Tuesday, January 27, 2009
David |Mitchell ~ His next novel....
Quite a few people at the Book club have asked me if I knew what David Mitchell was writing currently............
I picked this up from Wiki..........
Mitchell's next book, currently known as "NAGASAKI" [3], will be an historical novel about Dejima, the man-made island in the middle of Nagasaki Harbour that was built to house Dutch traders in the 17th century. Having just finished five months of research in the Netherlands, Mitchell says that the biggest challenge will be what to omit from this complex story. "For over two centuries", he said, "the Dutch were the only white people allowed to see inside Japan". No one was allowed on or off the island except for tradesmen, translators and prostitutes. "Except", he said, "every four years when the head of the trading post made the trek to Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to pay his respects to the Shogun." Mitchell plans to contrast Shogunate Japan with the Napoleonic era in Europe, he said. Of particular interest is the fact that while the Netherlands ceased to exist for a while after Napoleon annexed it, the Dutch flag still flew in Dejima.
[edit] Novels
Ghostwritten, 1999
number9dream, 2001
Cloud Atlas, 2004
Black Swan Green, 2006
Untitled De-jima Novel, 2009
[edit] Further reading
Mitchell, D. (2003). "January Man", Best of Young British Novelists 2003, Granta. Retrieved on 24 September 2007.
Linklater, A. (2007-09-22). "The author who was forced to learn wordplay", Life & Style, The Guardian. Retrieved on 23 September 2007.
[edit] References
^ Bold Type: Essay by David Mitchell
^ David Mitchell - The TIME 100 - TIME
^ http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20070624a1.html
I picked this up from Wiki..........
Mitchell's next book, currently known as "NAGASAKI" [3], will be an historical novel about Dejima, the man-made island in the middle of Nagasaki Harbour that was built to house Dutch traders in the 17th century. Having just finished five months of research in the Netherlands, Mitchell says that the biggest challenge will be what to omit from this complex story. "For over two centuries", he said, "the Dutch were the only white people allowed to see inside Japan". No one was allowed on or off the island except for tradesmen, translators and prostitutes. "Except", he said, "every four years when the head of the trading post made the trek to Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to pay his respects to the Shogun." Mitchell plans to contrast Shogunate Japan with the Napoleonic era in Europe, he said. Of particular interest is the fact that while the Netherlands ceased to exist for a while after Napoleon annexed it, the Dutch flag still flew in Dejima.
[edit] Novels
Ghostwritten, 1999
number9dream, 2001
Cloud Atlas, 2004
Black Swan Green, 2006
Untitled De-jima Novel, 2009
[edit] Further reading
Mitchell, D. (2003). "January Man", Best of Young British Novelists 2003, Granta. Retrieved on 24 September 2007.
Linklater, A. (2007-09-22). "The author who was forced to learn wordplay", Life & Style, The Guardian. Retrieved on 23 September 2007.
[edit] References
^ Bold Type: Essay by David Mitchell
^ David Mitchell - The TIME 100 - TIME
^ http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20070624a1.html
Message from Pat.......
There is a slight change in the order of books for reading because of people being away when their book was going to be discussed.
So now we shall be discussing:
On Chesil Beech by Ian McEwan at our 20th February meeting.........
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Gutterson at the 20th March meeting............
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Alborn will be discussed on the 17th April ...........
Mutant Messages Down Under by Marlo Morgan to be discussed on 15th May.
Best wishes, Pat
So now we shall be discussing:
On Chesil Beech by Ian McEwan at our 20th February meeting.........
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Gutterson at the 20th March meeting............
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Alborn will be discussed on the 17th April ...........
Mutant Messages Down Under by Marlo Morgan to be discussed on 15th May.
Best wishes, Pat
Friday, January 16, 2009
Some critical Reviews of "On Chesil Beach"....
A Talented Wordcrafter Describes an Improbable Honeymoon, July 6, 2007
By
Donald Mitchell "a Practical Optimist" (Boston) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) If you are easily seduced by beautiful sentences, you'll feel On Chesil Beach is a five-star book. If you love exploring inner dialogue, you'll be even more pleased with this book. If, however, you like your stories to be compelling because of their relevance and interest to your own life, you'll wonder why in the world Mr. McEwan chose to write about this particular problem of poor communications in the context of 1962. As you delve deeper into the book, you'll be even more puzzled by the book's pivotal event and the characters' reactions to it. The short book (neither novella nor full novel) is organized in five parts that seem much like the acts in a Greek tragedy. The opening scene shows a couple dining in their room at an inn. "They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible." The second act describes how they met. The third act takes place in their bedroom in the inn. The fourth act describes their courtship. The fifth act takes place on the beach and in their lives afterward as they attempt and fail to communicate. Mr. McEwan does a good job of capturing your attention through exploring the couple's growing tension as they move toward the consummation of their marriage. But past that point, the story seemed like a punctured balloon to me: My interest was gone. I suspect that reaction is because I didn't feel close to either character; they are more there to entertain me than to lead me into experiencing the story like the characters do. Clearly, the story would have worked much better for me if focused around a more universal trial in marriage, such as handling both sets of parents during the birth of a first child. I also thought that Mr. McEwen played the role of the Greek chorus too often . . . telling us what was going on rather than letting us see and hear the action. The fourth part seems clearly out of place; it should have preceded the third part. Unless you are drawn to beautiful sentences and images, I suggest you skip this book . . . it's a misdirected storytelling foray by a talented writer that is eminently avoidable.
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What might have been, July 4, 2007
By
Ann Nigel James (Menemsha, Martha's Vineyard, MA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) As an Ian McEwan virgin, I was eagerly anticipating my tryst with this book--but it turned out to be as disappointing and unsatisfying as Edward's and Florence's wedding night (well, maybe not quite). McEwan does not merely ignore, but actually reverses, the wise "show, don't tell" advice about fiction writing. In his expository chapters about Edward's and Florence's backgrounds and courtship, he doesn't let us see much of them interacting and conversing with each other and their families; instead of fleshing them out in these sections, he gives us their inner thoughts, a panoply of geographical place names that won't mean much to readers outside the U.K. and a list of gourmet vegetables that Edward tastes for the first time at his future in-laws' dinner table: courgettes, aubergines and mangetouts. Conversely, in the play-by-play account of the wedding-night bedroom activities, McEwan "shows" each frame of the encounter with exhaustive, sometimes clinical detail. In this area, less is often more, and although it requires greater effort to write about physical intimacy with subtlety and allusion, it can still evoke the same intense reaction in the reader--without getting the sheets so messy. Do we really need words like "perineum" and the focus on the lone pubic hair that has escaped from Florence's knickers? Since I've already given away my copy of "On Chesil Beach," I can't use exact quotes here, but suffice it to say that the description of Edward's sticky, gummy ejaculate adhering to Florence's knees and chin is over the top--almost as if the author is trying to turn off the reader as well as Florence. The story could have ended effectively and poignantly after the couple's hopeless, near-tragic postcoital verbal battle on the beach, perhaps with a few closing thoughts from the author on the sadness and might-have-been-ness of it all. But instead, there is an anticlimactic final chapter consisting of what sound like afterthoughts, hurriedly recounting Edward's meanderings over the next 40 years. Somewhat mystifyingly, McEwan does not mention Florence's personal life after the traumatic wedding night, although he has paid equal attention to both characters until this last chapter. He does, however, offer an oblique but important clue. In a recent review of "On Chesil Beach," Christopher Hitchens concludes dismissively--and erroneously--that "Florence, a classically trained violinist, devotes the remainder of her life to a rather spinsterish role in a string quartet." Not at all. In an admiring newspaper review of a triumphant performance by that string quartet at Wigmore Hall in Oxford, the fictional reviewer singles out the exceptional playing of the first violinist, who is Florence. "She is obviously in love," writes this critic (to the best of my recollection), "not only with the music and with Mozart, but with life itself." Surely McEwan is implying that Florence, unlike Edward, has ultimately found fulfillment and happiness.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Could something please happen..., July 27, 2007
By
J. Mills "adventure seeker" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) Although I felt that this book was well-written, my attention span was challenged. The book was long on detail and short on action. Simply, it was antclimactic...
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Not My Cuppa, July 13, 2007
By
David Schweizer "Almawood" (Kansas, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) The author is dead on in his description of sexual frustration, I'll hand him that. One does indeed feel as though one knew these people, because what he is describing in the end is the fear of sexual contact. These days such experiences are rare, because by the time they are married, most people have been around the block. But fifty years ago in the world McEwan describes, sex came for the first time on honeymoon night. If the couple can be described as naive, it is only in this one area; otherwise they are sophisticated, if not jaded. The bride is having a hard time accepting French kissing, and fears she may vomit if he probes too deeply. He is afraid he may experience ecstasy before she's ready. This is described in excruciating detail. In fact, the details pile up until one is taking the bride's side: This sex business is an ordeal. The couple is a nervous wreck. The reader finds oneself wondering how the modern age ever was born with this sort of Victorian repression pressing so heavily. This all sounds very 19th century but the author is right to locate this so very late in the 20th century. We may never be free of it. These deeply disturbed individuals need help - not just sexual counseling but probing psychoanalysis and possibly shock treatment. In this sense the book is a revelation - what in God's name was done to these decent people in their childhood to make them so sick? We believe them to be permanently scarred. McEwan no doubt accomplishes what he set out to achieve, but I wonder if it was worth the trouble.
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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Love means never having to say..., August 9, 2007
By
JoAnne Goldberg (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) I'm sorry, but what else can you say about a 22-year-old wife who ran away? And who took almost 200 pages to do so, leaving her drooling groom and an untold number of readers on a beach filled with literary quicksand, struggling to find a likeable character or a redeeming bit of plot? As I finished this book, I found myself humming "Where do I begin?" (the theme song from the movie version of Love Story). The similarities between that book and Chesil include length (both books barely squeak past 200 pages) and an ill-fated romance marked by different socioeconomic backgrounds and music. But Edward and Florence are no Oliver and Jenny, and anyone who sheds tears at the end of Chesil is probably mourning the loss of $22 (even the $13.20 amazon price seems steep.) I admire spare, chiseled prose, but McEwan's stiff, unyielding dialog feels wooden rather than trenchant. The book reads like a period piece, a stylized sitting room drama from the turn of the last century. Was Florence molested by her repulsive father? Possibly. But McEwan does his best to depict Edward as a pretty unappetizing boyfriend/husband. Was Edward's inability to sense his bride's emotional state a result of his growing up with a brain-damaged mother in a pigsty of a house? Does it matter? (I have to admit that the description of the mess was probably my favorite part of this otherwise unappealing book.) Though the story describes their courtship, the relationship has so little sizzle that it's hard to understand how the two of them managed to work up the energy to go through with a wedding. After dragging us through the beach spat (their first and only fight? and even that lacked spirit), McEwan decides to take the easy way out. So much for enduring love. While I can accept the premise for most of the book--the stilted, boring couple, the unpleasant parents, the wedding night jitters--a lifelong estrangement defies all experience and common sense. My impression was that McEwan was as tired of these colorless whiners as I was. Finally, the big question: how did this book ever get published? That's a rhetorical question, of course. If anyone else had written this book and managed to get it into the hands of a publisher, he would have been told "nice treatment--shows a lot of promise--bring it back when you're finished." But when you're Ian "Booker Prize" McEwan, editors may be a little too kind. As Ian himself might say, the result can be downright nauseous.
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9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
The ickiness of intimacy, July 27, 2007
By
Julee Rudolf "book snob" (Oak Harbor, WA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) As the novella (miniscule font in a small dimensioned book) begins, Florence and Edward are "young [22 years old], educated, and both virgins," newlyweds on their wedding night contemplating the evening's objective: consummation. But considering his prenuptial preparation and nature--prone to making spontaneous relationship decisions in the throes of passion, hers--uptight in the ways of intimacy, what transpires is no surprise. The couple's progress is interrupted at opportune moments for flashbacks into their pasts: a bit on their upbringings, family members, meeting, and courtship. Alternate chapters cover the wedding night. Its final dozen pages fast-forward four decades beyond the honeymoon. On the night in question, she naively suffers from a failure to understand; he just plain misunderstands. Readers, sexually squeamish or not, may also suffer when reading the minutiae of their intimacy, which is, at times, just plain too much information. Better: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.
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'
9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
Clearly in the minority, June 18, 2007
By
Alexander G. Hoffman (Toronto) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) I fully realize that as I am writing this, I am outnumbered 18-1 in the reviews of this book. Frankly, I absolutly loathed it. Florence and Edward don't, for a second, feel like actual human beings. I never saw any indication of why these two were "in love" or why they would ever have gotten to the point of being married. Edward is married to a woman who pretty much recoils at intimacy and who has made it clear she doesn't want his tongue in her mouth and yet while kissing her, seems to believe she is going to...well...take him in her mouth? Florence suggests, on her wedding night, that she and Edward would be fine as long as he goes out and makes love to other women? Any of this is realistic? The ending just caps it off. It sounds like a guy with a failed life, "talking an ex pretty" believing that it would have worked only "if". I never got the characters, never cared about them, certainly didn't see any reason they were together and just didn't enjoy it.
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Not to be compared to Atonement, March 31, 2008
By
anonymous "mrw" (CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) This is a very short, very pointless novella in my opinion. It is in no way comparable to Atonement. The prose is in McEwan's usual excellent style, but I was left with the feeling, "Is that all?"
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Bittersweet tale, ultimately trite, December 18, 2008
By
Cecil Bothwell "Author of Pure Bunkum" (Asheville, NC USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach (Paperback) Ian McEwan set himself the writerly task of composing a novel whose entire action takes place in just a few hours and succeeded. However, along the way he failed to help the reader much care about the young couple whose lives turn on a dime on their honeymoon night. The characters are so two-dimensional that their cataclysm fails the believability test. No one THAT much in love could behave THAT stupidly. McEwan is handy with a phrase, however vacuous the result. If you are fond of TV drama, this may just be your ticket, but life is short and there are more good books to read than you will ever have time to open.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Not as good as his previous works, July 14, 2008
By
Barbara Johnson "Avid Reader" (Baker City, OR USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach (Paperback) I have enjoyed this author for years, but Chesil Beach didn't live up to his previous works.
By
Donald Mitchell "a Practical Optimist" (Boston) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) If you are easily seduced by beautiful sentences, you'll feel On Chesil Beach is a five-star book. If you love exploring inner dialogue, you'll be even more pleased with this book. If, however, you like your stories to be compelling because of their relevance and interest to your own life, you'll wonder why in the world Mr. McEwan chose to write about this particular problem of poor communications in the context of 1962. As you delve deeper into the book, you'll be even more puzzled by the book's pivotal event and the characters' reactions to it. The short book (neither novella nor full novel) is organized in five parts that seem much like the acts in a Greek tragedy. The opening scene shows a couple dining in their room at an inn. "They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible." The second act describes how they met. The third act takes place in their bedroom in the inn. The fourth act describes their courtship. The fifth act takes place on the beach and in their lives afterward as they attempt and fail to communicate. Mr. McEwan does a good job of capturing your attention through exploring the couple's growing tension as they move toward the consummation of their marriage. But past that point, the story seemed like a punctured balloon to me: My interest was gone. I suspect that reaction is because I didn't feel close to either character; they are more there to entertain me than to lead me into experiencing the story like the characters do. Clearly, the story would have worked much better for me if focused around a more universal trial in marriage, such as handling both sets of parents during the birth of a first child. I also thought that Mr. McEwen played the role of the Greek chorus too often . . . telling us what was going on rather than letting us see and hear the action. The fourth part seems clearly out of place; it should have preceded the third part. Unless you are drawn to beautiful sentences and images, I suggest you skip this book . . . it's a misdirected storytelling foray by a talented writer that is eminently avoidable.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
What might have been, July 4, 2007
By
Ann Nigel James (Menemsha, Martha's Vineyard, MA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) As an Ian McEwan virgin, I was eagerly anticipating my tryst with this book--but it turned out to be as disappointing and unsatisfying as Edward's and Florence's wedding night (well, maybe not quite). McEwan does not merely ignore, but actually reverses, the wise "show, don't tell" advice about fiction writing. In his expository chapters about Edward's and Florence's backgrounds and courtship, he doesn't let us see much of them interacting and conversing with each other and their families; instead of fleshing them out in these sections, he gives us their inner thoughts, a panoply of geographical place names that won't mean much to readers outside the U.K. and a list of gourmet vegetables that Edward tastes for the first time at his future in-laws' dinner table: courgettes, aubergines and mangetouts. Conversely, in the play-by-play account of the wedding-night bedroom activities, McEwan "shows" each frame of the encounter with exhaustive, sometimes clinical detail. In this area, less is often more, and although it requires greater effort to write about physical intimacy with subtlety and allusion, it can still evoke the same intense reaction in the reader--without getting the sheets so messy. Do we really need words like "perineum" and the focus on the lone pubic hair that has escaped from Florence's knickers? Since I've already given away my copy of "On Chesil Beach," I can't use exact quotes here, but suffice it to say that the description of Edward's sticky, gummy ejaculate adhering to Florence's knees and chin is over the top--almost as if the author is trying to turn off the reader as well as Florence. The story could have ended effectively and poignantly after the couple's hopeless, near-tragic postcoital verbal battle on the beach, perhaps with a few closing thoughts from the author on the sadness and might-have-been-ness of it all. But instead, there is an anticlimactic final chapter consisting of what sound like afterthoughts, hurriedly recounting Edward's meanderings over the next 40 years. Somewhat mystifyingly, McEwan does not mention Florence's personal life after the traumatic wedding night, although he has paid equal attention to both characters until this last chapter. He does, however, offer an oblique but important clue. In a recent review of "On Chesil Beach," Christopher Hitchens concludes dismissively--and erroneously--that "Florence, a classically trained violinist, devotes the remainder of her life to a rather spinsterish role in a string quartet." Not at all. In an admiring newspaper review of a triumphant performance by that string quartet at Wigmore Hall in Oxford, the fictional reviewer singles out the exceptional playing of the first violinist, who is Florence. "She is obviously in love," writes this critic (to the best of my recollection), "not only with the music and with Mozart, but with life itself." Surely McEwan is implying that Florence, unlike Edward, has ultimately found fulfillment and happiness.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Could something please happen..., July 27, 2007
By
J. Mills "adventure seeker" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) Although I felt that this book was well-written, my attention span was challenged. The book was long on detail and short on action. Simply, it was antclimactic...
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Not My Cuppa, July 13, 2007
By
David Schweizer "Almawood" (Kansas, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) The author is dead on in his description of sexual frustration, I'll hand him that. One does indeed feel as though one knew these people, because what he is describing in the end is the fear of sexual contact. These days such experiences are rare, because by the time they are married, most people have been around the block. But fifty years ago in the world McEwan describes, sex came for the first time on honeymoon night. If the couple can be described as naive, it is only in this one area; otherwise they are sophisticated, if not jaded. The bride is having a hard time accepting French kissing, and fears she may vomit if he probes too deeply. He is afraid he may experience ecstasy before she's ready. This is described in excruciating detail. In fact, the details pile up until one is taking the bride's side: This sex business is an ordeal. The couple is a nervous wreck. The reader finds oneself wondering how the modern age ever was born with this sort of Victorian repression pressing so heavily. This all sounds very 19th century but the author is right to locate this so very late in the 20th century. We may never be free of it. These deeply disturbed individuals need help - not just sexual counseling but probing psychoanalysis and possibly shock treatment. In this sense the book is a revelation - what in God's name was done to these decent people in their childhood to make them so sick? We believe them to be permanently scarred. McEwan no doubt accomplishes what he set out to achieve, but I wonder if it was worth the trouble.
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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Love means never having to say..., August 9, 2007
By
JoAnne Goldberg (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) I'm sorry, but what else can you say about a 22-year-old wife who ran away? And who took almost 200 pages to do so, leaving her drooling groom and an untold number of readers on a beach filled with literary quicksand, struggling to find a likeable character or a redeeming bit of plot? As I finished this book, I found myself humming "Where do I begin?" (the theme song from the movie version of Love Story). The similarities between that book and Chesil include length (both books barely squeak past 200 pages) and an ill-fated romance marked by different socioeconomic backgrounds and music. But Edward and Florence are no Oliver and Jenny, and anyone who sheds tears at the end of Chesil is probably mourning the loss of $22 (even the $13.20 amazon price seems steep.) I admire spare, chiseled prose, but McEwan's stiff, unyielding dialog feels wooden rather than trenchant. The book reads like a period piece, a stylized sitting room drama from the turn of the last century. Was Florence molested by her repulsive father? Possibly. But McEwan does his best to depict Edward as a pretty unappetizing boyfriend/husband. Was Edward's inability to sense his bride's emotional state a result of his growing up with a brain-damaged mother in a pigsty of a house? Does it matter? (I have to admit that the description of the mess was probably my favorite part of this otherwise unappealing book.) Though the story describes their courtship, the relationship has so little sizzle that it's hard to understand how the two of them managed to work up the energy to go through with a wedding. After dragging us through the beach spat (their first and only fight? and even that lacked spirit), McEwan decides to take the easy way out. So much for enduring love. While I can accept the premise for most of the book--the stilted, boring couple, the unpleasant parents, the wedding night jitters--a lifelong estrangement defies all experience and common sense. My impression was that McEwan was as tired of these colorless whiners as I was. Finally, the big question: how did this book ever get published? That's a rhetorical question, of course. If anyone else had written this book and managed to get it into the hands of a publisher, he would have been told "nice treatment--shows a lot of promise--bring it back when you're finished." But when you're Ian "Booker Prize" McEwan, editors may be a little too kind. As Ian himself might say, the result can be downright nauseous.
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'
9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
The ickiness of intimacy, July 27, 2007
By
Julee Rudolf "book snob" (Oak Harbor, WA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) As the novella (miniscule font in a small dimensioned book) begins, Florence and Edward are "young [22 years old], educated, and both virgins," newlyweds on their wedding night contemplating the evening's objective: consummation. But considering his prenuptial preparation and nature--prone to making spontaneous relationship decisions in the throes of passion, hers--uptight in the ways of intimacy, what transpires is no surprise. The couple's progress is interrupted at opportune moments for flashbacks into their pasts: a bit on their upbringings, family members, meeting, and courtship. Alternate chapters cover the wedding night. Its final dozen pages fast-forward four decades beyond the honeymoon. On the night in question, she naively suffers from a failure to understand; he just plain misunderstands. Readers, sexually squeamish or not, may also suffer when reading the minutiae of their intimacy, which is, at times, just plain too much information. Better: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
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'
9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
Clearly in the minority, June 18, 2007
By
Alexander G. Hoffman (Toronto) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) I fully realize that as I am writing this, I am outnumbered 18-1 in the reviews of this book. Frankly, I absolutly loathed it. Florence and Edward don't, for a second, feel like actual human beings. I never saw any indication of why these two were "in love" or why they would ever have gotten to the point of being married. Edward is married to a woman who pretty much recoils at intimacy and who has made it clear she doesn't want his tongue in her mouth and yet while kissing her, seems to believe she is going to...well...take him in her mouth? Florence suggests, on her wedding night, that she and Edward would be fine as long as he goes out and makes love to other women? Any of this is realistic? The ending just caps it off. It sounds like a guy with a failed life, "talking an ex pretty" believing that it would have worked only "if". I never got the characters, never cared about them, certainly didn't see any reason they were together and just didn't enjoy it.
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Not to be compared to Atonement, March 31, 2008
By
anonymous "mrw" (CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach: A Novel (Hardcover) This is a very short, very pointless novella in my opinion. It is in no way comparable to Atonement. The prose is in McEwan's usual excellent style, but I was left with the feeling, "Is that all?"
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Bittersweet tale, ultimately trite, December 18, 2008
By
Cecil Bothwell "Author of Pure Bunkum" (Asheville, NC USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach (Paperback) Ian McEwan set himself the writerly task of composing a novel whose entire action takes place in just a few hours and succeeded. However, along the way he failed to help the reader much care about the young couple whose lives turn on a dime on their honeymoon night. The characters are so two-dimensional that their cataclysm fails the believability test. No one THAT much in love could behave THAT stupidly. McEwan is handy with a phrase, however vacuous the result. If you are fond of TV drama, this may just be your ticket, but life is short and there are more good books to read than you will ever have time to open.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Not as good as his previous works, July 14, 2008
By
Barbara Johnson "Avid Reader" (Baker City, OR USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On Chesil Beach (Paperback) I have enjoyed this author for years, but Chesil Beach didn't live up to his previous works.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Cloud Atlas
Just started reading "Cloud Atlas" again and find it a fascinating read. Just the thing for a sunny 1st January 2009 in the Limousin.
Start the year as I mean to go on!
Helps with th fuzzzzzzy head from last night. Too much champagne and excellent food.
Start the year as I mean to go on!
Helps with th fuzzzzzzy head from last night. Too much champagne and excellent food.
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