So, Chesil Beach ... what dyou think?

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I think it's quite good.
I think it (rather gently) breaks new ground, but at same time isn't trying to be anything more than a Novella (haven't seen that term in a while).

I also like that it seems to me a sort of oblique "answer" - or re-thinking - of The French Lieutenant's Woman. I wonder if it is, on purpose, at all? As it makes a nicely thoughtful riposte to the posturingy bits of John Fowles.

Separately: anyone seen any nice side-zipped narrow-legged linen trousers anywhere?

Ref the trousers - check out Boden - they usually have side zip linen ones.

I read an excerpt from it in the guarian a couple of weeks ago, and I really enjoyed it. I like his stuff. Is it only out in hardback still?

Oh the book, I thought you wanted to know about the beach. Dur

At one point I thought her Dad abused her - hence the frigid stuff but I decided not in the end... what did you think?

really justine??? didn't occur to me....

what I loved (and I did love it) was the way he totally captures the escalation of an argument into a life changing moment....it has changed the way I argue with dh as we both read it and agreed that the need to be right overriding everything was totally destructive...that you get to a place where you're just lashing out and feeling hurt and the stakes are raised and raised and you don't actually mean any of it.

also, she wasn't frigid (there was a point where his touching her started to turn her on...) wasn't the thing that their mutual ignorance and the hideous misinformation they both had about what sexuality was meant that they had very little hope of any kind of satisfaction....isn't this the story of an infinite number of beginnings of marriages in the past (and undoubtedly in some places in the present?).

I didn't pick up on the frigid thing either, as she began to get into it all.

I enjoyed it alot but also felt that the story could have given a little more focus to the progression of her life as well as I found her the more interesting character. It was almost as if there's a sequel out the desperate to be written.

The reasons I thought it were threefold. First father wouldn't be physically affectionate to her in public, but was to her sister. Secondly, they did all those overnight boat trips together and third the frigid thing (even if not frigid she certainly could have used a bit of therapy I thought). In the end, though, I decided (perhaps mistakenly) that she would have been more sexually awakened had she been abused, so it was a red herring.

Agree Sophable that the argument was fantastically realistic - the mad escalation every time each was wounded.

Agree too Pennies that she was more interesting and I thought more sympathetic, though dh somewhat typically preferred him and thought she was crackers.

I went there for me 'olidays! It is big and stony.

I really didn't like it although I do like some McEwan - just didn't think there was enough substance to it really.

Then again, my opinion can probably be discredited in most people's eyes in that I didn't like Atonement either.

Humm. Dunno. I found it a bit plodding. I haven't read a lot of McEwan, tho I did enjoy er, oh the one with the balloon accident at the start...(senior moment).

I kept waiting for a bit more to happen, enjoyed the end though - it all became clear to me then that really he had been unreasonable and if he had had some patience........

Think I'm with you niceglasses although i do agree that it was probably quite realistic in the interaction and arguing between the characters.

I could see it being adapted for the stage quite well maybe.

agree with justine, i'd thought there had been abuse too. thought the ending was a bit unnecessary (all the detail about his rather sad solitary life) as would have preferred to imagine it iykwim

powerful writing though

it's a tragedy innit? i mean, the story is a real tragedy. they should have been together, could have been together and with a bit more patience and a little less fear and ignorance WOULD have been together.

shoulda woulda coulda sophable - agree, if only...

shouldnt have read this thread because in the middle of reading it - she has just gone off to the beach. but i agree that the abuse thing occurred to me. the writing is amazing, so clear and concise yet completely addictive. kept me awake last night much longer than most books. am wondering whether to go and see atonement as i loved the book and don't want to spoil it. love all his books actually

ooh, thinking of buying it. Didn't like Saturday too much, but giving him a cgance to redeem himself with Atonement. Going well so far.

Apparently there's a lot of people who think Amsterdam was not worthy of the Booker?

I enjoyed it until the end - I didn't really like the synopsis of his life, nor the summing up at the end (the last paragraph or so).

I thought that abuse was hinted at on the boat trips, too, and there is a reference at one point to smells on the trip which I thought might have been to do with abuse. However, it was only a hint, and I re-read it several times without being able to decide.

Started all right, then I got the impression he couldn't be arsed to write it properly.

Turned into a synopsis or film treatment.

I finished this yesterday. I felt so sad for them both, it was really quite bleak. I thought abuse by the father was going to be involved as well, though maybe that would have been too predictable.

Having been brought up at a pebbly seaside place, I was somewhat concerned they were going to do the deed on the shingle!

I liked it
I know my mum and dad read it as it was set in the same year as they were married and I strongly suspect they were both virgins too.

Haven't liked to ask them what they think of it though, TMI and all that

I love Ian mcEwan, did I mention that?

Ooh, resurrected thread.
I was hugely disappointed by it, having enjoyed a lot of his earlier novels. I came away with a big "so what?" feeling. I felt it laboured the point and constantly told us what to think about the characters.

My mother was reading it when I spent a week with them on holiday. She kept saying to my father, that's us, which I could see made him very uncomfortable! Then he read it, and I skimmed it too. I thought that some bits were great, the descriptions of the kiss in particular, and the argument captures that totally pointless scoring where you know you are being completely destructive, but you do it anyway.

But I thought was quite ambiguous as to whether she was just frightened of sexual intimacy, didn't actually fancy her husband, or the possibility of previous abuse.

I also thought it was very unfair on the male character, with the implication that it was all his fault (if only he'd said no sex is just fine dear) and the complete breakdown of the marriage after the one argument, however unpleasant, made me think that the relationship can't have had any depth at all, in which case what's the tragedy?

Nooka, at your mother, lol!! And Suzy, surely your parents are still virgins. I mean, one's parents never have sex, ever, ever, ever.

I didn't think the man was blamed particularly. The implication was that if he'd gone back to the hotel earlier the situation could have been retrieved, but I think that was unlikely. I felt Florence hadn't been truthful to herself or Edward, thus the marriage foundered before it began.

I didn't like it at all. But I generally don't like McEwan. My Mum loves his books and keeps giving them to me. She thinks he understands women very well, that he writes as though he were a woman.

I find all his books quite stilted. I like to feel that characters are real and have a life of their own and the author is simply writing their experiences. With McEwan though I can always sort of hear his voice controlling the characters, they are more puppets being used to make a point than real people with depth. I really found it quite dull, as though I was reading a story outline rather than a finished novella.

I found it startlingly close to home, since it was partly set in Oxfordshire in the 60s, the heroine even went to my school, and lots of other detail was also familiar. Apart from that, it didn't make much of an impact.