On Chesil Beach: Ian McEwan

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Early on we’re introduced to the idea of fate; Edward recently graduated university with a degree in history, and he had a theory that great people determined their destinies. This becomes an intriguing theme as we’re shown how the two met, and, if we dig deeper (as we’re meant to, with McEwan), see the links that perhaps drew them together. Edward has a bit of a temper, much like Florence’s wealthy industrialist father; and Edward’s mother, who suffered brain damage from a life-altering accident at a train station, is also something of a musician, like Florence (a violinist who dreams of being in a professional string quartet). The libretto offered proof that bourgeois contentment hasn’t vanquished McEwan’s love of the grotesque. “For You” offers a diabolical variation on his 1998 novel “Amsterdam,” a comic parable about a vain composer’s rivalry with his best friend. Charles views his musical talent as a license for misbehavior. (As McEwan told me, his protagonist buys into the myth “that if you’re not a monster you’re no good.”) Charles is nasty to musicians and assistants, and cheats on his ill wife, Antonia. “History will forgive my ways because / My music outstared the sun,” he sings. His Polish maid, Maria, is oblivious of his cruelties, and worships him. Determined to have Charles to herself, she murders Antonia and frames him for the crime. The creepy final tableau suggests that McEwan’s fascination with life imprisonment has not faded since his Woolverstone days: as Charles is led offstage in handcuffs, Maria sings, “I’ll make your cage a happy one. / In the desert of empty time, my visits / will be your sweet oases.” As in “Don Giovanni,” a Lothario ends up in Hell. Principal photography began on 17 October 2016, on Chesil Beach, Dorset, England. Other filming locations included London, Oxford and Pinewood Studios in England. they had so many plans, giddy plans, heaped up before them in the misty future, as richly tangled as the summer flora of the Dorset coast, and as beautiful.”

Ian McEwan’s Art of Unease | The New Yorker Ian McEwan’s Art of Unease | The New Yorker

Outside, wineglasses rested on the edges of tree planters. Raine noticed a slug crawling up the side of one glass. “It’s creepy, like out of one of Ian’s early shorts,” he said. Zadie Smith walked over, in a nubbly canary-yellow dress, and said, “It must be very good wine.”

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Florence's relationship with her father was still subtle (so much so, my husband, who hasn't read the book, was oblivious to its likely significance). The author tells us “the pill was only a rumor.” They had no opportunity for intimacy while dating. While in school in London he lived in a room in the house of a strict aunt. She lived in a women’s rooming house with a dorm mother keeping watch, no men allowed. Few young people had cars. A moving and masterful work that captures the essence of McEwan….The book’s psychological astuteness and elegant prose, is a thrill to behold.” - Irish Independent Florence is a gifted and ambitious violinist, torn between the different opportunities she has; Edward has little understanding (or true appreciation) of what she does, her classical music remaining all Greek to him. It's not nostalgic, but he is trying to capture an era and he's very explicit about it, constantly reminding the reader of this different time (down to noting that: "This was not a good moment in the history of English cuisine" when discussing their meal).

Ian McEwan Website

They finally get some of the words out into the open, as they finally try discuss sex, but they're not very good at that either -- hardly surprising, given that they've never had a go at talking about it to anyone, on top of the terrible pas-de-deux they were just part of.McEwan is word-perfect at handling the awkward comedy of this relationship and, as ever, turning it into something far more disturbing. Both Edward and Florence fear that she is 'frigid', that antique word, and view that state as an affliction or curse with no remedy. McEwan's subject has often been the way in which innocence goes bad; here, the serpent in the garden is the time-honoured one - desire and its discontents.

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan | Waterstones

On Chesil Beach is a novel about many things: the British class system, changing morés, the slumber from which young people would awaken with the Beatles, the nature of love and the sexual expression of it. Yet it’s primarily a novel of masterful sentences that express (sometimes through spaces and silences) what the characters themselves are incapable of expressing. McEwan’s mother was on her second marriage. Her first, to a housepainter named Ernest Wort, produced a son, Jim, and a daughter, Margy. Wort served in the Second World War, and died from combat injuries in 1944. Three years later, Rose married David McEwan, who wanted little to do with his stepchildren. Jim was raised by Ernest Wort’s mother; Margy was enrolled at a boarding school for soldiers’ orphans. As a result, McEwan felt like an only child. Kühl und mit einer Präzision, die ans Bösartige grenzt, verfolgt McEwan in dieser genialen Tragödie der Verkennungen, wie zwei Liebende einander immer wieder verfehlen, um Millimeter nur und am Ende endgültig." - Hubert Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Finally, the time arrives to consummate the marriage. However, it is rather short-lived as Florence accidentally overstimulates Edward, causing him to ejaculate all over her body before they even have sex. This disgusts Florence on many levels, and she storms out. Edward goes after Florence to discuss what has happened and they have a heated argument. By the end of it, Florence has made it clear that she has no interest in ever having sex.What I've said changes absolutely nothing", his father insists -- but then that's part of the problem. Fémina Etranger (1993) for The Child in Time; and Germany's Shakespeare Prize in 1999. He has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction numerous times, winning the award for Amsterdam in 1998. His novel Atonement received the WH Smith Literary Award (2002), National Book Critics' Circle Fiction Award (2003), Los Angeles Times Prize for Fiction (2003), and the Santiago Prize for the European Novel (2004). Atonement was also made into an Oscar-winning film.