It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams
of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she
will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at
University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won
her heart. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward
and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At
dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their
worries about the wedding night to come. Edward, eager for
rapture, frets over Florence’s response to his advances and
nurses a private fear of failure, while Florence’s anxieties
run deeper: she is overcome by sheer disgust at the idea of
physical contact, but dreads disappointing her husband when
they finally lie down together in the honeymoon suite.
Ian McEwan has caught with understanding and compassion the
innocence of Edward and Florence at a time when marriage was
presumed to be the outward sign of maturity and
independence. On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from
McEwan—a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or
a word not spoken.
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy