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On Chesil Beach
Water Torture Homefields: The Art of Lanford Monroe October 20, 2007
By Herb Liebman
 On Chesil Beach
The Question of The Asexual:
Ian McEwan’s
“On Chesil Beach”
It all begins after the wedding ceremony of Edward and Florence, a ceremony that comes after a happy courtship where Edward’s sole complaint is that Florence did not know “how to kiss properly.” At the time of her marriage, Florence was still a virgin, a not uncommon condition in the early 1960s, and a star pupil on the violin at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Of course Edward waited, although at times uneasily, for the wedding night, as he believed that now even the entire “Church of England” had “blessed” their future sexual union.
Edward was raised in a “squalid family home” in Chilton and was a tough lad who played football and enjoyed an occasional scuffle. At school, his intelligence was noted, and he was streamed for a university education, ultimately earning a First in History at the University of London. In sharp contrast, Florence was the daughter of privilege. Raised in Oxford, her mother was a Don at the University, and her father owned a successful electronics business.
Immensely talented musically, Florence was a star pupil on the violin at the Royal Academy of Music in London. As a small child, moreover, she somehow communicated to her mother that she did not like to be kissed or even cuddled, and her wishes were granted. Even her father always preferred putting his arms around her younger sister. Interestingly, when Edward told Florence’s parents about their plans to marry, they were both immediately agreeable, a fact that initially surprised Edward because of their obvious class differences.
The two now alone in their hotel bedroom move towards the marital bed in what appears to be the initial sexual consummation of their relationship. Suddenly, however, Florence bolts in disgust from the nuptial bed, thwarting any attempt at sex, and flees to the beach outside the hotel. Edward becomes furious, as he had believed that all was progressing well before Florence’s abrupt departure. In effect, the marriage, as far as Edward was concerned, ended before it had begun. After waiting some time he ran after her and when they were face to face, he told her that he was “tricked” and that she was a “fraud” and “frigid.” He accused her of intentional treachery. “You thought you needed a husband and I was the first bloody idiot who came along.” Her response to Edward is central to the theme of the novel, and his reaction will shape the very arc of his future life:
“Edward, I love you, and we don’t have to be like everyone, I mean, no one…no one would know what we did or didn’t do. We could be together, live together, and if you really wanted…whenever it happened…I would never be jealous.”
Edward felt her speech was an “insult” in suggesting that he could have sex with anyone but his wife. To Edward at that moment she was both “disgusting” and “ridiculous.” Florence knew that she had never intended to “deceive” Edward, but she did not “quibble” with the word “frigid.” He had made his decision and she ran from him. Within a week they were divorced.
Florence moved on to a distinguished professional career as a violinist while her love for Edward endured the ugly separation. Edward drifted through life, managing a number of rock ‘n’ roll record stores and owning a health food store. He was married for three years while he lived in Paris. When his mother died, he moved back to help his father who soon died as well. Now alone, he realized that his life would have had more substance had he stayed with Florence—perhaps he would have written books. What he did not know was that if he had called out for Florence when she left him on the beach, she would have “turned back” instantly, the sound of his voice striking her “as a deliverance.” But he reacted to convention and rage rather than to the love in his heart. Later he became “haunted” by his memory of Florence and was “rather amazed…that he let the girl with the violin go.”
McEwan’s luminous novel explores the world of the asexual—those who are neither straight nor gay and are without a libido—in a loving relationship. Had Edward returned to Florence, we do not know what would have happened, but at least Edward believes that he had made a disastrous mistake. Edward further realizes that “he never loved anyone, man or woman, as much as he loved Florence.” The story is almost tragic and particularly poignant at its conclusion, and it is a singular achievement.—H.L.
Herbert Leibman, a recipient of an NEA grant in Creative Writing and an Emeritus Professor of English at CSI (CUNY), has published numerous short stories and two books. His plays were performed in off-off Broadway in New York City, and he has published reviews and essays. A MacDowell and Wurlitzer Fellow, he now lives in New Mexico.
Sex, Science & Politics
In “Water Torture” (Sigma Books, 2007), we have an extraordinary new hero in Brad West, whose epic adventure takes him in search of saving archeological finds for science, while doing a little side-work as an Austin Powers type in saving the Chinese leadership from a coup. From Tucson to Beijing to the fabled Yangtze River and the Three Gorges Dam, we are exposed to the exotic culture of the graduate student and the transformation of China into a modern economic juggernaut. Aided by Ayahuasca, a well-known hallucinogenic, and CIA operatives, while under the duress of terrifying helicopter attacks in pursuit of two luscious Chinese superwomen, Brad and his geek-buddy Earl “Skeeter” Skitowsky overcome armed thugs and save Chinese Culture from American expropriators. The characters are lovable, the plot episodic, and the set-up satirically correct. Given the Star Wars trope and inevitable pop culture Freudian influence, Horse Fly predicts a date with Hollywood dealmakers for these two authors.
Horse Fly contributor Steve Donaldson and his sidekick Fritz Galt, not to mention a myriad of friends and family members, wrote the fast-paced narrative, which can be found in the deep stacks of Moby Dickens’s mystery section. Despite the sometimes-clunky prose, I couldn’t put the page-turner down during deadline.—B.W.
“Homefields: The Art of Lanford Monroe”
A friend recently picked up a copy of “Homefields: The Art of Lanford Monroe” Sporting Classics & Islet Bay Press, 2007, and soon began reacting with wonder and excitement. He was seeing scenes from his past, specifically the woods in autumn. The scenes weren’t from places he’d been but the colors were just as he had imagined them. “What a beautiful book,” he finally said.
Lanford Monroe suffered a fatal heart attack at her home in Talpa in 2000 at the age of 50. She died soon after at an Albuquerque hospital with friends and her husband Chipper Thompson at her bedside. She was not widely known to the art community in Taos since her gallery representatives were in the upper west and back east. To devotees of wildlife painting, however, she was a major artist and had won awards and accolades for her body of work.
Now, after several years of planning and design, a new book has been published featuring over 130 of her images with text by Thompson, himself a well-known local musician. He’ll introduce the book publicly and sign copies on Saturday, October 27th, from 1:00-3:00 p.m. at the Brodsky Bookshop on Paseo del Pueblo Norte.
Monroe was the daughter of noted wildlife illustrator Ed Monroe and his portraitist wife Betty. As Thompson says, “The Monroes lived for well-laid strokes of paint; for lush prose in leather-bound books read by the fire; they lived for the great outdoors in all its glory.” He deftly connects the artist and her roots, smoothly blending in his own connection to both. What emerges is the singularity of Lanford Monroe’s vision and talent. The inclusion of an unpublished story written by Monroe is a brilliant stroke. Simply titled “Ginny,” it tells of Lanford’s nurturing of a baby doe, gradually letting it return to the wild. The story’s climax, a chance encounter by a roadside, brings home the view that she saw nature and its forces as interdependent.
Some people may feel that landscape and wildlife painting are, at best, lush illustrations presenting reality. They don’t address grand themes, demand interpretation, intimidate one with complexity. Monroe herself once said, “That’s what I try to capture in a painting—the feeling of being there. I want people to look at my work and experience what I experienced.” Seemingly a modest proposal, it is one that demands something from the viewer—time, patience, concentration. Reaching inside one’s self to recall a sensory experience of a bird song, wind in the trees, the bite of chill on the nose, requires entering a scene even if you’ve never been to that place. It means connecting to something that all of nature shares.
In the book’s essay Thompson tells us that Lanford saw all of her paintings as parts of a whole, that taken together they might be considered a “major work.” I think “Homefields” is symphonic, with movements that bring peace and those that make your heart race. In the end, it is a bountiful mug of color and passion. It made me want to see some of the originals, and it made me want to stand outside and look at the bounty around me.—R.S.
Rick Smith worked in public television for twenty years but now runs his wife’s bookstore which is named after someone they never met. He wonders why George Bush, or any politician for that matter, goes around giving the thumbs up sign. He hopes his next life isn’t as confusing as this one.
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