On Chesil Beach (English)

This slim, subtle, and devastating novella from Ian McEwan uses surgical precision to expose the psychological slips and physical mischances that threaten to ruin a young couple's happiness on their wedding night. The novel is set in the early 1960s, in a time when sexuality still had an aura of the arcane and forbidden, and Edward and Florence's first sexual encounter has become a source of anxiety and apprehension for both of them, though for very different reasons. With an adroit touch, McEwan traces the interpersonal feints and parries between the two young lovers, and shows how the slightest action or inaction can make a life skid toward tragedy. minimize