McEwan and Hardy

Just for the record, “Chesil Beach” seemed to me unin­spired, trivial, and implaus­ible. I read it imme­di­ately before Thomas Hardy’s “The Trum­pet Major”, which is well-plotted, ironic, rev­els in fas­cin­at­ing detail of coun­try life, and engages one with the char­ac­ters. Think­ing of a short novel to con­trast with “Chesil Beach”, I recalled J.L. CArr’s “A Month in the Coun­try”, an almost per­fect sens­it­ive evoc­a­tion of cau­tious, for­bid­den attrac­tion between the sexes. But then, I’ve never much liked Ian McEwan’s work ever since he gave me night­mares with “A Child in Time.”