232 of 243 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Almost, June 15, 2007
A brilliant book, but such a sad one; it would be unfair not to say so up front. Ian McEwan is a master at dissecting emotions. Every page of this wonderfully-crafted novel gave me the uncanny feeling of living within the skins of the two main characters, Edward and Florence, just married as the book opens. When they fall in love, nurture ambitions, experience happiness, I feel these things too. But when happiness eludes them, the pain is unbearable, not least because the author never lets us forget by how small a margin their happiness was missed.
In his last major novel,
SATURDAY, McEwan pulled back from the multi-decade scope of
ATONEMENT its predecessor, choosing to confine himself to the events of a single day. Here, the essential action occupies a mere three hours, described in a book which is itself unusually compact, a mere novella of only 200 delicate pages. In an opening that is surely a homage to Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," the new husband and wife sit in a hotel room within sound of the sea on England's South coast. They eat a mediocre meal in one room; in the next, their bed stands waiting. They love each other, there is never any doubt about that, but they are inexperienced and secretly afraid. The book tells how they came to that moment, and what becomes of their love and fears as they move from one room into the other.
I have not known McEwan to write before in such detail about sex, but his writing is never prurient. Every detail serves to illustrate the psychological intercourse between these two talented and caring young people. On this particular night, as in a high-stakes game, their honeymoon bed becomes the board upon which all the other pieces of their relationship must be played. By going back to the early 1960s, that dark hour just before the dawn of the sexual revolution, McEwan performs the remarkable feat of undoing the modern liberation of sex from marriage and returning to a mindset in which marriage was not only a contract for sex, but sex might also be a prime reason for marriage.
But not the only reason. The focus on the bedroom also makes you consider all the other qualities that these two bring to their marriage, and before long you feel that you know them very well. [Exceptionally well in my case, since I was also born in Britain in the same year (1940), and share qualities with each of them; readers might take this into account when weighing the objectivity of my reactions.] Edward is a bright young man from the country who has recently achieved a first-class academic degree. Florence comes from a more socially sophisticated family, though she herself is naive in most things. The one exception is her calling as a violinist; here as in SATURDAY, McEwan is extraordinary in his use of music; the sections describing Florence's quartet playing are right up there with Vikram Seth's
AN EQUAL MUSIC, my touchstone for sensitive writing about musicians. So both are bright, both are talented, both feel the stirring of new possibilities, but there are big differences between them, socially and culturally (Edward, for example, is into rock), and they each want different things. But the most heartbreaking things in this book are not their differences, but how often and how close they come to making new connections; just an inch more, a moment longer, and everything might be all right.... Almost.
But McEwan does not end the story in the bedroom or on the beach below. Much as in ATONEMENT, though in only a few pages, he adds an epilogue continuing the story forward several decades. At the time, I felt it was too brief to settle all the emotions stirred up by the preceding pages, but now as I write, several hours after closing the book, I begin to see its rightness and appreciate its consolation.
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56 of 69 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply impeccable. Sad, but impeccable., August 21, 2007
Nowadays, in premarital relationships, sexual compatibility is something that most couples do not wait too long to find out about. Typically, we're getting to this part quicker and quicker it seems, and I would venture to say that this is an area fraught with less mutual confusion than say for instance, the depth of true "love" between the two people. Compatibility in other realms taking a [shall we say] front seat while the people themselves are [ahem] in the back one!
In other words, [generally speaking now], courtship includes sexship!
Yeah! Well!
? Meet Edward and Florence.
We are told in the very first sentence [the author does not court his reader long]... 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.
When was this time?
1962.
Pre-sexual-revolution England.
Thing is, Edward and Florence are in love. They've got that part of things in order.
They're 22 years old. They've got the world by the tail.
Florence, daughter of wealthy parents, has her musical interests.
Edward loves history, and dreams of being a writer.
McEwan paints a rather idyllic sort of atmosphere surrounding the couple, Edward becoming increasingly involved with the Ponting family, even moving into their villa just off the Banbury Road. He plays regular tennis with Geoffrey, the future father-in-law, and lands a job working in the family business.
What could be wrong in this picture?
Well, in the midst of all of this splendor and promise, there are things that both of these youngsters avoid confronting, on a communicative level.
Edward, well aware of his own sexual inexperience, is startled to find that even his slightest advances toward Florence are met with seemingly undue resistance. Yea, even revulsion.
Florence, we are told in one brief, almost hidden away sentence, thinks that Edward has been with many women, before her. This misinformation fuels her reticence and fear.
McEwan seems to suggest [albeit so subtly that the reader must guess at it] that Florence has experienced sexual abuse at the hands of her father in the past.
Point being that lack of communication, like termites, is eating away at what could be a perfectly good building.
And so here we are at The Wedding Night.
We are on Chesil Beach, at this resort.... well, not us, but these two are there.
And McEwan writes so forcefully that we cannot help but become wicked voyeurs.
Yea, we lean in closer, to be sure we hear every word... see every eyelash flicker.
They are having a very lackluster, fear-fraught dinner.
And then the moment arrives.
The bed.
False signals are flying every which way, like penalty flags at a soccer match.
McEwan is all about moments. About antecedent causes, and how moments in time can change us forever.
Well, for those of us who appreciate this aspect of his work, [and I am one of them] he is not about to disappoint us here. Everything about this novella is compact and quick, and believe me, it comes to a ragingly lopsided climax now.
Quickly. No words wasted.
It is not spoiling anything here for me to say that the bed scene is an absolute disaster. An emotional armageddon.
But the true tragedy is yet to appear.
On Chesil Beach.
Not to over-moralize here, but the book made me ask myself a question.
At what point do we attend to the physical matters of relationship?
Is the correct answer to be only after the wedding day, as many religions [and presumably, "God"] would tell us? As Edward and Florence did?
Far be it from me to attempt an answer to that question that would suit all people.
But, this book surely provides one look at the devastation that can result from an unrealistic commitment to delayed gratification and lack of open communication.
Whatever else we want to think about sex, one thing that rings true in this book is that it is profoundly important.
And to think otherwise, and enter into marriage in a state of mutual sexual ignorance, can be life-threatening.
And yet, On Chesil Beach is not even about sex.
It's about "love and patience" which, as Edward realizes on the last page, [and decades later] could have saved the day. Could have "seen them both through."
We are given hints that Florence has learned the same thing, too.
Sometimes, [in fact, perhaps all the time] to do nothing, is to have done too much.
The armageddon of the bedroom scene was fixable.
What an amazing, amazing book!
Days later, I re-read the last 50 pages or so, aloud, to a friend, and even knowing it all ahead of time, had to stop several times. Couldn't go on.
The last chapter, the fifth one, is among the most moving pieces of writing I have ever encountered.
On Chesil Beach is the eighth McEwan book I have read.
I've loved each one, but I think I like this one best.
So, in my opinion, Chesil Beach is five stars out of five!
It will become a beloved novel to everyone who will have, or is having, or has had a love relationship with another person. And you've gotta admit, that's a huge audience.
Such is the appeal, of On Chesil Beach.
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