Ian McEwan is a Booker prize winning novelist (for 'Amsterdam' in 1998) and I sometimes find such eminent writers almost impenetrable! However, 'On Chesil Beach' is a short novel (just 120 pages or so) and a must-read to any self-respecting blogger, so I took the plunge.
In 1962 Edward and Florence have just been married and have arrived in Dorset for their honeymoon. The story revolves around the 2 or 3 hours it takes for their marriage to fall apart. Too much information when you haven't even read it, yet? Sorry!
We learn how the couple met and fell in love. We hear Edward's voice, describing his chaotic childhood in a country setting, and Florence's voice tell of her privileged upbringing among the educated elite of Oxford. Each has had a sexually repressed adolescence. Edward, however, wants sexual freedom from his marriage whereas Florence is very afraid of what marriage, and Edward, expects of her.
This is a sad little story of 2 people who imagine that love will conquer, when all it does is blind them to each other's true personalities and needs.
I read it through (it didn't take long) but half wish it hadn't. It left behind a feeling of deep sadness for the mess people can make of their lives, with far reaching consequences, because of secrets, lies and repressions, which lasted a long time.
'On Chesil Beach' is published by Random House, (and others in different covers and formats), under several different ISBN numbers.
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