Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan

Date: Feb 28, 2008
Meeting venue: Fox and Badger, Wellow.
Present: Rob, Chris, Steve, Neil, Mark T, Mark Th (later)

A double dose for Feb 08. Ian McEwan's Chesil Beach had been bubbling under for a while: several members had said they'd like to read it, but equally others already had, and as a matter of preference we aim to choose something that no-one's read before. So given that it's a short book (apparently nearly turned down for the Booker on the grounds that it was too short), we agreed to discuss it along with this month's 'proper' choice (A Thousand Splendid Suns - notes posted separately).

These are Rob's notes, so 'I' means 'Rob'...

Greater consensus about Chesil Beach than Thousand Suns. I recall Chris being particularly flowery in his praise of McEwan's writing style and capabilities. There was general appreciation of the humour in the description of actions in the hotel room, fond memories of how completely naff so much of our culture was at that time (e.g. the food) and slightly less fond memories (from some) of similar sexual discovery/failure in our youth. Some discussion about whether and how it would have been possible for the communicative failure between the two central characters to have been resolved (they just needed a good psychologist) or was it so deeply ingrained in the cultural norms of the time that neither could have been helped out of the predicament. General (but not unanimous) view that it was an extremely sad book - wasted lives etc. because of an inability to be honest and open. There was also discussion about Richard's strong view that the last fifteen pages should have been around 150 pages and have told the rest of the story. Others (Steve in particular if I recall rightly) felt the last section to be totally unnecessary and that the book should have finished as she walked away down the beach. I think McEwan got it right - and the brief outline of the damage to the rest of his life from that failure to act gave exactly the right emphasis to the central message of how compliance with societal norms, if unchallenged, can destroy lives.

Generally very high marks so far - right up there near the top with 7.37 - Will's score still to come. However, I cannot help but feel that the high marks were linked to it being so short (which is fair enough as we are marking it on the whole package) but I wonder if it had been a normal book length it might have come out a bit less well - with its brevity making us feel extra positive at the end as we finished it so quickly and easily.