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  • Reading On Chesil Beach

  • Ian McEwan remains one of my favorite writers working today, and On Chesil Beach provides testament as to why. As with his previous books, detail is key. McEwan places the reader so solidly in the story that it feels as though you're standing right alongside the main characters.

    The novella c ... Continue

    Ian McEwan remains one of my favorite writers working today, and On Chesil Beach provides testament as to why. As with his previous books, detail is key. McEwan places the reader so solidly in the story that it feels as though you're standing right alongside the main characters.

    The novella centers around a brand new married couple and the events of their wedding night. The story is set in the late 50s, when sexual mores were obviously significantly different than they are today. Both husband and wife have serious hangups and fears going into the big night, and we flash forward and backward to see the evolution of their relationship. The story is brutally realistic, but beautifully told. McEwan is able to write sentences so sublime that they require reading and re-reading. As with all McEwan novels on my list, this one is highly recommended.

    

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• ― moogle said on Apr 20, 2007 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

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  • I got the audio version of this and it's read by the author. I don't tend to like audio-books read by the author, they generally seem too monotone for me or something. Also, the beginning just seemed to go on too long about her aversion to sex. I got bored and my mind wandered.
    This book has g ... Continue

    I got the audio version of this and it's read by the author. I don't tend to like audio-books read by the author, they generally seem too monotone for me or something. Also, the beginning just seemed to go on too long about her aversion to sex. I got bored and my mind wandered.
    This book has generally good ratings so my recommendation would be not to listen to the audio version. Maybe you will have better luck with it than I did. Good luck.

    

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• ― Angie (angiebro) said on Jan 9, 2008 about the Audio CD edition| Add your feedback

The #1 bestselling author of Saturday and Atonement brilliantly illuminates the collision of sexual longing, deep-seated fears and romantic fantasy in his unforgettable, emotionally engaging new novel.

The year is 1962. Florence, the daughter of a successful businessman and an aloof Oxford academic, is a talented violinist. She dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, the earnest young history student she met by chance and who unexpectedly wooed her and won her heart. Edward grew up in the country on the outskirts of Oxford where his father, the headmaster of the local school, struggled to keep the household together and his mother, brain-damaged from an accident, drifted in a world of her own. Edward’s native intelligence, coupled with a longing to experience the excitement and intellectual fervour of the city, had taken him to University College in London. Falling in love with the accomplished, shy and sensitive Florence – and having his affections returned with equal intensity – has utterly changed his life.

Their marriage, they believe, will bring them happiness, the confidence and the freedom to fulfill their true destinies. The glowing promise of the future, however, cannot totally mask their worries about the wedding night. Edward, who has had little experience with women, frets about his sexual prowess. Florence’s anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by conflicting emotions and a fear of the moment she will surrender herself.

From the precise and intimate depiction of two young lovers eager to rise above the hurts and confusion of the past, to the touching story of how their unexpressed misunderstandings and fears shape the rest of their lives, On Chesil Beach is an extraordinary novel that brilliantly, movingly shows us how the entire course of a life can be changed – by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

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