On Chesil Beach (2007) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

show spoilers

Characters/People edit see section history

show spoilers

• Florence: One of the narrators; Edward's wife
• Edward: One of the narrators; Florence's husband.
• Lionel Mayhew: Edward's father
• Marjorie Mayhew: Edward's mother
• Geoffrey Ponting: Florence's father
• Violet Ponting: Florence's mother
• Ruth Ponting: Florence's sister
• Harriet Mayhew: Edward's sister
• Anne Mayhew: Edward's sister

Quotes edit see section history

• “All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them."”

• “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”

• “This is how the entire course of a 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 ash 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...............”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• This is how the entire course of a life can be changed—by doing nothing.

  Highlighted by 47 Kindle customers

• This was still the era—it would end later in that famous decade—when to be young was a social encumbrance, a mark of irrelevance, a faintly embarrassing condition for which marriage was the beginning of a cure.

  Highlighted by 27 Kindle customers

• Falling in love was revealing to her just how odd she was, how habitually sealed off in her everyday thoughts.

  Highlighted by 22 Kindle customers

• Love and patience—if only he had had them both at once—would surely have seen them both through.

  Highlighted by 20 Kindle customers

• And what stood in their way? Their personalities and pasts, their ignorance and fear, timidity, squeamishness, lack of entitlement or experience or easy manners, then the tail end of a religious prohibition, their Englishness and class, and history itself. Nothing much at all.

  Highlighted by 17 Kindle customers

• The Pill was a rumor in the newspapers, a ridiculous promise, another of those tall tales about America.

  Highlighted by 14 Kindle customers

• Almost strangers, they stood, strangely together, on a new pinnacle of existence, gleeful that their new status promised to promote them out of their endless youth—Edward and Florence, free at last!

  Highlighted by 13 Kindle customers

• All these years she had lived in isolation within herself and, strangely, from herself, never wanting or daring to look back. In the stone-floored echoing hall with the heavy low beams, her problems with Edward were already present in those first few seconds, in their first exchange of looks.

  Highlighted by 13 Kindle customers

• These private schemes refined further his sense of a concealed self, a tight nexus of sensitivity, longing and hard-edged egotism.

  Highlighted by 10 Kindle customers

• An incidental discovery was that even legendary success brought little happiness, only redoubled restlessness, gnawing ambition.

  Highlighted by 10 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• London
• Henley

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Music: Describe this theme.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Ian McEwan (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Man Booker Prize (Finalist, 2007, shortlist)
• British Book Award (2008: Book of the Year)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PR6063.C4 O6 2007
• Dewey: 823.914

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Add a note to help parents select a book for a child.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( M ) › McEwan, Ian
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary

Movie Connections edit see section history

• On Chesil Beach (IMDb): Due in 2012

More Books Like This edit see section history