He has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction numerous times, winning the award for Amsterdam in 1998. He won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976 for his first collection of short stories First Love, Last Rites the Whitbread Novel Award (1987) and the Prix Fémina Etranger (1993) for The Child in Time and Germany's Shakespeare Prize in 1999. McEwan's works have earned him worldwide critical acclaim. Ian McEwan studied at the University of Sussex, where he received a BA degree in English Literature in 1970 and later received his MA degree in English Literature at the University of East Anglia. On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from McEwan-a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken. Ian McEwan has caught with understanding and compassion the innocence of Edward and Florence at a time when marriage was presumed to be the outward sign of maturity and independence. Edward, eager for rapture, frets over Florence’s response to his advances and nurses a private fear of failure, while Florence’s anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by sheer disgust at the idea of physical contact, but dreads disappointing her husband when they finally lie down together in the honeymoon suite. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their worries about the wedding night to come. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart. The Den has also reviewed Solar and Machines Like Me.A novel of remarkable depth and poignancy from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time. You will easily be drawn in to this one! Pleasure to pick up and finish.Īlmost full marks from the book club - 9s and 10s. And grateful to be living in a different era!
All the excruciating bottled up emotions are poured out and we can feel the awkwardness and anguish for these two intelligent young lovers. Set in the early ‘60s in Dorset, the novel unravels the young couple’s own private fears as the wedding night draws closer.
As in the case of the McEwan’s characters - Edward & Florence. On Chesil Beach is a short intense story of two young lovers on their honeymoon in 1962 - when honeymoons were often a couple’s first sexual experience. It’s a great taster of his beautiful writing style and a good excuse to mix up book club with a film night in, thanks to the screen adaptation. Read McEwan's modern classic for an entertaining book club discussion! Also released as a film in 2018 and streaming on TV.Ī favourite author amongst book clubbers, any McEwan novel is warmly welcomed in the Den but we love his novella On Chesil Beach as it works brilliantly for time-poor book lovers.
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