The end of an affair

“They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. But it is never easy.”

So begins the story of Edward Mayhew and Florence Ponting in Ian McEwan’s latest book On Chesil Beach. And yet, these words could just as easily describe societies with their norms of arranged marriages in our modern times. For, these words not only describe a wedding night then (UK in the early sixties), they also aptly describe the embarrassment and the fears that govern many newly-weds (or courting couples) even today.

On Chesil Beach, a narrative of the events of an hour or two, is so masterfully crafted by McEwan that I didn’t notice the 166 pages it had taken to tell the story – the entire history of the couple, and their idiosyncrasies, leading to their wedding night and its consequences. McEwan’s humour is fabulous and I was chuckling to myself on many occasions. My only disappointment was the quick ending McEwan brought me to.

I wondered if the first two sentences of the novel (which I’ve quoted here) foretold the ending. That Edward Mayhew and Florence Ponting would end their affair on their wedding night on Chesil Beach. But then, Ian McEwan’s superb writing more than made up for this minor dissatisfaction. More than once, I wished I could write like this.