On Chesil Beach – Ian McEwan

This is my second read of this novella.

The first time of reading was several years ago, pre-blog. On that occasion I thought the story of wedding night nerves in the fifties was well done, I appreciated the significance of a dark back story, and I was completely buying the disastrous results of a profound failure of communication.

My second read of On Chesil Beach followed closely on the heels of Umberto Eco, and the Eco Effect has yet to wear off. But I will endeavour to keep my Eco related revelations to a minimum.

‘They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible.’

The first phrase is extraordinarily powerful, with the potential to lead the reader on an extensive ‘inferential wandering,’ à la Eco. The second phrase renders speculation unnecessary, and weakens the overall impact of the novella’s first sentence. The unfortunate effect of this very early observation is to highlight the same manner of flaw undermining McEwan’s theme throughout the novella.

McEwan’s concept of relationship breakdown resulting from a failure of communication is a compelling theme for investigation, one that might easily stand alone. The hints of a dark past playing a prominent part in the marital difficulties which ensue feels like an easy out, as if McEwan was personally unconvinced that the paralysing fear of a woefully ill-informed young woman on the event of her first sexual experience was justifiable. Had he attempted to make this case the resulting novella would have felt fresher and more significant.

Wearing my feminist hat and, conceivably, over-interpreting, the implication that the root cause of the problem is male and not internal is patronisingly offensive. Compare with Florence’s account of her marital handbook:

‘Other phrases insulted her intelligence, particularly those concerning entrances: Not long before he enters her… or, now at last he enters her, and, happily, soon after he has entered her… Was she obliged on the night to transform herself for Edward into a kind of portal or drawing room through which he might process? Almost as frequent was a word that suggested to her nothing but pain, flesh parted before a knife: penetration.’

Here McEwan is sympathetic to Florence’s instinctive rejection of submissive passivity but he himself has already portrayed her as a passive object. This would be acceptable if society were the culprit and his subject but, as I previously stated, McEwan never quite commits to this solution.

For the reader the difficulty is to commit to the characters. The narrow four-poster bed, with its virginal overtones: ‘pure white and stretched startling smooth, as though by no human hand.‘ The ‘sensuous‘ vegetation with ‘swollen stalks‘ and ‘dark, thick-veined leaves.’ There is a ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink’ feel to these sexual allusions which is unpleasant and creates a pronounced distance between character and reader. This impression is amplified as McEwan uses flashbacks to heighten tension and postpone the climactic moment of truth. Never was literary foreplay so abused and so ill-judged! The protagonists suffer while the reader is encouraged to anticipate the reveal. It feels voyeuristic and manipulative.

On the other hand, the latter half of the novel, somewhat anti-climatic, is most apposite.

On the first time of reading I took the novel as a straight forward tragedy, but on this, the second appraisal, the tragedy scenario does not hold water. If the protagonists share a love of Romeo and Juliet proportions then irreconcilable differences indeed constitute a tragedy, but in the case of la grande passione are irreconcilable differences even credible? If there is no true passion then there is no true tragedy.

It doesn’t have to be tragedy, but what then is it? To some degree social observation, with psychological overtones. In my final analysis I concede that McEwan makes one strong committment, to the clinical and dispassionate dissection of his characters: strait-jacketing them, distancing the reader.

It is worth observing that there are other facets of the novel which are exceedingly effective. I am indebted to a friend for a fascinating explanation of the significance of Chesil Beach, the liminal space with the sea-graded shingle. Which I will not reproduce here, but it’s worth thinking about. Should you choose to catch this particular ball you can run with it to good effect.

Alas. For me it is not enough to counteract the intrusive presence of absolute omniscience, and a flawed central conceit.