On Chesil Beach. Ian McEwan
It is often said that authors find it notoriously difficult to write sex scenes in their novels, but here comes a whole book, pretty much, based around one particular sexual incident. Well, maybe not the incident itself, but certainly the impact that the incident has on the two lives that are about to be irreconcilably affected by it.
A young newly-wed couple, Edward and Florence, in the 1960’s both have their different fears and expectations of their wedding night. This might be laughable to people of the same age today, but at the time it was probably a very real concern.
At times in “On Chesil Beach”I found McEwan’s writing quite beautiful, very well paced and sensitive. I like a lot of space in my stories, and this novella certainly has that. Yet, there are paragraphs where the writing seems awkward, clunky and out of place with the rest of the prose. It is almost as if some parts of the book had failed to be edited properly and they would have certainly benefitted from a rewrite or two but this simple part of the writing process seems to have been omitted.
As for the narrative itself, well, it’s an interesting premise for a story but somehow I couldn’t help but feel a bit let down by this. I got to the end of the book and realised that I didn’t much care for Edward or Florence.
I would not consider myself to be McEwan’s number one fan, but I got the book free in london so I can’t complain too much. His work is interesting at times, but he’s not at the top of my list of must read authors. After this I think I’ll be giving him an even wider berth.
