Featured Reading Guide
Ian McEwan
It is June 1962. In a hotel on the Dorset coast, overlooking Chesil Beach, Edward and Florence, who got married that morning, are sitting down to dinner in their room. Neither is entirely able to suppress their anxieties about the wedding night to come On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from Ian McEwan a story about how the entire course of a life can be changed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.
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topAbout the Book
It is June 1962. In a hotel on the Dorset coast, overlooking Chesil Beach, Edward and Florence, who got married that morning, are sitting down to dinner in their room. Neither is entirely able to suppress their anxieties about the wedding night to come On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from Ian McEwan a story about how the entire course of a life can be changed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.
topIan McEwan interview/review
See Ian McEwan reading from On Chesil Beach :
Extract from 10 Questions to Ian McEwan:
- How do you select a topic for a novel? — Edward Turner ST. CATHARINES, ONT.
My novels usually start in a very chaotic way. It never feels so clear as selecting a topic. I write my way into them. Though I am keen to make my new novel not anything like my last, so often I am in flight from the last thing I did.
- You write about very dark subjects. Why is that? — Mahtot Teka, ADDIS ABABA
Look at the front page of today’s newspaper. We are a troubled lot, and literature is bound to reflect this. Any examination of the human state will take you into some dark places.
- I find your more recent work superior to your earlier, perhaps edgier writing. Do you ever reread your writing from years ago and think you would have approached it differently? — David Parr, PORTLAND, MAINE
I have dipped into it from time to time, and I don’t feel any great urge to change anything. I agree that they were certainly darker, but I don’t think they were less complex. I looked at The Innocent about six months ago, and I really enjoyed it.
- On Chesil Beach had me sympathizing with Edward and Florence equally, but my wife sided with Florence. Did you want the reader to side with one or the other? — Nathaniel Winn LITTLE ELM, TEXAS
Absolutely not. The narrative really tries to be compassionate toward them both and ascribe no blame to either.
topStarting Points for Discussion
- The book is set on the cusp of the sexual revolution of the 60s, how do you think this is reflected in the couple’s attitudes toward sexual relations?
- The main action of the novel takes place during the course of one day, yet the story of Edward and Florence spans years. Do you think this is reflected in the length of the novel? Does the shortness make it more intense and intimate? Or less so?
- Edward enjoys jazz and rock music, while Florence loves classical, which is considered much more traditional. So are you surprised that it is Florence who has a radical suggestion of how they should live? Is Edward’s reaction a surprise?
- Who do you feel most sympathy for by the end of the story?
- ‘They regarded themselves as too sophisticated to believe in destiny, but still, it remained a paradox to them that so momentous a meeting should have been accidental, so dependent on a hundred minor events and choices.’ (p.37) Was Edward and Florence’s first meeting governed by destiny? If so, does it mean that their break up was predetermined? Were they never meant to be together? Or was it simply their feelings and circumstances that drove them apart rather than fate?
Other Books by Ian McEwan
Amsterdam
Atonement
On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees…
Suggested Further Reading
- The Painted Veil ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- The End of the Affair ~ Graham Greene
- Remains of the Day ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
Good book.
Posted by Lieke on 2012-03-09