‘I am sorry, Edward. I am most terribly sorry.’
She paused a moment, she lingered there, waiting for his reply, then she went on her way.’

A short novella of a young newly married couple on their wedding night in the 1960’s. Honeymooning in a hotel on Chesil Beach. This is the night of the consummation of their marriage. Had heard much of the book and the Author but not read.

A story of missed communication, of love and patience, missed opportunities and regret. Five chapters that move back and forth expanding on early and later life. The denouement of the book takes place on Chesil Beach itself.

The last few pages hit me hard and yes dust smotes affected me. I have had ‘Atonement’ in my stash for a long time. Always putting it back when choosing a read. Well I won’t put it back again.

Beautiful precise writing style. I feel for Edward and Florence. I note there is a film version also. After reading Stephen Kings 11/22/63 time I wanted a short read. I think I chose well.

Edward and Florence are twenty-two and now newlyweds. The book opens with them celebrating their first night together with what should be a romantic dinner, a perfect prelude before consummating their marriage on the four-poster waiting for them in the next room. However, we see them awkwardly tensing over their meal, over-thinking and anticipating the deed afterwards. Edward is stuck in passivity, nervous anticipation and tension, and Florence is possessed with conflicting fear and overwhelming desire to please the man she loves. Consummating their marriage is the pivotal point in the book, and everything seems to hang around what's going to happen on that four-poster bed.

This special occasion is set in 1962 on the fictional Chisel Beach, in an hotel. The whole point of the story, it seems, is to portray the difficulties of discussing sexual matters at the time. Even though much of the tension seems to be caused by traumatic childhood experiences and child abuse, things ordinarily suppressed even now.

The narrator is omniscient, and the dinner scene slowly unfolds with intermittent flashbacks. In this way, our anticipation grows, and we develop a well-rounded picture of the couple, their backgrounds, childhoods, education, aspirations, and how they met.

The final pages are my favorite. We fast forward almost forty years, ending up with a sixty-year-old Edward, looking back, all nostalgic. This balances out the excruciating slow pace of the first 195 pages.

n  n   

"At last he could admit to himself that he had never met anyone he loved as much, that he had never found anyone, man or woman, who matched her seriousness."

n  n

Il corso di tutta una vita può dipendere dal non fare qualcosa

Per orgoglio,immaturità ,intransigenza, ignoranza

Erano giovani, freschi di studi ,e tutti e due ancora vergini in quella loro prima notte di nozze ,
nonché figli di un tempo in cui affrontare a voce problemi sessuali risultava semplicemente impossibile.
Anche se facile non lo è mai .

*la foto di copertina è perfetta ,una volta tanto :)
fissa uno dei momenti indimenticabili della storia
con Edward impassibile nel suo silenzio virtuoso, nel crepuscolo estivo, a guardarla correre via sulla spiaggia, mentre lo sciabordio delle piccole onde copriva il rumore dei suoi passi faticosi e Florence si riduceva ad un punto sfocato in fuga, sull'interminabile rettilineo di ciottoli sfavillanti nella luce fioca .

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...!!!!!

Στην ακτή του πελάγους της ευτυχίας που ονειρεύτηκε κάποια πλατωνική αγάπη, τελείται μια ασυναίσθητα συναισθηματική πορνογραφία.
Πρόκειται για ένα σύντομο μυθιστόρημα με επιτηδευμένη απειρία στην συναισθηματική εμπειρία της σάρκας, ανάμεσα σε δυο άτομα που θα υπέφεραν απο την ένταση της θέλησης
να νιώσουν ο ένας τον άλλον σε κάθε ανθρώπινο, θεϊκό, ιερό, βλάσφημο, εξευτελιστικό, ζωώδες και κτηνώδες επίπεδο ύπαρξης και πανοργασμικής ηδονής.
Όμως,,οι μάταιες προσδοκίες και οι κρυμμένοι φόβοι,παρέα με ανεπάρκειες απο
κατάλοιπα ανατροφής και παρεκκλίσεις
απο έλλειψη αγάπης, φυσικούς βιασμούς αισθήσεων
και τρυφερής απόρριψης συνδυαστικής επαφής των παιδικών απαιτήσεων,
υπερνικούν και καταποντίζουν την ηδυπάθεια, ντροπιάζουν την σαρκική επαφή,
υποτιμούν τη λαγνεία και την έλξη, τον πόθο της μέθης των αρχέγονων ενστίκτων και καταλήγουν σε μια πρώτη νύχτα γάμου με τραγική κορύφωση.

Οι σάρκες που προσπάθησαν να ερεθιστούν πριν χαθούν στα ερεβώδη βάθη της απόλαυσης.
Πριν αρχίσει η περιδίνιση προς την άβυσσο της πιο γνήσιας κατάστασης, όπου δυο σώματα ενώνονται αξεχώριστα
και κοροϊδεύουν τον θάνατο μέσα απο τους ψιθύρους μιας ανταριασμένης μέθεξης, τότε,
όλα βυθίστηκαν στα ανίερα υγρά της κορύφωσης.
Μετά την ανολοκλήρωτη διαδικασία, άρχισε να αναδύεται αναπόφευκτα απο δυο ήρωες που γνώριζαν ελάχιστα ο ένας τον άλλον και καθόλου σχεδόν τον ίδιο τον εαυτό τους η καταστροφή, το τέλος, η ατροφική συνείδηση του εγωισμού και του διαζυγίου του θεού έρωτα απο την παρθένα απροθυμία της ευαίσθητης και άπειρης μούσας.

Μέσα σε ενα βράδυ. Ανάμεσα σε δυο μοναδικά πρόσωπα εκτυλίσσεται όλη η πλοκή και εξέλιξη αυτού του μυθιστορήματος, με χρονικές εναλλαγές στο παρελθόν και το παρόν.

Για το μέλλον η σημαντική επίδραση των χαρακτήρων που χτίζονται άρτια απο τον συγγραφέα θα συγκεράσει την μοίρα και την πρέπουσα επιλογή σε λανθασμένη τροχιά του τρένου της σχέσης τους.

Η ευαίσθητη γραφή, η επιδέξια ψυχολογία,
η ενέργεια που παράγεται απο τον σχεδόν ελάχιστο διάλογο και η εμμονή των ανθρώπινων σφαλμάτων
να διαπράττουν δυστυχισμένες επαναλήψεις,
κάνει αυτό το βιβλίο άρρητα γοητευτικό και ρητά ελκυστικό.

I don't like McEwan. In fact, he's one of the few writers I actually dislike. Most of the books I read I tend to enjoy, even if they aren't the sort of things I would usually read, because I adore reading. I can find joy in most books. But the two McEwan books I have read (The Cement Garden and Amsterdam) I did not like. My University housemate (who dislikes him as much as I do) and I said, let's split his work in half and read them, then we can share our thoughts on the ones we have read, and don't have to read as much McEwan as he has published, which is a fair bit.

So Chesil Beach is one of the ones I ended up with. We've decided that the deadline to read our respective halves of his work is March - McEwan March as we've coined it. We have 8 books to read and we have both already read 2 from our sides. On Chesil Beach is my third.

And I have to say, I actually enjoyed this one. Well, I enjoyed it far, far more than the other two. The writing was good, I liked, for once, the characters; or at least I sympathised with them somewhat. The plot is simple, about a couple, on their wedding night, and the wife is asexual. It's mostly build from flashbacks, seeing how they met, what they did in their pasts, their families and their lives there, and then we return to the difficult hotel room where they are meant to be consummating the marriage.

So, finally, not a McEwan book I dislike. I can actually say, On Chesil Beach is alright. It's good. On my list remaining now I have:

- Machines like Me
- The Innocent
- Black Dogs
- Solar
- The Child in Time

Let's hope at least two of those are enjoyable.

Here are some quotes, where the writing stood out for me a little, which is surprising because I don't think much of McEwan's writing normally.

'She watched him coming along the strand, his form at first no more than an indigo stain against the darkening shingle, sometimes appearing motionless, flickering and dissolving at its outlines, and at others suddenly closer, as though moved like a chess piece a few squares towards her.'

I liked this idea that Edward toys with, of being a visitor one day in your own home, after leaving. It's how I feel now, partly. Like I'm just visiting. I moved away and now returned, but I have left, I did leave for two years, so now am I only visiting?

'He imagined he was a visitor now, keeping his father company after a long absence overseas, gazing out with him across the field at the broad roads of buttercups parting just before the land fell away in a gentle incline towards the woods. It was a lonely sensation he was experimenting with, and he felt guilty about it, but its boldness excited him too.'

And the famous quote I've seen several times before:

'This is how the entire course of a life can be changed - by doing nothing.'

"Önemli olan sevmek ve birbirini özgür bırakmaktı."

3,5

This is more of a novella, so it's a very quick read. I think this is one of those books that you either hate or love and I'd guess that if you don't already like McEwan's style, this wouldn't do it for you. I loved it- I thought it was flawlessly written- not an extraneous word or detail; it's pitch perfect. It presents the wedding night of a naive, sheltered couple (Dorset, England, 1962) and flashes back over the year of their courtship and a bit of their childhood. In such a short book that takes place in a small window of time, I though the characters were complete, the plot rich and full. Nothing happens. Everything happens. If I could write, this is how I'd want to construct my prose- elegant and clean, but with so much humanity given to and compassion for my characters.

"...being in love was not a steady state, but a matter of fresh surges or waves, and he was experiencing one now."
-- Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach



Almost no one can write about sex well in my opinion. You've got your erotic writers, fine, if your need for arousal and release comes from text rather than pictures or actual lovers. There are certainly millions of toss-n-tug novels that can certainly get things done. But these books, obviously, aren't literature.

There are writers, like Ken Follett, who seem to need to insert sex writing into a novel every 160 - 200 pages just to help drive the novel's narrative forward. Sex in these adventure, mystery, genre novels, etc., acts as almost a sign post or quick reward. "Congrats, fair reader, you made it to page 320, here is your second sex scene on a road with a monk." But as delivered, it all just seems a bit flat and not a little absurd.

Now, I'm not saying there isn't good sex writing out there, I have actually come across some. Joyce, Miller, Chopin, and Lawrence all seem to be able to walk that narrow beach of rolling bodies without twisting their ankles on the rocks. They capture the human frailty and power and awkwardness and sensuality of sex without dipping into cliché or caricature. I'm not sure why some, few, writers I can handle and most others I just despise. I'm not a prude. I get that sex is a part of life. It isn't icky. I'm not ashamed by it. I realize like food, it is a part of life and thus needs to be represented and shadowed in art and literature.

So, with all that baggage and preamble, it was still with quite a bit of trepidation that I slid into Ian McEwan's tight little novella. One reason I think this novel didn't bend me over too much with its very direct narrative about sex was Ian McEwan's mastery of language. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was aiming for an exact mood, a tension, a flick of a finger on a solo hair, an almost anti-climax, to convey the message of this novella. It required a tease, a premature crescendo, and in the end -- the cold, wet, and sticky dialogue of pain and regret.

Having only previously read Atonement & Saturday, I was both incredibly reluctant and eager to know what the “literary device” used in On Chesil Beach was; a.k.a., why it almost won the Booker Prize. I must say that the prose is so simple as to be deceitful and I was instantly aware, as I reached its final pages, that this novel was NO Atonement. (Indeed this is the stark opposite of that new classic: it is small where Atonement is enormous & epic, simple while Atonement is complex, & Atonement is a love story while On Chesil Beach is about the absence of that particular element and the end of romance.) But there is also no reason to believe that, while taking on that same theme of crystallization of a particular moment in a human’s life, On Chesil Beach is the trash that Saturday is. That heinous novel, about a pompous neurosurgeon who believes he has literary entitlement just because he can “predict events” in his neobourgeois life, simply by knowing how the human body works, and dissecting daily minutiae into scientific (therefore, deeply unpoetic) reasoning, playing “God”--I found it incredibly irritating. Stupid. Especially having had read Atonement and thinking that a writer like McEwan would never dare disappoint the Reader. But after the popularity of the book I keep mentioning, and will continue to mention for time to come (with a strange type of fanboy fervor)-- Atonement-- I guess the author felt it comfortable to come up with simpler stories, perhaps even complete foils of the book that put McEwan at the forefront.

The play with time is what McEwan is all about, more than being a romantic, more than being a mod Londoner. And On Chesil Beach succeeds admirably in that aspect. Sure, I could care less about Florence and Edward, their being “victims of their time” seems at once cliched, even somewhat intolerable. Why should we care about characters that really don’t even know themselves? I find Briony Tallis’s lie much more compelling than this: “how an entire course of a life can be changed--by doing nothing.” (203) This theme of doing nothing, or of active non-action, is a paradigm of most English classics, even modern ones like Kazuo Ishiguro’s awesome Never Let Me Go.

A few days after reading this book, it still haunts me somehow. It makes me think about the things we let go, the moments we don't think much at the moment they are happening, but after we wonder if they had been better if we had acted differently. But that's life, just little moments that leave us.

And to me, this book is about communication. About the things we don't say to one another, and the things we don't do, and one day wish we had.

Love lost through an inability to speak truth.

It is 1962. Edward and Florence have gone to a lovely seaside hotel on their wedding night, totally unprepared for the actual mechanics of sex. Both are virgins. Both have little knowledge of what can or should be done and the result is not a happy one. Still, the issue here is not about the mores of the 50’s, I believe. Is it really possible for two 20-somethings to be so ignorant, even in 1962? I suppose it is possible. But this is a novel about communication and trust more than about the uptight mores of a bygone time.


Ian McEwan - from his website

We are shown the history of their relationship via flashback. Florence came from a home bereft of physical contact. There is one scene in which it is intimated, although not conclusively, that her father may have been guilty of a crime against her youth. No wonder she is frightened. Physicality to her is a source of shame. And once given (as when she was cuddled by one of her nannies as a child) the pleasure is soon yanked away. (The nanny was let go) But the crime here is that Edward and Florence are unable to talk with each other about their problem. Had they exercised the power of speech they might have found a way out of their marital jungle. We are shown what the future holds for them. And maybe in that is a message about disparate times. Maybe, even with all the angst of changes over the last 50 years, we are in a better position to address our issues in the 21st century, even despite the divorce rate.


Two other McEwans I have had a go at, Atonement and
Saturday