McEwan brings Florence and Edward touchingly alive for us and their seriousness, their idealism, and their desire for love draw us towards them Natasha Walter, GuardianĪ master feat of concentration in both senses of the word Peter Kemp, Sunday Times It is a polished, civilised style, and very distant from the shock tactics of his early work. This is McEwan's mature style, one we have come to recognise from Atonement and Saturday. But more immediately than that, this is a book which, while managing to be very funny, gives us a wonderful and moving portrait of a specific time, and two of its hostages, and of how to make a mess of love Keith Ridgeway, Irish Times McEwan is the kind of author who can say more in a sentence than most can say in a chapter.This is a thoughtful book which provokes thought. In On Chesil Beach McEwan has combined the intensity of his narrowly focused early work with his more expansive later flowered to devastating effect Justin Cartwright, Independent on Sunday The bedroom scene itself is carried off brilliantly Christopher Taylor, Sunday TelegraphĪ fine book, homing in with devastating precision on a kind of Englishness which McEwan understands better than any other living writer, the Englishness of deceit, evasion, repression and regret. McEwan gives the reader access to both characters' thoughts with his usual skill, and the comedy of embarrassment, or of the kind of erotic misunderstanding that Milan Kundera used to specialise in, quickly disappears as the marital bed begins to seem more and more ominous. McEwan's brilliance as a novelist lies in his ability to isolate discrete moments in life and invest them with incredible significance Tim Adams, ObserverĪ tightly focused human drama. McEwan's style is lean and clear.every sentence feels carefully crafted, the words all perfectly in place John Harding, Daily Mail McEwan is word-perfect at handling the awkward comedy of this relationship and, as ever, turning it into something far more disturbing Observer Brief and elegiac, On Chesil Beach spotlights the talents of a literary grand master at the top of his game. One of McEwan's greatest skills is his ability to limn the precise, irrevocable moment in which life changes forever.Īnd although that moment is telegraphed within the first few pages of this rueful tale, it loses none of its tragic, devastating force when it occurs. Locked in their inhibitions and utterly unable to discuss their fears and needs, they are victims not only of personal experience but of a distinctively British brand of repression destined to crumble in the sexual revolution. He longs to consummate the marriage she is repelled by the very idea. Very much in love, Edward and Florence are predictably nervous, but for different reasons.
Ian McEwan's emotionally charged novel follows an inexperienced young couple through their disastrous wedding night at a Dorset hotel in 1962.
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