On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
Since we went on holiday to Weymouth and went to see Chesil beach I thought I'd have to bring this and read it there.
I really liked the way this book was structured. It tells the story of only a few hours in the life of two people, but telescopes into that how they came to that point, and then where their lives go afterwards. There's no doubt it's brilliantly written. Whether it works ultimately depends on whether you can believe that the somewhat extreme scenario it describes is actually convincing given the characters and where they've come from. I guess it is when you're reading it, but whether it still works on reflection I'm not sure.
One particular thing that I'm still puzzling about in my mind is the setting of the final scene, on Chesil Beach itself. Having actually sat on the "infinite shingle" of Chesil Beach myself, there was something incredibly peaceful and timeless about its "infinite shingle", but at the same time it's a place of amazing solitude, even in the presence of other people. Does that make the book's conclusion more or less likely? I'm not sure.
The ending of the book was sad, but not somehow depressing. One thing that's brought out throughout the book is that a wonderful happy ending is only a hair's breadth away - as if in some infinite universe of possibilities, all the other universes might have seen a different conclusion. Somehow that's a lot less depressing than feeling that the unhappy ending was inevitable. I particularly felt seeds of hope, of what might otherwise have been, in the last few pages, where the book zooms out and shows the two characters making their way through the rest of their lives - a great touch.
I had reservations when I heard about this book that it might be trying to argue against the viewpoint of keeping sex for marriage. I don't think it does - or if it does, it's not very successful. If anything it's about communication - the clue, I suppose, is in the book's first two sentences. And communication is always a good thing.
I really liked the way this book was structured. It tells the story of only a few hours in the life of two people, but telescopes into that how they came to that point, and then where their lives go afterwards. There's no doubt it's brilliantly written. Whether it works ultimately depends on whether you can believe that the somewhat extreme scenario it describes is actually convincing given the characters and where they've come from. I guess it is when you're reading it, but whether it still works on reflection I'm not sure.
One particular thing that I'm still puzzling about in my mind is the setting of the final scene, on Chesil Beach itself. Having actually sat on the "infinite shingle" of Chesil Beach myself, there was something incredibly peaceful and timeless about its "infinite shingle", but at the same time it's a place of amazing solitude, even in the presence of other people. Does that make the book's conclusion more or less likely? I'm not sure.
The ending of the book was sad, but not somehow depressing. One thing that's brought out throughout the book is that a wonderful happy ending is only a hair's breadth away - as if in some infinite universe of possibilities, all the other universes might have seen a different conclusion. Somehow that's a lot less depressing than feeling that the unhappy ending was inevitable. I particularly felt seeds of hope, of what might otherwise have been, in the last few pages, where the book zooms out and shows the two characters making their way through the rest of their lives - a great touch.
I had reservations when I heard about this book that it might be trying to argue against the viewpoint of keeping sex for marriage. I don't think it does - or if it does, it's not very successful. If anything it's about communication - the clue, I suppose, is in the book's first two sentences. And communication is always a good thing.
posted by tomdg at 8:06 PM
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