think that *Atonement* is a more developed work—complex and historical, at once youthfully passionate and bitterly resigned—and, thus literarily, impressed me more, *On Chesil Beach* is, for me, much more affecting. This was due, in part, because I was more willing and able to become wholly enmeshed in the text. It also seemed more relevant to my present life, which, though I often shrink from reviews that make such a point, I must admit allowed me to become more invested, more enveloped in McEwan's tale.

Though I claim that *Atonement* is more developed, we should remind ourselves that *On Chesil Beach* is a notably shorter work. I'm astounded at McEwan's ability, in such few words, to create complex characters and themes that are not in the least bit inchoate. The only author I know of who can take on such a multitude of themes in such a concise text is J.M. Coetzee, though he is an utterly different writer than McEwan. Whereas Coetzee is focused more on what we might call the social and the universal, McEwan explores the psychological and the individual. And, yet, through the seemingly specific individuals that McEwan creates, we wholly relate, thus imbuing his themes, emotions, ideas with a kind of universality.

This work explores, so beautifully, much of what it means to be young, in love, and attempting to assume adulthood and take the first, daunting steps in an attempt to forge a fulfilling life. And, as I read, my heart simply broke.(less)

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May 17, 2010

Jana rated it

Shelves: heart-and-mind

It took me three years to finish it. I bought it on Heathrow, eyes full of tears because I was departing from my boyfriend in Dublin via London. It was the n-th time I did this, fiercely sobbing while sitting on my luggage and hating every step of the known airport. It always took me a while to get a hold of myself, because London has always been no-man's land. Up to now, London has taken place as the place where my bipolar relationship reached its highs and lows. My head spinning in all directi...more

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Jun 30, 2007

Chazzbot rated it

· review of another edition

This is a relatively short novel (just over 200 pages), but it carries quite a devastating emotional punch, particularly in its final chapters. McEwan's story concerns a newly married young couple in the early 1960's, neither of whom are sexually experienced. Edward looks forward to the societal license granted to him by his wedding to act on his physical impulses; Florence's love for Edward is honest, but the wedding night looms in her imagination like an unpleasant chore.

McEwan fo...moreThis is a relatively short novel (just over 200 pages), but it carries quite a devastating emotional punch, particularly in its final chapters. McEwan's story concerns a newly married young couple in the early 1960's, neither of whom are sexually experienced. Edward looks forward to the societal license granted to him by his wedding to act on his physical impulses; Florence's love for Edward is honest, but the wedding night looms in her imagination like an unpleasant chore.

McEwan follows this couple as they arrive in their honeymoon suite and pares apart their respective emotional histories with an almost cold precision. Edward and Florence live just on the edge of the massive cultural changes of the mid-1960's; Florence, for example, anticipates a successful career with her string quartet and politely tolerates Edward's fondness for Chuck Berry and early rock & roll: "When the tunes were so elementary, mostly in simple four-four time, why this relentless thumping and crashing and clattering to keep time? What was the point, when there was already a rhythm guitar, and often a piano?"

Different taste in music is probably the least of this couple's trouble, but McEwan uses this polite disagreement ("He kissed her and told her she was the squarest person in all of Western civilization.") as an indicator of future divergencies. The literally climactic scene of the wedding consummation reads at first like slapstick, but McEwan's precise delving into Edward's and Florence's internal dialogue makes it tragic. The novel turns entirely on the reader's acceptance of this scene, and McEwan's blend of emotional and physical detail is flawless. It's a scene that would only be lessened by paraphrase (or a filmed interpretation, for that matter).

McEwan's skill is to use these two characters, neither of which is ultimately very likeable, to offer a subtle indication of what the convulsive societal shifts of the 1960s freed us from and, more important, to demonstrate how "by doing nothing. . . the entire course of a life can be changed." By the end of the novel, it's not just the characters who feel the chill winds off the beach.

The clumsy fumbling of a newly married couple is not unknown to me. Nor is the frustration of a young man whose partner is less experienced than he. This is McEwan's starting point, and perhaps one that elicits easy empathy, but by the time the full consequences of this young couple's inexperience become evident, the reader is almost divided in their loyalties (or pity) for the characters.

More so than other McEwan novels I've read, On Chesil Beach carries a direct moralistic tone, one that would seem chiding in the hands of a lesser stylist. The beauty of McEwan's language, the patience of his narrative voice as he outlines the tangled emotional backgrounds of his characters, and the sense of omniscient pity he uses to instruct us are Hardy-esque. The impact of this small novel is heartbreaking and cold. (less)

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Oct 01, 2008

Michelle rated it

Recommended to Michelle by: After Brian's review, how could I not read this book?

Shelves: novels

If you want to read a really good review of this book, click
here

Seriously. Go read that one. Don’t continue down this page.

My review is brought to you by the makers of Cialis®

You don’t want this to happen to you.

I loved this book. I did. I began reading it on my own cross-country trip while I hoped for an epiphany. What I learned is that I’ll always be the same person I am right now. I’ll always be the responsible girl who analyzes ever...more

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Feb 11, 2008

Alistair rated it

McEwan is such a famous and well reviewed author that he should stand up to scrutiny unlike say a first time author feeling their way .
I found the whole story unrealistic and artificial and some of the writing lazy .
we are asked to believe that 2 people so in love and apparently still so years after their disasterous wedding night should not have found a way to overcome the inauspicious start .

we are also led to believe that somehow this problem was because they were l...moreMcEwan is such a famous and well reviewed author that he should stand up to scrutiny unlike say a first time author feeling their way .
I found the whole story unrealistic and artificial and some of the writing lazy .
we are asked to believe that 2 people so in love and apparently still so years after their disasterous wedding night should not have found a way to overcome the inauspicious start .

we are also led to believe that somehow this problem was because they were living in an era before sex was invented and emotional problems were talked about .this warped view is also compounded by the post Florence life of Edward which as the years roll on seems to be exaggeratedly liberated .it's suddenly all freelove and drugs . the two characters seem to be cyphers for their generation .

The fact that she lived in Oxford , was a classical musician , hated pop music , had a distant father , an intellectual mother and lived in upper middle class Summertown are a lazy shorthand to explain her reticence about lurv making .

he of course lived outside in the country , geddit , loved rock music ,and had a charmingly chaotic crazy family , is just a normal bloke eager to get his hands on a girl and marriage seemed to only way .

that two so disimilar people should be in love at all was totally daft .

the author also ruins the scene setting by intruding from his desk and computer to says things like " this was not a good moment in English cuisine " , the poor things no ciabbata , so unsophisticated !

Iiving in Oxford i did like the local references but if you lived in Croydon i should not think this meant much . it would just reinforce the idea that everyone in Oxford was called Rupert and cycled everywhere with a basket on his bike . ok some people do .

if this was someone's first novel all this would be accepted but as the umpteenth novel from McEwan it all seems very narrow and unreal and superficial , so there ! BTW i think the author is not a nice man .

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Dec 15, 2007

Jessica rated it

Recommends it for: those of us who enjoy whining about the complexity of heterosexual relationships these days

Shelves: happyendings, love-and-other-indoor-sports, crazy-ladies

Reading Ian McEwan makes me want to give up forever on writing any more sentences of my own. It's just embarrassing. Why bother? Ugh.

_______________

I am really glad I didn't read this book when I was a kid. If it had existed then and I'd come across it, between On Chesil Beach and Bell Jar I would've almost certainly gotten me to a nunnery, and I'd be there right now (though come to think of it, would that be such a bad thing?).

Actually, I think I read this at...more

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Mar 21, 2009

Amanda rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Oh, I dunno. People without baggage.

Recommended to Amanda by: Read some good GR reviews, specifically LA Brian's

Shelves: 2009

I don't know who this story thinks it is is, but it can shove off. It has put me in a bad damn mood and all I wanna do is fight.

People are assholes.

You know... I just...
Ugh...!!!!!

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Jul 02, 2008

Elizabeth rated it

Recommends it for: people who want a short book for a school report.

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Wow. Pretentious much? Actually, McEwan, don't answer that.

On Chesil Beach was highly praised by critics-- as, indeed, nearly all of Ian McEwan's books are. And I fear that it has gone to his head. Chesil fairly drips with self-satisfaction; it seems to be saying that novels about sex are either trashy or high art, and Chesil knows itself to be the latter.

Despite that fact that at any one moment I knew Edward and Florence's thoughts, feelings, and the state of their r...more

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Juliana Your review was very well-written, but I think they did love each other but weren't able to talk...Their inability to open up breeds misunderstanding ...more
Sep 14, 2008 04:39am

The Wub, Gillian You exist in a completely different social context. That is one reason why you would have reacted differently in Edward and Florence´s situation. Hone...more
Nov 18, 2008 08:06am

Patrick I do not find it hard to believe that these people had no conception of sexuality. For example, we live in the 21 century and I for one never talk ab...more
Oct 12, 2010 12:06pm

May 10, 2008

Camille Tassos rated it

Recommended to Camille by: Jordan Anderson

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. What an amazing conversational piece. What is the biggest mistake made in young <and old> relationships? Lack of Communication. The fear of trying to make someone understand what you yourself do not even understand. It is a language that has yet to be invented. Even when you try to explain with premium reason and conviction, your best efforts can be so easily misunderstood. Emotions become taciturn. It's hard to be blunt and to expect another to feel unscathed by the slightest blade...moreWhat an amazing conversational piece. What is the biggest mistake made in young <and old> relationships? Lack of Communication. The fear of trying to make someone understand what you yourself do not even understand. It is a language that has yet to be invented. Even when you try to explain with premium reason and conviction, your best efforts can be so easily misunderstood. Emotions become taciturn. It's hard to be blunt and to expect another to feel unscathed by the slightest blade that sliced a bit deeper than your usual, touch. Both men and women have a sensitive nature. Different, but equally as sensitive.
While I am definitely not a frigid wife, I do consider myself as being "guarded". I will do anything to make my husband happy and I love having sex with him, but there are still some things that scare me and make me nervous to even think about. I picture myself in Florence's light blue leather heels at that moment. I remember mulling up the confidence... and poise... to ask my husband about these supposed or assumed fantasies one night. I was of the mind that all men were desperate to conquer new land. Even worse was the thought that my husband had tread on that land before and would become aggravated if I, his wife, did not allow him the pleasure to conquer as he desired. Even as I asked the clumsy question, I had made up my mind that I would oblige his every fantasy and desire. The answer, "NO," was out of the question. The point is that I asked.
At the same time I felt like Edward about to explode inside his grey trousers. Marriage was the answer to his freedom from childhood and virginity. The answer to his feeling of nonexistence. It was the border that he had to cross that led to the promise of his future. While we all may like to think that this happened in another time and another world far from our own, it just isn't true. Florence and Edward were a part of the London Revolution in the late sixties. A revolution which spurred the freedom of sex. In many ways, we are still heaving the load of that revolution on our shoulders and the changes that it caused are a large part of who we are today. It has been an evolution in understanding the differences and similarities between a man and a woman and acknowledging their shared sexual and emotional needs.
I believe that I would have been tolerable of a man who could not fulfill his role on our wedding night, but that calmness and courage would have only arrived through my knowledge of the male anatomy, which I learned in my 6th grade health class and moreover, from the reliance and faith that I held in our relationship. When Florence gained the confidence to "guide" Edward, as she had been instructed in her book, she had absolutely no deliberation as to what would occur by her touch. Since Florence had never felt the slightest sense of sexual excitement within herself before this evening, it is supposed that she would have had no idea as to the manner in which she was provoking Edward and how it caused him such pleasure. Pleasure that she did not understand. Pleasure that she considered, or rather "recalled" as shameful and disgusting.
I believe that Florence was sexually abused by her father during their "father-daughter" excursions and that she forced a subconscious block on those memories from her childhood. This is the reason that she was so repulsed by the thought of any sexual acts and also why she had such mixed feelings toward her father. The author mentioned that while at one moment Florence abhorred her father and despised his being, the next moment she would cuddle to his broad chest and kiss his bald head with reassurance. While lodging with the Ponting family, Edward, himself became conflicted with the relationship between Florence and her father. Although it is never mentioned in the afterthoughts of their marriage, it is suggested that Edward pondered the thought that Mr. Ponting might be losing more than just a daughter by their marriage.
Although it was only mentioned for a second, my favorite part of the book was when Florence clearly acknowledged her sexuality and hope that she could feel more pleasure and excitement as she had so briefly when Edward scanned her stray pubic hair with his thumb. After Edward removed her underwear and decided to undress and prepare himself rather than concentrate on the feminine body that lay before him, Florence became aware of the fact that she too had needs to be met. So unlike her character, Florence even wished at that moment that Edward's hand could linger in her pelvic region and suggest the notion of satisfaction and pleasure in her future.
I thought that the end of the book was miserable, but all in all, it was a lesson well taught. Communication, even as unfiltered, baffling and perplexing as it may sound coming from the mouth of another, is the key to happiness in any relationship. I think that the theme of the book was that "they were almost there." (Ok, Edward got there, "arriving too soon.") With just an ounce more of communication, I felt as if their problems would have been solved and that Edward and Florence would have lived happily ever after. Florence definitely needed a "psychoanalyst" to overcome her father's abuse and subsequent repulsion for sex. Edward needed patience and maturity. Unfortunately the two go hand-in-hand.
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May 14, 2008

Alison rated it

Recommends it for: Ian McEwanites, fans of historical fiction

This was great. I'm torn on giving it five stars or no...it was just so short. Five stars to me is like, "masterpiece" material....but I've broken that rule before...anyway,

This is the story of a couple on their wedding night. This tale basically illustrates what brings people to a certain point in their lives. Each moment that we live is a culmination of factors that have influenced us from our family life, our social class, our place in history, our religious upbri...more

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Dec 28, 2007

Kelly rated it

Recommends it for: self-absorbed waspy bourgeois

Shelves: 2007, drama

OK, seriously, Ian McEwan, you wrote Saturday. Saturday! You wrote f*ing Saturday! With its introspection and good and evil and everyday life and drama and mundane-ness and life and death and brain surgery and racquetball all wrapped up together in one ponderous experience of a book.

So, Ian McEwan, what the hell is this crap???

It could have been good -- it was a promising premise. If only your characters hadn't been completely despicable, pathetic, mean creatures. I jus...more

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Jul 19, 2007

Sergey rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2007, fiction, read_in_english

I say, to embark on a journey with an author previously unfamiliar to me should be, for the most part, an interesting voyage. How thundering a disappointment when such proves not to be the case. On Chesil Beach, my introduction to Ian McEwan, is beautifully written; the imaginative, florid prose sticks to the brain waves and rides along a melodic note. The writing struck me at first, but that is the best I can say about this novel. It had premise that felt unfulfilled towards the end. So mu...more

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Dec 18, 2007

Paul rated it

Recommends it for: everyone who's thinking about falling in love

Shelves: novels

Brilliant dissection of inhibition somewhat ruined by a canter through the couple's later years which is squashed into about three pages at the back and then only focuses on him, when surely it was her who was more interesting, from a case study point of view.
Don't know if any other pop music geek already pointed this out - probably did - but it contains a major hostorical gaffe which amused and annoyed me - in 1962 the guy is playing his classical-music-loving fiancee Beatles and Ston...more

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Apr 30, 2008

Yulia rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: enjoyably-awful

Again, a book so bad, it's almost enjoyable to read.

To get at the heart of its absurdity, I'd have to do a line-reading, breaking it down word by word. But on a general note, McEwan explores the intricacies of a honeymoon night gone awry because he wants us to see meaning in *every* small detail he provides us. He wants it to be so excruciatingly significant and pungent and accurate and insightful, when he couldn't be more of a foreigner to the human experience. Or if he does know ...more

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Sep 22, 2010

Jeanette rated it

Shelves: all-fiction, europe-and-british-isles, four-star-fiction, domestic-and-relationship-fiction

Well, that was about the biggest helping of blues porridge I've eaten in a long time.

I don't normally like Ian McEwan much, but this one had all the right elements. I especially liked the way he went back into their early lives to show how they were almost doomed to fail at communication and intimacy.
I have to add that I also found a delightful bit of humor early in the book, when Florence was all worked up in her mind about "penetration" and "entering." I was...more

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Dec 27, 2011

Tanuj Solanki rated it

Shelves: e-book, britain

I approached the novel with tentativeness, enticed by its easy length and haunted by the previous experience with the author. I guarded myself against the smoothness of Ian McEwan's prose (Yes, I know, I've called it 'belaboured' before), letting the tension work on me instead - tension which was, surprisingly, potent and consistent. This tension is the thing, I now understand, that was totally absent from my earlier McEwan: 'Amsterdam'

Perhaps I should rectify myself after having had...more

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Jun 06, 2011

Margot rated it

If Ian McEwan was not written on the front page, I would hardly doubt that it is one of his novels. I didn't read one of his books since almost one year and a half and On Chesil Beach was on the "Recommanded" list of my bookstore so I decided to give it a try. Actually it has been a huge torture to finish that book.

Of course, Ian McEwan's writing is still really beautiful. He knows how to write but the story doesn't go anywhere and the characters are uninteresting, and the...more

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Apr 15, 2011

Angie rated it

· review of another edition

On reflection, I am giving this book 5 stars. I have thought about it a lot since finishing it and I think its a great piece of writing.

Ah, what a sad but incredibly lovely read this was. Imagine the utmost British reserve, twined with the era in which this is set: very early 1960's, maddeningly close but fractionally before the explosion of free love and flower power.

For Florence and Edward, the young newly weds, this story is beautifully unwrapped in sparse yet rich pros...moreOn reflection, I am giving this book 5 stars. I have thought about it a lot since finishing it and I think its a great piece of writing.

Ah, what a sad but incredibly lovely read this was. Imagine the utmost British reserve, twined with the era in which this is set: very early 1960's, maddeningly close but fractionally before the explosion of free love and flower power.

For Florence and Edward, the young newly weds, this story is beautifully unwrapped in sparse yet rich prose as two individuals, both of rather eccentric upbringings, who come together in an assumption of love, yet due to their backgrounds and inward reserve, have a tortured passage towards their union as husband and wife.

The description of both made me almost feel that they had been hugely unlucky to be born in that exact time as they so narrowly missed out on a wave of open love which might have knocked them off their feet and carried them along with a force they both naturally lack due to their reserve, shyness, sense of duty, call it what you will, utterly tragic and with dire consequences.

Both characters' parents are brought into the mix, perhaps to show that their eccentricities were partly responsible for producing children who were painfully aware of their sexuality but unable to realise what they should and could be capable of in a free and loving environment, simply because they had never been shown or told that this sort of love is natural and wonderful. The novel, although short, truly conveys the distinct possibility that one's actions can have a lifelong effect on us.

In terms of writing, I felt that Ian McEwan really was a brilliantly beautiful writer of this tale and really conveyed such a sense of awakening in both characters - see below:

'For the first time, her love for Edward was associated with a definable physical sensation, as irrefutable as vertigo. Before, she had known only a comforting broth of warm emotions,a thick winter blanket of kindness and trust. That had always seemed enough, an achievement in itself. Now here at last were the beginnings of desire, precise and alien, but clearly her own: and beyond, as though suspended above and behind her, just out of sight, was relief that she was just like everyone else.'

Just enough detail in their day to day lives but it really sprang into life in his descriptions of their feelings and natural make-up and how they were discovering more about themselves and each other day by day. Ultimately, what Florence discovers about herself and how this manifests itself in her new marriage has major consequences for both. I was very moved by this short read and the final passages were so well written that I wont forget them for a long time. (less)

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Oct 09, 2008

Frank rated it

Recommended to Frank by: fnance@comcast.net

Shelves: personal-classics

This is my second of what will be many more Ian McEwan novels. While a bit challenging to read (taking some "love and patience" that the characters lacked), when you learn the style you have the confidence that this is not a mere author at work, but a composer. More than words, the author orchestrates the words into something more than a story. McEwan again constructs characters that are deeply rich.

On Chesil Beach tells the story of what should have been a blessed day in t...more

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Jul 15, 2008

Martin rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2008books

"On Chesil Beach" is a tight, tiny gem of a book. Almost a novella, the writing is so precise and evocative and meaningful that it takes virtually no time to read at all. I read "Atonement," also by Ian McEwan, a few years ago and enjoyed it very much; the same dark perspective on human relations and keen insight into behavior and the inner life is at work here. The book is "just" a study of a young couple’s wedding night in England, 1962. We learn about bride a...more"On Chesil Beach" is a tight, tiny gem of a book. Almost a novella, the writing is so precise and evocative and meaningful that it takes virtually no time to read at all. I read "Atonement," also by Ian McEwan, a few years ago and enjoyed it very much; the same dark perspective on human relations and keen insight into behavior and the inner life is at work here. The book is "just" a study of a young couple’s wedding night in England, 1962. We learn about bride and groom in turn, peering briefly but pointedly into each family, assembling just enough pieces to understand and appreciate the inevitability of the book’s tragedy. The plot’s not central here – though the final chapter I found as suspenseful and gripping as anything I’ve read recently – rather, the careful observations of two characters at an intersection in their lives, at a time of intersection and change in the world, create all the drama and tragedy one could ask for.

The power of language, naming, and words takes on huge importance in the book, and interestingly enough, that power is a force for good and ill, but mostly ill. So often the "power of language" takes on a heroic role in contemporary fiction (one would expect contemporary writers to place such an importance on their stock in trade), yet in "On Chesil Beach" most of the labels and names and many singular words have terrible consequences. Fascinating, surely, to see the power of language to destroy and damage instead of elevate and enlighten or redeem. In fairness, it is often the lack of appropriate words that bring about disaster: “...there existed no shared language in which two sane adults could describe such events to each other” (169-170). But at the same time, plenty of words, especially labels, do enormous harm in the course of the text.

Ultimately "On Chesil Beach" is an absolutely beautiful book: emotional, truthful, and as rigorous in its writing as poetry. Truly, no paragraph, sentence, or even word goes to waste. The meticulous descriptions of the main characters' interactions took me aback – I felt huge sympathy and sadness for Edward and Florence, and absolutely understood all their actions and missteps. These felt like utterly real people, in a completely real situation, saying and doing the things I could imagine myself doing and saying in just such a scenario. It was uncanny, flawless, and truly impressive.(less)

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Oct 17, 2007

C(h)ristine rated it

This is the first book I’ve ever read by McEwan. And I am in love–he is a master of his craft! I found myself poring over his command of writing–the way he can tackle things that I am so afraid to tackle in my writing, with such confidence and ease and brilliance. This book, for instance, is full of flashbacks, something I think is incredibly difficult to pull off and something I think most writers should refrain from writing. McEwan flips back and forth through time, providing readers with back...more

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Jul 29, 2007

Pdxstacey rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: dullards

I suppose I am not deep enough to cherish this book and its details.

To be fair, I might have read it too quickly. But I saw no reason to stretch it out, except that I had sniffling kitten mouth-breathing on my lap while I read it.

The book is pretty much about a couple in a much more repressed time in England who can't have sex on their wedding night. Then they have the marriage dissolved and the man moves to London and has several record shops and some affairs and enj...more

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Dec 27, 2007

William rated it

Shelves: trauma-recovery, england

On Chesil Beach is a hard novel to describe in simple terms... or rather simplification of this kind of story misses the point: there is much going on in this short novel to admire. You can admire how McEwan contrasts the emotional strength and sexual awkwardness of two newlyweds, and their living both beyond and under the coming culture of easy gratification. You can admire the soft ending that is wrenching and re-readable and possibly the truest point on the compass here. Or you can find al...more

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Oct 24, 2007

Briynne rated it

It was ok. Maybe ok-ish is more accurate. It pained me to not love this book, since I really admire the author. It was just too depressing, I think. And the ending? Not what I wanted. Of course, I can't actually think of a way the book could have ended; the characters were doomed from the beginning and should never, ever have been where they were. I guess there wasn't really anything to do but let it all train wreck. That being said, it was compelling, well written, and vivid. Despite t...more

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Dec 09, 2007

Laura rated it

Shelves: fiction

When we look back on our lives, the things we chose not to do might turn out to be far more important than the things we did. Ian McEwan beautifully explores this notion in On Chesil Beach. The novel, set in 1962 England, presents us with a newly-married couple, both of whom are 22-year-old frightened virgins. Sadly, and ultimately tragically, they're stymied not only by the sexual repression of their time and place, but also by rigid class distinctions.

The end of this story is as h...more

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Mar 27, 2009

Mary wilhelm rated it

I read this twice, the second was with my bookclub. I really did like this much better the second time around. I think his slow, descriptive almost hypnotic writing is one of the many things I love about his writing. This is a small book with a big story. It takes place in pre-sexual revolution England. When there was a way to act and the topic of sex was something that you found in medical books. It is a sad story - when it didn't have to be. How many of the older generations must have f...more

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Mar 03, 2011

Brida rated it

Shelves: 2011

*Contains spoiler(s)*

This is the first book written by Ian McEwan I've read.
It's a short story about two young people who got married out of love (and lust, judging by Edward), but the love was not strong enough to overcome their inexperience and youth.

It seems very simple, and ordinary, not unlike many other (love) stories you'll come across, so what makes it worth reading?
I don't know. What I can tell you is this;
It's an easy and very enjoyable read. The st...more

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About Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan was born on 21 June 1948 in Aldershot, England. He studied at the University of Sussex, where he received a BA degree in English Literature in 1970. He received his MA degree in English Literature at the University of East Anglia.

McEwan's works have earned him worldwide critical acclaim. He won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976 for his first collection of short stories Firs...more

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“This is how the entire course of a life can be changed: by doing nothing.” — 187 people liked it

“All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them.” — 60 people liked it

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