In Spitsbergen, McEwan found the catalyst that he needed. He recalls, “On the boat, we were asked to store outer clothing—heavy shoes, splash suits, goggles, balaclavas, gloves—in a boot room. I spent seven years in boarding school, and I took one look and said, ‘I’m putting my stuff under my bed.’ Within three days, the boot room was chaos. People were losing their stuff, stealing things. Meanwhile, we’d be sitting inside our little ark, with the whole of the planet’s population below us, talking about how we were going to save the world. These were motivated, decent, kind people. I thought, Ah. The interesting thing here is human nature. Global warming suddenly wasn’t an abstract issue, because humans had to solve it—untrustworthy, venal, sweet, lovely humans.”

On Chesil Beach Summary | SuperSummary On Chesil Beach Summary | SuperSummary

Early on we’re introduced to the idea of fate; Edward recently graduated university with a degree in history, and he had a theory that great people determined their destinies. This becomes an intriguing theme as we’re shown how the two met, and, if we dig deeper (as we’re meant to, with McEwan), see the links that perhaps drew them together. Edward has a bit of a temper, much like Florence’s wealthy industrialist father; and Edward’s mother, who suffered brain damage from a life-altering accident at a train station, is also something of a musician, like Florence (a violinist who dreams of being in a professional string quartet). Fémina Etranger (1993) for The Child in Time; and Germany's Shakespeare Prize in 1999. He has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction numerous times, winning the award for Amsterdam in 1998. His novel Atonement received the WH Smith Literary Award (2002), National Book Critics' Circle Fiction Award (2003), Los Angeles Times Prize for Fiction (2003), and the Santiago Prize for the European Novel (2004). Atonement was also made into an Oscar-winning film. McEwan’s empirical temperament distinguishes him from his friends Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, and Julian Barnes. McEwan recalls a recent afternoon spent with Barnes: “Julian was reading an article in the Guardian about a ship that, in 1893, got frozen in the polar ice. The explorers had set up a primitive wind turbine for electricity, and the captain’s log described how they’d got it running just before the final sunset that marked the beginning of the dark Arctic winter. Julian handed the story to me. I read it and said, ‘That’s amazing. A wind turbine in 1893!’ He said, ‘No, no, I mean the captain’s description of the final sunset. What a beautiful piece of prose.’ And I said, ‘Oh. Yeah, yeah.’ ” Marvellously, it comes even worse than expected, as Edward contributes to the mess with his own sexual difficulties (let's just say that his decision to lay off gratifying himself in the days before the wedding looks like it left him more precariously bottled-up than is healthy). It is clinical and understated from the start: “The wedding... had gone well” and the “weather... not perfect but entirely adequate” and continues in the bedroom with detailed descriptions of physical sensations of skin, muscle, and even individual hairs: “stroking... for more than one and a half minutes” (too precise).We learn about their families and upbringing; how they met and how they dated. Both are intellectuals. He’s studying to be a professor of history; her life is music and playing the violin. Florence is a gifted and ambitious violinist, torn between the different opportunities she has; Edward has little understanding (or true appreciation) of what she does, her classical music remaining all Greek to him. I adored this short but insightful, powerfully written book. I vow to read McEwan again within the next few months. He’s an expert at his craft and a gifted observer of human nature.

On Chesil Beach’: Did You Catch Florence’s Backstory? ‘On Chesil Beach’: Did You Catch Florence’s Backstory?

On the first of several visits to Fitzroy Square, McEwan greeted me at the door in a state of genial distraction. He was throwing a party that evening—it was June 20th, the day before his sixtieth birthday—and, like Clarissa Dalloway, he needed to run some errands in the West End. McEwan took me downstairs into the kitchen to prepare coffee. The house has so many floors that each domestic act necessitates a stair climb. There are two sitting rooms, two studies, two libraries, and a room for watching movies. When I read “Saturday,” I was surprised that a pre-dawn trip that Perowne takes from his kitchen to his bedroom made him alert enough for a bout of lovemaking; the daunting staircase expelled my doubts. The fact that Edward “fell away from history to live snugly in the present” seems entirely appropriate. It is a raw and painful book in places, all the more ironic given that it is set in the allegedly “swinging 60s”. There is additional irony in the fact that Florence takes Edward’s cherry – but only at dinner (an image oddly missing from the film). However ..I may re- read this book soon ( it only takes a few hours) with an open mind to see if my thoughts have changed.

But after On Chesil Beach climaxes, the masterfully modulated denouement fast-forwards through the decades to come to our present day -- and prods us to consider what this book really is." - Ed Park, Salon