On Chesil Beach
by Ian McEwan
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Book Reviews of On Chesil Beach
Book Review: Great writing, unsatisfactory format
Summary: 3 Stars
Author Ian McEwan has the skill of a masterful miniaturist. With exquisite delicacy, his unblinking eye and steady hand can reveal a universe illustrated by an instant in time (a single day in "Saturday", a few hours in "On Chesil Beach"). This story is, on the face of it, a simple one of wedding night panic, but behind it lurk numerous knots of emotion and experience which McEwan slowly unravels. Here is writing at its finest.
Having said that, I was disappointed with the conclusion of "On Chesil Beach". Perhaps it can be put down to a basic dissatisfaction with the novella form, but I found it all a bit too abrupt at the end. The narrative proceeds at an almost elegaic pace through a huge build-up to a crisis, and suddenly it's all over. With almost indecent haste, the last few pages "fast forward" to provide a tidy ending.
But this is a minor quibble about a couple of hours of sheer reading pleasure.
Book Review: Back to the Basics
Summary: 1 Stars
Let's be honest here. The guy can write and I am sure he portrays the characters beautifully with their insecurities around each other, yet their confidence when apart. However, come on. On their honeymoon, Edward, who obviously could not control himself, faulted with his wife Florence, who is disgusted by the act in itself which outlines her lack of confidence and her low self-esteem. Where is the story? She runs out after the incident and then admits her distaste in the ceremony of man and wife; then why get married? What else would you expect?! It's your honeymoon for crying out loud. Where's the love story when there is no love? She acted selfish and obviously didn't love him enough to give herself to him regardless of the sacred act. This book climaxed in the last 10 pages and was not worth the wait. I am sure this kind of stuff happens every day except the virgins are teenagers!Book Review: Thin and manipulative
Summary: 3 Stars
Loved the lyrical prose, loved the descriptive artistry ... but couldn't bring myself to love this overblown short-story-masquerading-as-novel of two lovers who never do manage to figure out that love requires self-knowledge, compassion and communication to endure. (Though I will admit there's good discussion to be had over the extent to which self-knowledge, compassion and communication between men and women was possible in 1960s England - and my book group did indeed enjoy a lively discussion on this subject!)
I think the reader is supposed to feel the tragedy and pathos of their self-selected blindness, but mostly I just felt manipulated by the author, whose depiction of "love" in this novel seems unconvincingly pale and feeble. Can't help believing two people really in love would never have given up so easily, and would have found a way to see!
Book Review: On Boring Beach
Summary: 2 Stars
The premise of the book is nice....a young couple and the struggle to consumate their marriage on their wedding night. Only it falls very short.
It's boring, and lacks a lot of character build. It seems like the wedding is only about the consumation, and not because these two people want to be together. Well, it sorta is....there is not enough here to fill up a book, and it's a half hearted attempt. Ian McEwan can, and has done better. This book was a quick read, but was boring, and was not remarkable in any way. There was nothing special about this book or the story. The only thing that makes it readable is that Ian McEwan is atleast a good writer, his style is good, so it was not completely awful to read. I feel like he spit this one out though, as I kept waiting for something to happen and it never did.
I've read worse,but I've read a lot better too.
Book Review: What love is
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a short, simple story about a couple and their short-lived marriage. Florence Ponting wanted a husband, or rather, she wanted marriage, but she couldn't stand the sex that comes with it. So this simple narrative makes the reader ponder long and deep about what marriage and love are all about. The author hinted that it's about patience. Is it really? Do we understand what we say when we talk about love? And what is its connection with marriage? Can love be physical attraction; or a meeting of minds or the cohesion of values; or companionship? It may, perhaps, merely be an aspect of narcissism. We say we "love" someone when in fact we merely find that there are attributes about that other that pleases us. That's all there is to it. The more that person pleases us, the more we think we are in love with that person. Narcissism.