On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan

Swoon! McEwan here confirms his status as the greatest British novelist currently producing. It's a short novel that I enjoyed in one sitting, essentially a single scene with some flashback exposition, but it leaves one with a sense of exquisite sadness.

I thought that the tale of a trivial yet tragic misunderstanding between two newlyweds in the early 60s may have been inspired by Larkin's wonderful poem Annus Mirabilis:

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(Which was rather late for me)-
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Up till then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle For a ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me)-
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.