Not quite novel or novella, McEwan's masterful 13th work of fiction most resembles a five-part classical drama rendered in prose. It opens on the anxious Dorset Coast wedding suite dinner of Edward Mayhew and the former Florence Ponting, married in the summer of 1963 at 23 and 22 respectively; the looming dramatic crisis is the marriage's impending consummation, or lack of it. Edward is a rough-hewn but sweet student of history, son of an Oxfordshire primary school headmaster and a mother who was brain damaged in an accident when Edward was five. Florence, daughter of a businessman and (a rarity then) a female Oxford philosophy professor, is intense but warm and has founded a string quartet. Their fears about sex and their inability to discuss them form the story's center. At the book's midpoint, McEwan (Atonement, etc.) goes into forensic detail about their naïve and disastrous efforts on the marriage bed, and the final chapter presents the couple's explosive postcoital confrontation on Chesil Beach. Staying very close to this marital trauma and the circumstances surrounding it (particularly class), McEwan's flawless omniscient narration has a curious (and not unpleasantly condescending) fable-like quality, as if an older self were simultaneously disavowing and affirming a younger. The story itself isn't arresting, but the narrator's journey through it is.
"Not quite novel or novella, McEwan's masterful 13th work of fiction most resembles a five-part classical drama rendered in prose. It opens on the anxious Dorset Coast wedding suite dinner of Edward Mayhew and the former Florence Ponting, married in the summer of 1963 at 23 and 22 respectively; the looming dramatic crisis is the marriage's impending consummation, or lack of it. Edward is a rough-hewn but sweet student of history, son of an Oxfordshire primary school headmaster and a mother who was brain damaged in an accident when Edward was five. Florence, daughter of a businessman and (a rarity then) a female Oxford philosophy professor, is intense but warm and has founded a string quartet. Their fears about sex and their inability to discuss them form the story's center. At the book's midpoint, McEwan (Atonement, etc.) goes into forensic detail about their naïve and disastrous efforts on the marriage bed, and the final chapter presents the couple's explosive postcoital confrontation on Chesil Beach. Staying very close to this marital trauma and the circumstances surrounding it (particularly class), McEwan's flawless omniscient narration has a curious (and not unpleasantly condescending) fable-like quality, as if an older self were simultaneously disavowing and affirming a younger. The story itself isn't arresting, but the narrator's journey through it is."@en
"It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student who unexpectedly won her heart."@en
"In July 1962, young innocents and newlyweds Edward and Florence struggle with their fears of their upcoming wedding night."@en
"The #1 bestselling author of Saturday and Atonement brilliantly illuminates the collision of sexual longing, deep-seated fears and romantic fantasy in his unforgettable, emotionally engaging new novel."
"Das Schlimmste am Heiraten ist die Hochzeitsnacht. Zumindest für Edward und Florence, 1962 im prüden England. Begierde und Befangenheit, Anziehung und Angst sind miteinander im Widerstreit in der Hochzeitssuite mit Blick aufs Meer. Die Nacht verändert das Schicksal der Liebenden - für immer."
"In 1962, Florence and Edward celebrate their wedding in a hotel on the Dorset coast. Yet as they dine, the expectation of their marital duties weighs over them. And unbeknownst to both, the decisions they make this night will resonate throughout their lives. With exquisite prose, Ian McEwan creates in On Chesil Beach From the Trade Paperback edition."@en
"June 1962. In a hotel on the Dorset coast, overlooking Chesil Beach, Edward and Florence, who got married that morning, are sitting down to dinner in their room. Neither is entirely able to suppress their anxieties about the wedding night to come."@en
"En 1962, dans une Angleterre puritaine, l'histoire de Florence Ponting, jeune violoniste, et Edward Mayhew, historien, se retrouvant seuls dans une auberge du Dorset pour y passer leur nuit de noce. Ni l'un ni l'autre ne connaissant rien à l'amour, cette nuit se révèle très vite comme une épreuve de vérité."
"The story centers around two newlyweds, Edward and Florence Mayhew both virgins who must struggle through their internal battles with sexual anxiety."@en
"The story centers around two newlyweds, Edward and Florence Mayhew both virgins who must struggle through their internal battles with sexual anxiety."
"En 1962, dans une Angleterre puritaine, l'histoire de Florence Ponting, jeune violoniste, et Edward Mayhew, historien, se retrouvant seuls dans une auberge du Dorset pour y passer leur nuit de noce. Ne connaissant rien à l'amour, cette nuit se révèle très vite comme une épreuve de vérité."
"In a hotel on the Dorset coast, overlooking Chesil Beach, Edward and Florence, who got married that morning, are sitting down to dinner in their room. Neither is entirely able to suppress their anxieties about the wedding night to come. This is a story about how the entire course of a life can be changed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken."@en
"It is July 1962. Edward and Florence, young innocents married that morning, arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their private fears of the wedding night to come."
"Florence, a talented musician, marries Edward, a young history student, in 1962, honestly believing her sincere love for him might overcome the repulsion she feels at the thought of a physical relationship, but the events of their wedding night put their lives on very different courses from what they had anticipated."
"Tijdens hun huwelijksnacht in een hotel in Dorset vraagt zowel de man, 23 jaar, als de vrouw, 22 jaar, gehinderd door de benauwde seksuele moraal van de vroege jaren zestig, zich af of het wel zal lukken."
"The story centers around two newlyweds, Edward and Florence Mayhew both virgins who must struggle through their internal battle with sexual anxiety."@en
"The story centers around two newlyweds, Edward and Florence Mayhew both virgins who must struggle through their internal battle with sexual anxiety."
"On their wedding day, a young couple--Florence, daughter of an Oxford academic and a successful businessman, and Edward, an earnest history student with little experience of women--looks forward to the future while worrying about their upcoming wedding night."@en
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Angleška književnost Romani Ljubezen 20.st.. Velika Britanija.
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