I was recently introduced to Ian McEwan’s books by a recommendation for Atonement, which I loved. So, on more recommendations, I bought this and was, frankly, disappointed.
The gorgeous writing is there, and the internal dialogue. But in my view, the very short length of this novella (printing it double-spaced is misleading in the product description!) means there’s no time for the reader to develop much of a relationship with either character.
Find On Chesil Beach here.
To me it ended up like the longest yet most unstimulating sex scene ever! I wasn’t fond of either character, although in the context of the time I could see this happening.
The secondary characters, the parents, were far more interesting as was the implied, yet never stated reasons, why Florence had her problem to start with.
It felt like the author was being lazy and couldn’t be bothered to write a whole novel, which I think would have been far more interesting, drawing things out instead of just telling the reader, especially their lives after the event. If I venture into McEwan territory again, I’ll check the page length!
More book reviews can be found here.