On Chesil Beach
by Ian McEwan
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Book Reviews of On Chesil Beach
Book Review: The sand on the beach changes
Summary: 3 Stars
In retrospect On Cheslin Beach succeeds as a rumination on a relationship that was and what might have been. I emphasize the retrospect though, as the feeling it left me with upon completion was stilted. Because this one doesn't quite cut the expected McEwan mustard as a thoroughly compelling narrative. In particular the final bits are rushed and it seems that McEwan knew what he wanted to write about but not how to wrap it up with the same attention that he gave it's first three quarters. I didn't have a sense for it's conclusion as I read it, which is a good sign, as the two lovers grapple with the minutiae of their interiors and exterior. The theme of pre-sexual revolution era England is well done, as is the familiar territory of the obvious class issues England has. McEwan is a master of interior space, with the express value of connecting it to the unknown outside world. That essence holds, but ultimately On Cheslin Beach is a middle aged man's wondering about the woman he had and didn't succeed with because he didn't.Book Review: Fascinating. Painful.
Summary: 5 Stars
Some 46 years ago (good Lord, I was alive then), we spoke so little about sex and ardor. Ian McEwan chooses this time to open up what is little more than an elongated story about lost love. Like much of his writing, "On Chesil Beach" brings us to a turning point... as one reviewer characterized it, a defining moment, upon which two lives turn.
In an awkward, painful pastiche of two young people on their honeymoon, McEwan takes the reader through the same experience from two different viewpoints. The span time of the core story is about three hours, and in those three hours, in this short vignette which starts with love and hope and ends with pain and hopelessness, McEwan once more, and beautifully, changes the way we think about sexuality. And because he needs so few words, and so little time to plant the seeds of "what might have been?" in the reader's mind, there is only one way to define this tale... it is masterful.
And painful. Keep that in mind if you decide to read it.
Book Review: Throw this one back
Summary: 2 Stars
I may have missed it, but did Ian McEwan recently move to that Greek monastery where the don't allow any females of any species? You would think he'd never met a woman in his life from reading "On Chesil Beach," a minor character study that's not really worth even the short time it takes to get through. McEwan's attempts to inhabit the mind of a woman in post-war England are laughably inept--although he works hard to get the period details right the character rings false all the way through. The author also seems to suffer from that modern misconception that everyone born before 1960 had no idea how babies are made--how does he think he got here? And the, er, climactic scene is more worthy of a soap opera scribe than a major novelist. The only time this novel works is when he's describing the male character's class resentment: that's where McEwan's talent lies and he'd be better off applying his much over-praised abilities to culture-clash stories like Atonement and Saturday.
In all, a bad day at the beach.
Book Review: Brilliant writing on the cusp of the 1960's sexual revolution,
Summary: 4 Stars
On the surface this is an account of a couple's first night of their honeymoon. McEwan brilliantly evokes the period, 1962, from the dinner in their honeymoon suite served by two Dorset young boys to the tensions building up to their first sexual emcounter. Edward and Florence both have very differnet reasons for being apprehensive and not surprisingly it is a ...! McEwan, elaborates on the background to their relationship whilst continuing the narrative in the present. Ths short novel was beautifully paced and voiced but I was left feeling that all too often writers choose difficult and negative subject matter, much like in McEwan's Saturday and most notably in Cormac McCarthy's The Road and it would be refreshing if these gifted writers wrote on something with more humour and joie de vivre. Nevertheless, the reader does get a wondreful perspective of the the conservative sexual repression which was still very much the norm on the cusp of the sexually liberating attitudes which had taken over ten years later.Book Review: "The road not taken"
Summary: 5 Stars
I've long been intrigued by those decision-making points in life that irretrievably change its course. And I've long been a fan of Ian McEwan. "On Chesil Beach" combines the best of this author--his flawless prose with his ability to dilate a day, or in this case an evening, with rich detail and seamless flashbacks into a race-through-the-book reading experience. Edward and Florence fumble badly through one of those life-defining crossroads as they take 'in love' and fantasies (or nightmares) into reality on their wedding night.
Most of us have been in love and dashed with the cold water reality of day-to-day life with our lover now spouse. In an intriguing way reminiscent of the 'choose your own ending' books that my children used to love, McEwan takes us through one couple's choices and consequences, giving us a glimpse of "the road not taken" and making us realize that, for us as well as Edward and Flo, "that has made all the difference."