On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Genre: General Fiction, Adult Fiction

Publishing Info: Vintage; Reprint edition (3 Jan 2008)

Pages: 166

Star Rating: 2/5

 

Back Cover Summary:

It is June 1962. In a hotel on the Dorset coast, overlooking Chesil Beach, Edward and Florence, who got married that morning, are sitting down to dinner in their room. Neither is entirely able to suppress their anxieties about the wedding night to come…

On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from Ian McEwan – a story about how the entire course of a life can be changed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

I found this a peculiar novella to say the least. The book was well written, like all of McEwan’s works and is a fairly quick read since it isn’t very long. The whole of the book takes place on Edward and Florence’s wedding night, with some flashbacks about how they met and so on. So if you don’t like books that take place in a very short time frame (e.g. one evening) then I would not bother even picking this up. The plot is thin and focuses on the characters general everyday lives.

The characters were well written, although I found them a little plain and boring. I didn’t really connect with them at all and there was no development – they were the same all the way through. Surely experiences change people – not these two.

McEwan captured the 60s era very well, which I felt was one of the strengths of the novella. There was a real sense of setting and social expectations which influenced the characters and their actions.

It was a very slow book in which not much happens. It shows the characters feelings well, assisted by the dual narrative, yet this is the focus of the novella. There was nothing in it that kept me engaged and frankly I was bored a lot of the time reading it. The only reason I didn’t put it down is because it is so short – I thought I may as well finish it. As endings go it was nothing spectacular and kind of inevitable. However one small, tiny bit was quite touching.

I have little else to say about On Chesil Beach. It was a pretty mediocre book – it wasn’t good but it wasn’t exactly bad either. I think a lot of it depends on personal preference. Some people might really like his style of writing but unfortunately this book did not ‘wow’ me at all. I endeavour to read one of McEwan’s full length novels in the hope I shall enjoy one of his works, since he is undoubtedly a great writer.