On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan – a review

The first of Ian McEwan’s bits of writing that I’ve been able to finish despite numerous attempts (and subsequent failings) in the past few years. A short and affecting novella that I read in a single sitting during dinner time while my partner was out of the house. Perfect conditions really, as McEwan explores the nastiness that can lurk in romantic relationships.

I found it a painful exploration of intimate love – and the difficult truth that we perhaps only end up loving our self-created constructs of our partners, and send out our own crafted selves to be loved in turn. But then as you wear the mask, the face does grow to fit it… It can be very difficult to establish true understanding of another, particularly when one is young and dumb and not particularly knowledgeable about your own self let alone that stranger over there (intoxicating as they may be).

I was drawn (as I tend to be) to the depiction of the powerfully damaging effect of early abuse on the ability of the person to form bonds later in life. To be betrayed by a trusted person is the worst sort of thing. But in a way, I felt it was a bit too easy to ascribe the would-be-wife’s ‘frigidity’ to sexual abuse – is it then only the woman who has been abused who might have such a strong aversion to physical intimacy with their beloved? ‘Too easy’ here meaning I feel the abuse (only ever obliquely hinted at in the novella) too neatly explains her human behaviour. How novelistic! Yet one plus one is two, isn’t it always?

The final few pages – the flashing of our man’s life before his eyes, the years unfolding rapidly within the space of a paragraph, articulating his descent into mediocrity (of a sort – not necessarily a life not worth living) and his old beau’s rise to acclaim. Reminded me of the final scene of ‘La La Land,’ the musical movie! Bittersweet and beautiful. Though I’m not sure it’s quite convinced me to read more McEwan.