On Chesil Beach

ON CHESIL BEACH

by Ian McEwan

 

Nominations: Booker Finalist 2007, Dublin Longlist 2009

 

Date Read: May 16, 2023

 

On Chesil Beach explores what happens when so much pressure and fear builds up between virgin lovers who suddenly find themselves married. As virgins thrust into the expectations of their wedding night, the simplest of understandings and words can either avoid calamity or bring their relationship into blissful union. Unfortunately, for Florence and Edward, the love they have for each other isn’t able to survive the hurdles they face that one night.

 

Both Florence and Edward have bright futures and their love for each other is never in question. Florence knows from the get-go that she isn’t interested in the physical part of love, having strung Edward along their entire relationship, never even allowing him a kiss. On their wedding night, she is dreading what she knows is expected of her, loathing the very idea of what’s required of her. Edward also anticipates their union but with eagerness and expectation.

 

What begins as brief fumblings and a clenched resolve on Florence’s part turns into a premature emission from Edward, to Florence’s horror. And what appears to be simple wedding night jitters unleashes a torrent of insecurities and disappointments. As a reader, it’s difficult to read the discomfort and awkwardness preventing this couple from achieving what you know is possible between them. But this is the early 1960s when birth control was “just a rumor,” virginity was expected entering into marriage and the state of marriage was your passport to legitimacy and adulthood.

 

And here is where McEwan is so masterful. Not only is his prose exquisite, but he can address the most uncomfortable and awkward of topics without it devolving into a lurid scenario but instead sheds a new light on the human condition in all its splendor and failings. It had never occurred to me that a couple weren’t able to overcome themselves and fail at consummating a marriage, but alas, here Edward and Florence are.

 

On Chesil Beach also highlighted for me how the distance of years (speaking from experience again and again) can paint even the most insurmountable of obstacles into a new light with the vantage of time. Although Edward threw his hands up in frustration, he was never able to achieve the love he shared with Florence with anyone else. Both flew so close to love and needlessly crashed and burned.