I too, remember this book and its characters vividly months after reading it. I read lots of books. Frequently, people ask, “Have you read X?” Often, I reply, “Umm, I think so.” Not with this book.

Eliot

I did not mean to indicate that the sex was titillating, although looking back at the review I can see where you got that idea. Sex is rightly private not only or even mainly because it’s titillating, but because it’s an occasion of great vulnerability. That’s in no small part due to its ridiculousness. And Chesil captured that so well, it felt a bit intrusive to witness it, even thought it’s fiction.

I like your conception of the beach argument as the consummation…I like it a lot, for this reason: both attempts at consummation were abortive. That’s what was so tragic about the story and frustrating about the characters. Sexual stuntedness was matched by emotional stuntedness and the result was horrible loss.

For me, part of the measure of a book’s quality is what I think of it after a few months. That would put this book very high indeed.

mendicus

The fight on the beach is truly the consummation of their marriage. In fact, such fights may be the true consummation of any marriage. One can certainly engage in fairly superficial and shallow sex. But a fight in which you reveal/discover the darkest and ugliest bits of your soul is true intimacy. To be loved by someone who has seen you at your most disgusting is a profound experience. To truly love someone who has covered you with hatred and bile is equally profound.

Those who read this without having “been there” may think me some sort of masochist. I’m not. I am very happily and companionably married—but have been down to Chesil Beach.

What I found so brilliant about this book is how precisely it captures the core of marriage. McEwan captures that thing which makes old married couples cry at weddings, neither joy nor sadness, but knowledge—a tiny glimpse of the road the new couple must travel which no books or films or wise advice can prepare them for.

fr: onepennyprofiles.wordpress.com