A review by susieliston
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

3.0

This is actually a re-read for me, I bought it when it first came out, read it in one sitting, and thought, hmm, that's it? Put it on the shelf and thought maybe I just read it too fast or something, I should give it another go some day. Well, a decade later, I see they've made it into a movie, so I'll try again. Another one-sitting reading. I still don't quite know what I thought of it. I did feel sort of sad at the end. And I picked up on something that I didn't before, which was the strong hint that Florence's aversion to sex was probably due to abuse by her father. The 1962 setting assures that she would have no outlet for dealing with that, if she was even acknowledging it to herself. It's a well crafted little book, he gets in all the character background you need to feel a kinship to the characters, if you are going to. But I think the main problem is that I didn't quite buy the premise. Florence isn't completely disgusted by Edward, she understands she has a problem and is willing to work on it and Edward seems to be a decent sort who would be willing to be patient with her. So if they truly were madly in love they wouldn't have let this "incident" destroy them. Plus, divorce was still of bit of a scandal then, their friends and families would have been horrified and no doubt pressured them to try and patch up whatever it was. And if they didn't really care enough to save the marriage then why is the story sad, they wouldn't have had a good marriage anyway. Good they nipped it in the bud. The moral of the story is, then, I shouldn't think too much about it? Just read it, say, oh, how sad, and move along?