a book for the pre-marital sex campaign?

books:


	• On Chesil Beach: A Novel Ian McEwan Nan A. Talese, 2007 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 174 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

About so much more than sex.

The plot of this book is pretty well-publicized, so I hope I'm not spoiling it for anyone when I say that it's about a newly married couple in 1962 on their honeymoon, and the troubles they have with consummating their marriage.

When I picked it up, I was astounded by how small it was. But like Susan Minot's Rapture, it is indeed a full book, despite the short page count. It has some other similarities to Rapture. It tells the story of a relationship in one sexual encounter using flashbacks. In the case of Chesil Beach, these are long, detailed, almost minute flashbacks. A few went on too long, but others broke my heart with their perfect, glowing moments.

Both books illustrate that we can be as physically close as it is possible for two people to be, while having experiences that might as well be happening on differing continents for as much as they have to do with each other.

The reviewers talk a lot about a novel of time and place, assuming that only in this genteel, quaint past could a couple not have slept together before their wedding night. I suppose that is extremely rare today. One review talked about the sexual silence of the day, the lack of a vocabulary that this couple could have employed to talk their way through this initial stumbling block and into happiness. And it's true that this couple is sexually innocent. What do young people know now, i wonder? Is anyone innocent to the degree this book portrays?

But I still have to ask, is the book really that simple? Is it really just about how people didn't know what to say to each other about sex in 1963? I don't think so. if it were, it would have ended like Rapture, with the two people at the end of their attempt. Instead, it follows the young man into middle age, into time and experience and finally, a consideration of who he was, who she was, and how much he loved her. That part of the book is intensely bittersweet.

Another part of the book spoke to me sharply. The young woman is a musician. She is pulled towards the world of her quartet, where "friends work together to solve difficult creative problems." She wonders why that can't be the case in their marriage, why they can't pull together, but his pride is so damaged, his anger so self-righteous, that he has no sense of partnership with her at all.

And there's this part:

Whatever new frontier she crossed, there was always another waiting for her. Every concession she made increased the demand, and then the disappointment. Even in their happiest moments, there was always the accusing shadow, the barely hidden gloom of his unfulfillment, looming like an alp, a form of perpetual sorrow which had been accepted by them both as her responsibility. She wanted to be in love and to be herself, but to be herself she had to say no all the time. And then she was no longer herself. She had been cast on the side of sickliness, as an opponent of normal life.

I don't know why this particular passage rang me like a bell, but it did. And it makes me believe that this book is about so much more than a lack of sexual vocabulary.

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Disappointed me

Ian McEwan is definitely one of my favorite authors, and for that reason I purchased his latest book the moment I saw it in the bookstore. However, once I got down to reading it, I felt it really didn't live up to his other writing. A master at setting up tension, McEwan succeeds in that regard, but I was not satisfied with how the tension was resolved. In fact I felt like it wasn't really resolved, and it left behind this unpleasant residue to be washed down with a glass of water or perhaps another story. The book isn't long but as I was reading it I was often interrupted by my own thoughts as I wished something would actually happen. Rather, McEwan spends a lot of time providing backstory between glimpses of action that occur on the wedding night of the two main characters, which are the parts I found most interesting. I felt that this mainly served to slow down the story. Finally, I felt apathetic in regard to the characters and sometimes annoyed by them. However, even though I didn't really enjoy the book, I did have some emotional response to it. Some parts were redeeming, but as a whole, I was left guessing as to why Ian McEwan chose this subject matter for a novel. Standing next to the other books of his that I've read, this seems like filler. If you're going to get a book by him, I would point you towards some of my favorite books of all time-"Amsterdam" or "The Comfort of Strangers." In addition I really liked "The Cement Garden", "Atonement" and "Enduring Love." It's funny, he's generally so good that I actually feel guilty writing this negative review.

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a book for the pre-marital sex campaign?

I enjoyed McEwan's "Saturday" and found "On Chesil Beach" to be another pleasant journey into this authors talent for drawing characters and coming up with interesting predicaments. I didn't mind the sparseness of the story, I think more books should adopt this practice.

Nothing lacked in this novel for this reader, but not as spectacular a storyline to "highly" recommend. Looking forward to reading "Atonement"

an intimate view

Ian McEwan is a brilliant writer who creates an intimate portrait of a newly-wed couple who are both vigins. Facing the first night of their honeymoon, the author allows the reader an insightful view of Florence's fears and Edward's hopes. What follows is sad especially when you realize that the right word at a particular moment could change all that happens.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

A novel of remarkable depth and poignancy from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.

It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their worries about the wedding night to come. Edward, eager for rapture, frets over Florence?s response to his advances and nurses a private fear of failure, while Florence?s anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by sheer disgust at the idea of physical contact, but dreads disappointing her husband when they finally lie down together in the honeymoon suite.

Ian McEwan has caught with understanding and compassion the innocence of Edward and Florence at a time when marriage was presumed to be the outward sign of maturity and independence. On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from McEwan?a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

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