On Chesil Beach by
Ian McEwan
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
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.
A very sad story - beautifully told.
View all my reviews
Thanks for your review, Wendy! Always well done!
ReplyDeleteThanks Terri
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