30 Books in 30 Beach Days Day 5: "On Chesil Beach"
If you’ve read Atonement, you know that Ian McEwan is a master at taking seemingly happy situations and twisting them, squeezing discomfort, disappointment, and shame from what the reader initially expects will be good memories.
That’s exactly what happens in On Chesil Beach, a 203-page tumble through the first hours following a newlywed couple’s marriage. The year is 1962, and Edward (a graduate student in history) and Florence (a violinist) have just arrived on Chesil Beach on the Dorset Coast, where they plan to spend their honeymoon.
In the subsequent pages, McEwan does a wonderful job infiltrating the minds of both Edward—who is simultaneously nervous and thrilled at the anticipation at the prospect of marital passion—and Florence, who becomes increasingly troubled by the same prospect as the day goes on. McEwan takes this pivotal moment and makes it the crux of his story—and indeed the central tenet on which an entire marriage hinges, regardless of love, compassion, affection, compatibility—the list goes on.
It’s interesting that these characters, who have found some measure of professional success and who clearly, unequivocally love one another, face a problem so adult and so seemingly insurmountable that it threatens to derail them. By heightening the ramifications of a single act, McEwan strips the characters bare to their essential natures, and that’s an interesting lens through which a reader can examine them.
Rating: 4/5.
