On Chesil Beach

“I was thinking it must be strange to read Chesil Beach aloud, given that it seems to much a book about things not being spoken and not said. And so much of the book happens outside speech, as it were…” A very British and charming sounding voice stole the words right out of my mouth with this comment, the opening to a bonus interview attached to the final CD of Ian McEwan’s novel, Chesil Beach. McEwan responds with a description of one of his most recent live readings, where he chose to read a particularly painful stretch of narrative from the excruciating novel. He had expected silence as a response. Instead? “I read it in Stanford, and people laughed. In ways that sort of amazed me…some women in the audience – I had to stop. I thought they were going to have to be carried from the hall. And it seemed as if I had touched some memories, or some nerve or profound discomfort. […] I took it as praise. I have always taken the view that there’s something funny about good writing. That it’s… innately funny. Or comic, maybe. And that if you get laughter in scenes that are not actually slapstick, or, amusing in the obvious ways, and go between the little cracks and small print of ordinary experience, then you can take it as a kind of endorsement.”

Laughter? As a response to this novel? I can’t imagine it, short of the sort of laughter that’s only purpose is to hold back an anxiety attack. On Chesil Beach is a compact little novel that packs a hell of a punch. From the very beginning, nothing is simple. We are tossed straight into to Florence and Edward’s honeymoon suite with no background, or warning. They are sitting awkwardly at their table, unsure of how to act towards each other now that the matrimonial technicalities are finished. Upon that shaky foundation, the plot begins to build. For five chapters, McEwan weaves an unbelievably intricate story between and around newlyweds Edward and Florence. The roads traveled in their past, the way these two paths met, and where they planned on traveling together. Between these flashes of background information we learn of their thoughts in the present, their wedding night, from their differing points of view.

Edward is a typical early-twenties ball of testosterone. At times throughout his sections of the novel, it seems as though he proposed to Florence simply to get into her pants. He loves her to the best of his ability, but the ability itself seems to be stunted. Edward has just graduated college with a degree in history, and is desperate for the “real” part of his life to begin. He has no idea what that actually means, but he seems to be pretty sure that it has to do with his groin. Florence, on the other hand, is an anomaly, in both a positive and negative way. She has just graduated from University as well, but her degree is in music. She is a passionate violinist who is determined to spend her life performing. Florence is gentle and intelligent, sometimes a bit too quiet and eager to please for her own good. Upon first glance, these two make a happy couple. They sit at dinner having just arrived in the suite, giggling and awkward at their newly found titles of man and wife. But as the story progresses and delves deeper into their thoughts, McEwan reveals a massive miscommunication between them.

In the most stereotypical of ways, Chesil Beach outlines one of the major traumatic issues between partners. Differing levels of libido, unspoken expectations in the bedroom, and secret fears or problems with intimacy occur in almost every relationship. We’ve all heard our friends complaining about their fellas’ ridiculous sex drives or their wives’ frigid boudoir behavior. Physical intimacy is just one of those things that doesn’t translate well between the sexes. Florence is completely inexperienced, and libido doesn’t even show up on her radar. She loves Edward and enjoys emotionally intimate moments with him, but finds any sort of carnal attraction, even a deep kiss, revolting. Edward, on the other hand, desires Florence to the point that he can’t complete a sentence. He proposed in a moment of unrequited lust and has been counting down the hours to their wedding night. In his eyes, he has been extremely patient for an entire year, only stealing light kisses and obeying her conservative limits (he doesn’t hide his distaste for these limits very carefully). Somehow these two have made it through over a year of dating and wedding planning without communicating about sexuality or intimacy at all. Florence, although unaware of quite how sexually driven Edward is, knows that eventually someone will have to break. She dreads the moment when she will have to discuss her issues but truly believes that their love will be enough to solve the problem. Edward, on the other hand, is so lost in the blood going straight to wrong part of his body that he hasn’t even noticed anything is wrong.

The tension mounts as the evening goes on. McEwan dances back and forth between the points of view of the two main characters, and the difference between their thoughts are so great that the unspoken tension becomes almost unbearable. Eventually, it has to break. McEwan gives this moment all of the hideous, humiliating, cringing attention that it deserves. From then on, Chesil Beach is one big freefall. The title is derived from the novel’s emotional finale, a standoff on Chesil Beach across the street from the couple’s honeymoon suite. Emotions wash in and out of the scene with the sand, carried away by the waves and replaced with new grains every passing second.

On a side note, this is a book that I wished I hadn’t experienced on tape. Ian McEwan is British. Really quite British. His accent is thick and strong, which makes some of the more intense passages difficult to understand. These intense passages, coincidentally, are almost all explicitly sexual. So you either have to crank up the volume and replay the phrase “…she reached down to touch his penis” sixteen times until you understand all the words, or let it pass by, knowing that she could have been touching, munching, or flushing, and hoping that precise word choice doesn’t throw you off from the plot. Another issue? My dad is British. That accent will always remind me of my father, despite the context. I don’t think I need to go into any more detail about why that was a problem.

Although I love that McEwan dared to tackle the sexual elephant in the room, I wish he hadn’t done it in such a predictable way. Yet another piece of literature that paints women as frigid and out of touch with their sexuality while the poor men just try to get what they deserve. After all, they agreed to marry the ladies, didn’t they? Surely that ultimate sacrifice is enough to score some tail? So much for the sanctity of marriage and the idea of spending your life with another person for their heart and their company – Edward’s thoughts haven’t even considered a post-coital sandwich. Just once I’d like to see a writer turn the tables. Not in a cartoonish, hormonal, vampy woman kind of way, but simply to see a wife that craves more intimacy than her husband. To see a relationship struggle because the man ‘isn’t in the mood.’ It just doesn’t seem fair that the females are getting all the blame.

Whether it’s fair or not, Ian McEwan has an incredible power with the English language. He creates unbelievably complicated relationships between his characters and reveals them layer-by-layer to the reader. Each tiny piece fits into the big picture so precisely that you wonder how you couldn’t have realized there was a hole there before. In some ways, this is maddening – the story begins zoomed in on a particular spot, and just as you think that you’re starting to see the picture, it zooms out again and you realize your last hour’s work was just a spot in the left-hand corner. Another chapter, another outward zoom, and you’re somewhere in the middle right. Only in the last few pages do we find out what’s really happening. I had this similar insecure, walking on eggshells feeling throughout Atonement, another of McEwan’s novels that I read for a fiction class last year. His writing captures the reader’s emotions so intensely that a long read can be exhausting.

With every paragraph, another thread is added to the spider web of Florence and Edward’s relationship. At moments the web seems beautiful, catching a certain ray of sunlight or moving with the wind. But at other times it’s lopsided and claustrophobic. It’s incredible the way the two characters see the same moments throughout their relationship in such opposite ways. It makes me wonder which events in our relationship Brett and I have internalized differently. Do we each remember our first kiss the same way? That night that I dismissed as a misunderstanding, does it still haunt him? Does he find as much comfort in certain memories as I do?

Chesil Beach is just as powerful after the words have stopped. Long after the last CD ended, the book left me considering interpersonal relationships – mine, yours, the worlds’. No matter how long another person has been in our lives, is it possible to ever truly know a human being? Even if we are to know everything about who they are on the surface, without insight into their heart and mind, can we ever truly consider ourselves familiar with each other? And if the answer is no, what does that mean for love? If we are a world of strangers, then compatibility and contentedness aren’t much more than a gamble. With a roll of the dice, you could reach your golden anniversary. But if the wind is blowing the other direction, you’ll be signing your annulment papers within the week.

This entry is unusually pessimistic for me, which follows in the tone of McEwan’s diction. The book is compact and powerful, but it is unarguably dark. My experience with Ian McEwan thus far is reminiscent of the question that lingers in your mind; the one you’re dying to know the answer to but terrified to ask out loud. You can live your whole life refusing to speak it, safe but maddeningly curious. Or you can release it into the atmosphere. Once released, no matter the intentions, the question will take on a role completely out of your control. Once Chesil Beach is released into your subconscious, there’s no turning back. If you’d rather keep things light, there is a review of Sloane Crosley for you a few entries back. But if you decide that honesty is more important to you than blind safety, then you are the kind of person that will enjoy On Chesil Beach. Just prepare yourself – much like that question, your brain’s reaction to Edward and Florence’s turmoil can’t be undone.