Spinster

I have loved Ian McEwan since I read Atonement, during the summer of 2003, when I was horrendously depressed and felt like nothing would ever be right again. I was spending a few weeks at our house in Georgia, and during the summer, there are two things we do: hike and read. I must have read 50 books in just a couple of weeks. Atonement was one of them, and Headlong, by Michael Frayn, was another. Those are the only two books I remember from that summer.

I loved Atonement because it was well-written and because it was a good story, because things unfolded slowly and then quickly and then slowly again, and you’re lulled into believing that everything is alright, until you’re not any more. Since, I think I’ve read every single thing McEwan has written, but I haven’t loved any of them the way I’ve loved Atonement. On Chesil Beach was no exception. I liked it; I like all of his books because he’s a good writer. Never a fan of the Nicholas Sparks “everything will turn out alright” genre, I love (love) the way McEwan infuses everything with that twisting, slowly turning sense of the macabre: most of the time, you don’t even realize that everything is wrong, that somewhere you detoured, until you just do. Nothing is sacred, particularly not marriage; not even parental or sibling relationships are free of that distortion. The Cement Garden is, in my mind, the most disturbing of his books, the most truly sick. But at the same time, it’s captivating and beautiful and impossible to put down.

Anyway. On Chesil Beach. It’s the story (short, too) of a young couple on their wedding night. It’s 1962, it’s England, and they’ve never slept together. The young man of the couple has been waiting desperately for the moment he can finally know his wife. The young woman, however, has an innate disgust for all things sexual and is absolutely horrified at the thought of consummating her marriage. I can’t even imagine getting married without sleeping with that person first, and I think that one of the most striking things about this book — indeed, about most of McEwan’s novels — is that it takes place in a time at once so close to and so far removed from our own. I don’t know. As I’ve already said, I liked this book but I didn’t love it. I wish it had been longer; I wish it had explored the couple’s relationship in a more conclusive way (I don’t want to say too much!).