On Chesil Beach.. My Thoughts..

On Chesil Beach is a great way to prove how lack of communication in general and pride will screw anything up. There were moments that left me so frustrated while reading. Why  do people have to be so proud? Is it necessary with someone you absolutely love? If it means losing them forever and potentially ending up with no one, I think not. That's exactly how Edward Mayhew felt when he was older and certainly much wiser, realizing his true love was the one woman he let walk away. Missed the train on that one buddy!

Of course I initially felt his pain when his WIFE ran out of the hotel room after he got too excited before actually consummating their marriage..... (talk about keeping your disappointment on the dl). But he knew she was inexperienced and prude, couldn't he find it in him to forgive her? Clearly not when his manhood was threatened. When will you boys realize it's just a body part, it's not what makes you who you are! Fine, I skipped the part where she mentioned she'd rather he cheat on her than have sex with him. But seriously, are you doubting your seducing abilities? She is human after all.

I'm sure McEwan had a lot of points to make through his story, but the underlying message I was left with is that a couple should explore their relationship sexually before tying the knot... just to avoid any nasty surprises on the wedding night. 

"This is how the entire course of life can be changed – by doing nothing. On Chesil beach he could have called out to Florence, he could have gone after her. He did not know, or would not have cared to know, that as she ran away from him, certain in her distress that she was about to lose him, she had never loved him more, or more hopelessly, and that the sound of his voice would have been a deliverance, and she would have turned back. Instead, he stood in cold and righteous silence in the summer’s dusk, watching her hurry along the shore, the sound of her difficult progress lost to the breaking of small waves, until she was blurred, receding against the immense straight road of shingle gleaming in the pallid light." 

Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach