Written by Ian McEwan
On Chesil Beach is one of the shortest books I’ve read in a while…but it packs more emotion, more detail, and more impact into its slim page count than novels three times its length.
A simple premise: a couple on their wedding night. It’s the early 1960s, and the world is on the cusp of momentous social upheaval…but it hasn’t happened just yet. The idea of social rebellion is tantalizing close. However, so much of what has come before remains ingrained within them – the shackles of old-school British values. They’ve saved themselves for this night – we’re introduced to them and their courtship through flashbacks – but it all goes disastrously (and tragically) wrong.
Ian McEwan doesn’t have anything to prove to me – he’s the Booker-winning author of classics such as Atonement. That said, his last novel (Saturday) left a strange after-taste in my mouth; he attempted to broaden his storytelling horizons and accidentally landed in theatre of the absurd. But On Chesil Beach is vastly superior in all respects. It’s brevity gives it a razor-sharp focus on the frailties of human relationships…and how even the best of intentions can lead to private hells. The experience of the book is comparable to knowing that a car accident is about to happen: you’re unwilling (and unable) to look away, in spite of the heartache that will result.
It’s also full of glorious details about British life & a dying 20th century class structure; once again, the brevity forces the author to distill descriptions and details into crystal-clear pearls of background detail. If Dan Brown had attempted to write The DaVinci Code in such a fashion, his head would have exploded!
I finished On Chesil Beach in a day of frenzied reading. It’s literally one of those books that doesn’t allow you to walk away until you’ve completed the journey…a journey that leaves the reader sad, melancholy, and disappointed…but only because the experience is so rich. It’s easily the best of the three McEwan works I’ve read to date, and I’m already searching through his back catalogue for another selection.
If only all novels could be so perfectly sculpted.
