On Chesil Beach
Cover of UK hardback
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| Author | Ian McEwan |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape |
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Publication date
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2007 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 166 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 76797966 |
| 823.914 | |
On Chesil Beach is a 2007 novel/novella by the Booker Prize-winning British writer Ian McEwan. The novel was selected for the 2007 Booker Prize shortlist.
The Washington Post and Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic Jonathan Yardley placed On Chesil Beach on his top ten for 2007, praising McEwan's writing and saying that "even when he's in a minor mode, as he is here, he is nothing short of amazing".
In July 1962, Edward Mayhew and Florence Ponting have just been married and are spending their honeymoon in a small hotel on the Dorset seashore, at Chesil Beach. The couple is very much in love despite being from drastically different backgrounds.
During the course of an evening, both reflect upon their upbringing and the prospect of their futures. Edward is sexually motivated and though intelligent has a taste for rash behaviour, while Florence, bound by the social code of another era and perhaps having been sexually abused by her father, is terrified of sexual intimacy. Eventually this leads to an experience that will change their relationship irrevocably.
In a BBC Radio 4 interview, McEwan admitted to taking a few pebbles from Chesil Beach and keeping them on his desk while he wrote the novel. Protests by conservationists and a threat by Weymouth and Portland borough council to fine him £2,000 led the author to return the pebbles. "I was not aware of having committed a crime," he said. "Chesil Beach is beautiful and I'm delighted to return the shingle to it."
After it was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2007, the book also generated some controversy for its length. At 166 pages and fewer than 40,000 words, even the author declared it to be a novella. The book was allowed onto the shortlist of novels by the panel, however. It did not win the prize, which went to The Gathering.
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