On Chesil Beach (Vintage Summer) - Softcover

9781784870003: On Chesil Beach (Vintage Summer)
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
BRAND NEW, Exactly same ISBN as listed, Please double check ISBN carefully before ordering.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:
Such is Ian McEwan's genius that, despite rambling nature walks and the naming of birds, his subject matter remains hermetically sealed in the hearts of two people.

It is 1962 when Edward and Florence, 23 and 22 respectively, marry and repair to a hotel on the Dorset coast for their honeymoon. They are both virgins, both apprehensive about what's next and in Florence's case, utterly and blindly terrified and repelled by the little she knows. Through a tense dinner in their room, because Florence has decided that the weather is not fine enough to dine on the terrace, they are attended by two local boys acting as waiters. The cameo appearances of the boys and Edward and Florence's parents and siblings serve only to underline the emotional isolation of the two principals. Florence says of herself: "...she lacked some simple mental trick that everyone else had, a mechanism so ordinary that no one ever mentioned it, an immediate sensual connection to people and events, and to her own needs and desires...."

They are on the cusp of a rather ordinary marital undertaking in differing states of readiness, willingness and ardor. McEwan says: "Where he merely suffered conventional first-night nerves, she experienced a visceral dread, a helpless disgust as palpable as seasickness." Edward, having denied himself even the release of self-pleasuring for a week, in order to be tip-top for Florence, is mentally pawing the ground. His sensitivity keeps him from being obvious, but he is getting anxious. Florence, on the other hand, knows that she is not capable of the kind of arousal that will make any of this easy. She has held Edward off for a year, and now the reckoning is upon her.

McEwan is the master of the defining moment, that place and time when, once it has taken place, nothing will ever be the same after it. It does not go well and Florence flees the room. "As she understood it, there were no words to name what had happened, there existed no shared language in which two sane adults could describe such events to each other." Edward eventually follows her and they have a poignant and painful conversation where accusations are made, ugly things are said and roads are taken from which, in the case of these two, the way back cannot be found. Late in Edward's life he realizes: "Love and patience--if only he had them both at once--would surely have seen them both through." This beautifully told sad story could have been conceived and written only by Ian McEwan. --Valerie Ryan

About the Author:
Ian McEwan is the author of two collections of stories and twelve previous novels, including Enduring Love, Amsterdam, for which he won the Booker Prize in 1998, Atonement and, most recently, Solar.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherRANDOM HOUSE
  • Publication date2015
  • ISBN 10 1784870005
  • ISBN 13 9781784870003
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages166
  • Rating
Buy Used
Condition: Fine
1784870005 Nearly new. Learn more about this copy

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.

Destination, rates & speeds

Add to Basket

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780307386175: On Chesil Beach

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780307386175
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2008
Softcover

9781784705565: On Chesil Beach

VINTAGE, 2018
Softcover

9780099512790: On Chesil Beach

Vintage, 2008
Softcover

9780385522403: On Chesil Beach: A Novel

Nan A...., 2007
Hardcover

9780224081184: On Chesil Beach

Jonath..., 2007
Hardcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

McEwan, Ian
Published by RANDOM HOUSE (2015)
ISBN 10: 1784870005 ISBN 13: 9781784870003
Used PAPERBACK Quantity: 1
Seller:
Newsboy Books
(Ontario, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description PAPERBACK. Condition: Fine. 1784870005 Nearly new. Seller Inventory # 9781784870003ZZZ

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 19.50
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds