Book Review-On Chesil Beach

On Chesil Beach
Ian McEwen
203 pages

Yes, I read another book today. You SHOULD be impressed about this one. Because I did it in about 3 hours. I didn't have so much time today because I spent all day at Lisa's house to celebrate her birthday. In case you care, you should know that we only got through about 2/3rds of the songs before the wicks ran out and we had to end so that there was eventually SOMETHING to blow out. We should've done more songs. Happy Birthday Lisa!!!

Anyway, even though this one was only 203 pages, you should still be impressed. I also made breakfast for my husband and fixed the TV. I rock. Begin praising now.

So this book is a little "racy." By "racy" I mean that the main theme is sex. It's all about sex. Or rather the miscommunication that happens between husbands and wives about sex. See, it's about this newly married couple and they are in their honeymoon suite and the guy is READY to go, and the girl not so much. They are both virgins, inexperienced, nervous. You know what I'm talking about. I think most (if not ALL) of my readers have TOTALLY been there.

But there is a little more then just "nerves" on her part. But I'll get to that in a minute. The main part of the book is a nice set of flashbacks about how they met, and their families and things like that. The boy is a history major and the girl is a musician and in a string quartet. And they meet and fall in love and get married. And the guy is ready to go.

And the girl is terrified. More then terrified, she realizes that she really has no desire for sex. She wants kids, she likes kids. But she wants to have them "immaculately conceived" like Jesus. She's not looking forward to the act. She wants nothing to do with it and never wants to think about it if possible.

But she decides she needs to do her "wifely duties" and buck up and just do it. She loves her husband and wants to make him happy and it's been obvious in their courtship that they love each other lots. And it's obvious also that the husband has NO IDEA that she's feeling this way and he fully expects things to go great on the wedding night. Sure, she's been a little modest (AKA prude) before the wedding but he figures that's just her being chaste. He never things that will happen after they are married.

I actually thought that there would be more to the story. Like maybe she had been abused as a child, or that she had walked in on her parents in some sort of weird sex act and that is why she doesn't want anything to do with it. But no. That's no the case. She just doesn't have a desire, the thought scares her, and she's just not interested.

So back to what I said about it being racy. It goes quite in detail about the very limited amount of foreplay that goes on in the honeymoon suite. TMI if you ask me. But that's not what the story is about, so you quickly move through that to get to the real story. Which starts when she eventually runs out on him after some over excitement on his part (You know what I'm talking about here. Don't make me say it) and that's where the story gets upsetting.

They both blame each other for the mes they are in. He thinks she's been deceiving him. Why didn't she bring this up before? Why has this become a problem now? Why did she let him even touch her if she didn't want that?

And for her part, she's pissed that he's pushing for it. She's pissed knowing that if they go back in the bedroom, it will just be more of the same: him wanting it and she not. And she's mad that he can't see that she's just not comfortable doing it. She just wants to be with him and love him and be his wife and not have to do THAT.

But here's the aggravating part: THEY NEVER SAY THESE THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS TO EACH OTHER OUT LOUD!! You, the reader are the only ones that get to see their full thoughts and feelings, their fears and worries. To each other, they get frustrated, angry and then start accusing each other of irrelevant things. She talks about how she wants to play music, and that is her goal. And he talks about how she comes from all this money, and how that's so important to her so she forced him to take a job with her father and he never wanted it.

What? Money? Music? What? No!! You aren't mad at him about music and you aren't mad at her about money! You are feeling frustrated about what just happened ind in the room 10 min ago, TALK ABOUT THAT, YOU IDIOTS!! And you are mentally screaming those things to the characters in the book. But they don't listen. Morons

And so what happens? It's not good. Like the book Atonement that I finished yesterday, this book does not have a super happy ending. I'm going to spoil it for yo and and tell you that they break up. And 8 hour marriage in the crapper because of some lousy communication. And as the years go by, they both never marry again. They live their separate lives and accomplish things alone, but they never get married. And in the end, they both lament that they didn't go back and talk on the beach. He laments the beautiful girl he never got to grow old with, the children they might have had, and the life they might have lived. She laments that he didn't call after her when she walked away form him. She would've gone back to him if he had just called for her. And it would've been all different.

Point simple: It was a depressing way to spend 3 hours. The moral of the story is this: most people are nervous about sex so you have to talk about it. Silence can ruin everything between two people. And I think that holds true for everything, not just sex: Silence can ruin anything in a relationships if you let it. So talk to each other people!! And don't let misunderstandings ruin your relationships and wonderful times that could be.