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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:
 McEwan of old April 11, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
..Wouldn't have settled to let the characters be consumed by their inner thoughts, they would've been argumentative, cold, destructive and in the end he would've let the male character kill his fiancee.
And that's what I expected. I don't want to ruin this book for anyone because besides the 2-3 stars it's recieved here it wasn't half bad, but there is a point where McEwan tells us about his male character's violent streak, and labours this point with a flashback, and I felt this a set up for a violent death: A true McEwan twist.
We had the stones on the beach mentioned, the violent streak and the sheer humiliation felt by the male character. In earlier novellas and short stories McEwan never shyed from a smack in the face, it stood out against his style which tended to build up this beautiful scene and sculpt clever characters that could be so life-like (maybe not in atonement where he'd almost made a pastiche of a pastiche).
In this you have a beautiful era set up, the characters are good but you never get a real sense of who they are as their type flits around a little.
Having said all this I love McEwans style and prose, it's intelligent but simplistic, never too poetic but just right. However he has got worse as a writer, I'm sure of it, losing something raw he had as a younger man to boldly go towards more adventurous stories. But this wasn't a bad novella, more worth a read than Atonement and probably some of his other recent books.
Disappointed after fantastic Atonement April 11, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I read this after reading Atonement which was absolutely beautifully written. I couldn't wait to go out and buy Ian McEwans latest book.
It is a good read, and I enjoyed it, but it isn't on the same par.
So a bit disappointed, but still worth reading.
 Lovely to read - this book captures a period of time April 11, 2008
This book uses beautifully descriptive words put together to make a tragically sad story. Ian McEwan seems to manage to describe a situation using less words than anyone else could manage and bring the image to your mind perfectly.
The book captures the innocence of the time and leaves the reader with the question of what could have been.
All through the book I found myself encouraging the characters to follow a course of action to make their lives so much better but which I somehow knew they would not.
 Thoughtful, quiet writing April 1, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
On of the most moving books I've read in a while. I'm a great fan of McEwan anyway, and Chesil Beach is a thoughtful, quiet, intimate book which hooked me from the start. Every page persuaded me to slow down and take my time; often I found myself looking up, and away into the distance to think about what he had just said, and then rereading the words to mingle my understanding with his insight. Extending the timeline by decades made it all the more poignant - he could have said one word .. one! but didn't, and neither did she - and the subsequent years are a desert. Beautifully written.
Potboiler literary fiction April 1, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Some parallels with Being Dead by Jim Crace. Central to this book is the detailed anatomical dissection of the failed consummation of a marriage on the night of the protagonists' wedding night. Anyone who has read McEwan will have to agree that he is "unputdownable". McEwan is a literary stylist, who writes "literary fiction" but has very successfully combined this with plots and narratives that are thoroughly engrossing and compelling. Entertaining and compelling so it gets 3 stars, but lightweight and superficial overall and can not compare very favourably with say Atonement, or Enduring Love by the same author.
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