On Chesil Beach

**Edit du 12 septembre** Ce livre est en ligne (voir Short List) pour le MAN BOOKER PRIZE! Site officiel ici

The year is 1962. Florence, the daughter of a successful businessman and an aloof Oxford academic, is a talented violinist. She dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, the earnest young history student she met by chance and who unexpectedly wooed her and won her heart. Edward grew up in the country on the outskirts of Oxford where his father, the headmaster of the local school, struggled to keep the household together and his mother, brain-damaged from an accident, drifted in a world of her own. Edward’s native intelligence, coupled with a longing to experience the excitement and intellectual fervour of the city, had taken him to University College in London. Falling in love with the accomplished, shy and sensitive Florence – and having his affections returned with equal intensity – has utterly changed his life.
Their marriage, they believe, will bring them happiness, the confidence and the freedom to fulfill their true destinies. The glowing promise of the future, however, cannot totally mask their worries about the wedding night. Edward, who has had little experience with women, frets about his sexual prowess. Florence’s anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by conflicting emotions and a fear of the moment she will surrender herself.
From the precise and intimate depiction of two young lovers eager to rise above the hurts and confusion of the past, to the touching story of how their unexpressed misunderstandings and fears shape the rest of their lives, On Chesil Beach is an extraordinary novel that brilliantly, movingly shows us how the entire course of a life can be changed – by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

Site officiel Ian McEwan

Edward et Florence sont jeunes, talentueux, instruits et ce sont mariés en 1962, à l'âge de 22 ans. La nuit de leur mariage est remplie de craintes, de souvenirs et de découvertes. Ils se rappellent ce qu'ils étaient avant et après leur rencontre et ce qu'ils sont maintenant, mariés, face à face, en route pour perdre leur virginité. Chacun nous transporte dans son passé et nous donne sa perception de l'être aimé. Chacun décrit comment il imaginait cette nuit intime et ni un, ni l'autre n'avait imaginé ce qui se passerait "on Chesil Beach"... Une écriture tendre, nette, mémorable. Le livre, avec ses pages à l'ancienne comme si nous les avions découpées une à une pour les lire, est le récit d'une nuit, celle de deux jeunes que la vie n'avaient pas vraiment préparés à la vie de couple.