Book Waffle | On Chesil Beach (2007) - British Man's Verbal Diarrhea

   


On Chesil Beach (2007) written by Ian McEwan -

You know in school when your English teacher told you that your essay had to be 1,000 words long, but you'd said all you wanted to say in the first 300 so you had to fill?

That's what this book is. Padded and pretentious. Brit Lit at its most indulgent.

This should have been 10k words at most. Yet Mr. McEwan has managed to wring it for many times that, evolving it like a Pokémon from short story to novella all the way to short novel. I'm not mad. I'm impressed, really. Impressed at Mr. McEwan's talent for digressing over and over and over again with unnecessary anecdotes and asides. Impressed and bored. Mostly bored.

There is an interesting story in there somewhere, and I can see it. I can see great characters and an emotional writing style. But there is just so much fluff and sod to dig through.

Rating: 3/10


| Previously reviewed on Goodreads:

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