On Chesil Beach

It was book group tonight. The book in question was Ian McEwan’s ‘On Chesil Beach’, a book I have had to read today as I was trudging through ‘The Instance of The Fingerpost’ for bloody ages. I have done the unthinkable and quit the book 300 pages in but as I still had 400 to go and wanted to do anything BUT read I just shelved it.

I love, love, loved this book. I thought it was superb. I know people have moaned about the length of the book but books don’t have to be a certain length do they? Do we now have to hire people at publishers who only let books that are over 1000 pages long be published or accepted, I think not.

What stuck out from the book for me was the whole was sex was perceived back then. The book is set in the late 50’s/early 60’s. Its on the wedding night of a couple who are in love but have no idea of what happens when you have sex and is a tale of the emotional journey they go through, from excitement to fear, to shock and horror. I won’t give anything away.

I mean look at us now. Humans on the whole be you gay, straight, bi, whatever. Sex is everywhere; you only need to go to the back of many gay magazines and call a number and sex is there. Open your computer and surf the net and sex can be found so easily then too. So I really felt for these people. Not because they couldn’t have sex before marriage, mind you me and Mr B were there before we officially started dating, but the naivety of it all, it must be terrifying.

The venue was ‘The Mermaids Tail’ a new fish and chip restaurant in Leicester Square that looks tacky as sin when you walk past but is actually really nice and does great fish and chips and brilliant mushy peas. You can have a deep fried Mars Bar for pudding too I didn’t go that far. The book brought up some great debates, we are much concerned that Kaylord is now following the book ‘Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus’ like it’s the bible but that’s another story. Next book group book is The Other Boleyn Girl, maybe we will eat in The Tower Of London.