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| On Chesil Beach | 
 enlarge | Author: Ian Mcewan
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
Buy Used: £0.17
You Save: £6.82 (98%)
New (31) Collectible (1) from £1.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  69 reviews
Sales Rank: 650
Media: Paperback
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0099512793
EAN: 9780099512790
ASIN: 0099512793
Publication Date: January 3, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: **UK SHIPPED**SWIFT RELIABLE SERVICE** With friendly customer care! "Buy with confidence, Buy Book EcoLOGICal" Some discolour on page edges
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| Customer Reviews:
 Brilliant or Rubbish? June 24, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
One star or five? Well judging by these reviews what makes a good book is far from clear and highly subjective.
There are parallels here with Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" which received similarly mixed reviews on its release - some totally dismissed it for its "novelette" length and its superficial and incomplete story-line while others lauded it as a work of pure genius. In fact what Fitzgerald had done, which only a highly skilled writer can, was to take a complex love story and then cut everything back to its bare essentials, re-crafting every paragraph and sentence to the absolute minimum and, in doing so, leaving the reader to imply key elements of the plot and to ponder on how and why these things happen. The result, as time has shown, was a novel that precisely because of its superbly compact writing and pervading air of mystery was far more emotionally charged and thought provoking than novels of double or treble the length and, as a result, unforgettable and timeless.
And this is exactly what McEwan does here. Beneath "On Chesil Beach's" short and superficially simple narrative is a complex, multi-layered and deeply moving love story, executed in a similarly minimalist style that ultimately leaves the reader to reflect on the reasons for its outcome. Almost every page requires one or more repeat readings to appreciate how incredibly well written and constructed they are, while his ability to distil genuine tension, emotion & mystery into single sentences of superficially casual observation turns the whole book into something that's equally thought provoking and unforgettable.
Maybe McEwan is trying to emulate Fitzgerald's masterwork, maybe not, but the parallels are uncanny - not least in peoples' initial reaction to it - and, while not in the same highly rarefied class as "The Great Gatsby", my guess is that time will also show "On Chesil Beach" to be seen for what it is... which is?... a quite brilliant piece of writing.
 Squalid and pointless June 17, 2008
5 out of 18 found this review helpful
Totally unrealistic scenario, not even well written. Squalid detail and laugh out loud unbelievability.
What is the point of this book Mr McEwan? How has this added anything to the world? Is this seriously supposed to be a comment on the past? What makes you think such an event ever took place? Oh- its only fiction. Well then, write about something less depressing and inconsequential then!!!
At least it is short so you won't waste too much of your life reading it if you must.
 Unconvincing June 15, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
I thought this book was overblown. I didn't believe in the characters as depicted and I didn't actually think the story was that interesting. Well written, a good read, but merely rated okay for me.
A short novel, that could have been much much shorter... June 14, 2008
3 out of 10 found this review helpful
What a load of codswollop. The apparent 'ring of truth' that runs throughout this book is, when you look closer, really just caricature. She knows Elizabeth David, so she serves mangetouts and taramasalata. In 1962. Yeah. He punches the lights out of a rocker, and his clever undergraduate pal despises him because 'street fighting did not go with poetry and irony, bebop and history'. Right.
It's a badly researched, ill-thought-out and poorly conceived short story that's been made to stretch to 166 pages, and despite all of McEwan's much-vaunted attention to detail and 'fierce pursuit of the truth' (Sunday Express), it's all smoke and mirrors. Most of all - and most unforgivably - we know nothing at all about the protagonists themselves. I thought the first rule of fiction was, 'Show, don't tell'; but we are 'told' Edward and Florence from the first page to the last, and what we end up with is stock characters and unlikely predictability.
Buy something interesting instead, like Cormac McCarthy or Annie Proulx. They don't pretend to be 'literary', but they sure as hell reach towards some kind of truth.
Boring June 9, 2008
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
McEwan appears to like to write depressing stories with an overwhelming amount of boring details. Very difficult to plod through. This book takes the cake. Who wants to read pages and pages of excruciating details of a couples intimate sex life on their wedding night. I've forced myself to read half the book, but I don't know if I can talk myself into finishing it. In the beginning I tried twice to start reading it and couldn't get interested. Then someone in our book club recommended it, so I'm trying to make myself read it. Don't think I'll succeed in finishing it.
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