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Surfacing
Part detective novel, part psychological thriller, Surfacing is the story of a talented woman artist who goes in search of her missing father on a remote island in northern Quebec.Setting out with her lover and another young couple, she soon finds herself captivated by the isolated setting, where a marriage begins to fall apart, violence and death lurk just beneath the surface, and sex becomes a catalyst for conflict and dangerous choices. Surfacing is a work permeated with an aura of suspense, complex with layered meanings, and written in brilliant, diamond-sharp prose.Here is a rich mine of ideas from an extraordinary writer about contemporary life and nature, families and marriage, and about women fragmented... and becoming whole.
199 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
1,052 people are currently reading
21.1k people want to read
About the author
Margaret Atwood
624books86kfollowersMargaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.
Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood's dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth in the Massey series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood's work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM.
Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.
Associations: Margaret Atwood was President of the Writers' Union of Canada from May 1981 to May 1982, and was President of International P.E.N., Canadian Centre (English Speaking) from 1984-1986. She and Graeme Gibson are the Joint Honourary Presidents of the Rare Bird Society within BirdLife International. Ms. Atwood is also a current Vice-President of PEN International.
Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood's dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth in the Massey series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood's work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM.
Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.
Associations: Margaret Atwood was President of the Writers' Union of Canada from May 1981 to May 1982, and was President of International P.E.N., Canadian Centre (English Speaking) from 1984-1986. She and Graeme Gibson are the Joint Honourary Presidents of the Rare Bird Society within BirdLife International. Ms. Atwood is also a current Vice-President of PEN International.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,088 reviews
September 24, 2020
Nothing good ever comes from two couples locking themselves in some cabin in the woods. (See "Evil Dead," "Cabin Fever," "Cabin in the Woods"... well, actually just the first one [for I do think the latter two suh-uck!]) Ehh-verr.
But Margaret Atwood is not a horror writer. This is her take on the isolation that begets thoughts too deep to describe other than in her language. With a lyrical poetic voice, we see here precursors to the also extraordinary "Alias Grace" & "The Blind Assassin" (as well as nods to her previous & first novel, "The Edible Woman").
I never had the pleasure of meeting her or even attending one of her jam-packed conferences. Huge regret...! But reading her is like falling atop a velvet cushion, too placid to notice the bugs infesting it, getting under your skin, creeping you out. Her themes are like insects that burrow, give you a terrible virus, & never let go.
But Margaret Atwood is not a horror writer. This is her take on the isolation that begets thoughts too deep to describe other than in her language. With a lyrical poetic voice, we see here precursors to the also extraordinary "Alias Grace" & "The Blind Assassin" (as well as nods to her previous & first novel, "The Edible Woman").
I never had the pleasure of meeting her or even attending one of her jam-packed conferences. Huge regret...! But reading her is like falling atop a velvet cushion, too placid to notice the bugs infesting it, getting under your skin, creeping you out. Her themes are like insects that burrow, give you a terrible virus, & never let go.
September 22, 2020
On the surface, this novel is a detective story.
A woman travels in the company of friends to a remote island to find out what happened to her father, who suddenly disappeared without a trace. Underneath the surface, stored memories of things past begin to move - upward, outward - until they burst like bubbles when they are surfacing.
Our identity is formed and guided as much by the things we have lost as by the things we still have. In fact, sometimes what we lose sticks more heavily in our thoughts, preventing us from enjoying what we have at the moment. Facing the trauma of a forced loss - an involuntary abortion - the young woman moves away from the life she created for herself as a grown-up person, and lets go of civilised behaviour to find back to her natural roots. She becomes one with earth, fire, water and air, loses touch with modern life - "American" is her generalised term for the half-machines that take over the natural habitats of the planet. Letting her wild interior surface, she heals from the wound she has carried underneath a facade of superficial adaptation.
In an act of faith in the power of mysterious nature, she creates an auto-da-fé of her past self, burning the traces of her old identity while reinventing a person ready to live and to give life. She is surfacing. From hell over purgatory and heaven back to life, in a dantesque journey of bizarre proportions. In the woods, in the water, in the fire, in the air, she finds the self she lost:
"This above all, to refuse to be a victim. Unless I can do that, I can do nothing. I have to recant, give up the old belief that I am powerless and and because of it nothing I can do will ever hurt anyone. A lie which was always more disastrous than the truth would have been. The word games, the winning and losing games are finished; at the moment there are no others but they will have to be invented, withdrawing is no longer possible and the alternative is death. [...] I reenter my own time."
Fantastic novel of introspection and unresolved pain. Beautifully clear and fragile, like a bubble surfacing in the water.
A woman travels in the company of friends to a remote island to find out what happened to her father, who suddenly disappeared without a trace. Underneath the surface, stored memories of things past begin to move - upward, outward - until they burst like bubbles when they are surfacing.
Our identity is formed and guided as much by the things we have lost as by the things we still have. In fact, sometimes what we lose sticks more heavily in our thoughts, preventing us from enjoying what we have at the moment. Facing the trauma of a forced loss - an involuntary abortion - the young woman moves away from the life she created for herself as a grown-up person, and lets go of civilised behaviour to find back to her natural roots. She becomes one with earth, fire, water and air, loses touch with modern life - "American" is her generalised term for the half-machines that take over the natural habitats of the planet. Letting her wild interior surface, she heals from the wound she has carried underneath a facade of superficial adaptation.
In an act of faith in the power of mysterious nature, she creates an auto-da-fé of her past self, burning the traces of her old identity while reinventing a person ready to live and to give life. She is surfacing. From hell over purgatory and heaven back to life, in a dantesque journey of bizarre proportions. In the woods, in the water, in the fire, in the air, she finds the self she lost:
"This above all, to refuse to be a victim. Unless I can do that, I can do nothing. I have to recant, give up the old belief that I am powerless and and because of it nothing I can do will ever hurt anyone. A lie which was always more disastrous than the truth would have been. The word games, the winning and losing games are finished; at the moment there are no others but they will have to be invented, withdrawing is no longer possible and the alternative is death. [...] I reenter my own time."
Fantastic novel of introspection and unresolved pain. Beautifully clear and fragile, like a bubble surfacing in the water.
December 2, 2017
Atwood's previous novel, The Edible Woman, dealt with a young woman who is so terrified of marriage that it causes her to lose her touch with reality and fall deeper and deeper into mental illness. It was a good novel but its biggest weakness was its plot. In Surfacing, Atwood treads much of the same ground but completely jettisons any semblance of a plot and thus presents us with a far more intriguing and mature work.
Our unnamed female narrator brings her lover and their two (married) friends to her childhood lakeside cabin in the woods for a brief getaway from life and for the two men to capture some footage for the amateur film they are producing. She hides her true intentions of returning to this familiar lake however. She is trying to find her father. Long missing, our narrator does not presume him dead but instead believes that he is still alive and living by the lake. The whole novel is essentially our narrator's internal monologue throughout this strange week by the lake.
It becomes obvious early on that we are stuck in the mind of a mentally ill young woman. Her grasp on reality is oneiric and muddied, leading to the whole novel being written in a semi-lucid and dreamlike style. There are passages of this novel which would be better described as poetry than prose, as our narrator seemingly slips in and out of her reality and into a chimerical and other-worldly state. The novel is also almost oppressively atmospheric with dirt and grit rammed underneath its fingernails. What I'm basically saying is that if this were adapted into a movie today it would have a lot of Sufjan Stevens on the soundtrack.
I found myself completely absorbed by this novel. The manner of Atwood's prose baits you into reading the whole novel in a small series of large chucks and whilst I did find the narrative to be languorous at times I could not seem to escape the narrator's mindset. In Surfacing you find yourself set adrift in the murky waters of a young woman's mind. The gentle current guides you along as you drift further and further into the darkest recesses of the lake, without even the faintest semblance of a paddle to navigate your way.
Our unnamed female narrator brings her lover and their two (married) friends to her childhood lakeside cabin in the woods for a brief getaway from life and for the two men to capture some footage for the amateur film they are producing. She hides her true intentions of returning to this familiar lake however. She is trying to find her father. Long missing, our narrator does not presume him dead but instead believes that he is still alive and living by the lake. The whole novel is essentially our narrator's internal monologue throughout this strange week by the lake.
It becomes obvious early on that we are stuck in the mind of a mentally ill young woman. Her grasp on reality is oneiric and muddied, leading to the whole novel being written in a semi-lucid and dreamlike style. There are passages of this novel which would be better described as poetry than prose, as our narrator seemingly slips in and out of her reality and into a chimerical and other-worldly state. The novel is also almost oppressively atmospheric with dirt and grit rammed underneath its fingernails. What I'm basically saying is that if this were adapted into a movie today it would have a lot of Sufjan Stevens on the soundtrack.
I found myself completely absorbed by this novel. The manner of Atwood's prose baits you into reading the whole novel in a small series of large chucks and whilst I did find the narrative to be languorous at times I could not seem to escape the narrator's mindset. In Surfacing you find yourself set adrift in the murky waters of a young woman's mind. The gentle current guides you along as you drift further and further into the darkest recesses of the lake, without even the faintest semblance of a paddle to navigate your way.
June 19, 2017
The last time I read this 1972 beauty was approximately half my lifetime ago. It was a vital part of a never-waning appreciation and adoration for Margaret Atwood's work. I'm pretty sure I didn't quite get it then, being a very young adult, unaware of many things going on in this far-out, complex ride into the Canadian wilderness.
Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. But I do know I loved it then, and I love it now.
What was different this time around was I had a better idea of the time in which it was set, what it might have been like for a woman then. As well, having spent 8 years living in Quebec, I know first hand the prejudices and tensions between English and French. I've also read a hell of a lot more contemporary literary fiction, and, yep, this one still stands up. Magnificently.
What's it about? Hah. That's a fantastic question. I'll attempt to answer...
A nameless protagonist is in northern Quebec, in a very remote area, in search of her father who has gone missing. She brings with her Joe (her boyfriend) and another couple, Anna and David (who are super effed up, btw). She also brings with her ghosts from her past, things that have haunted her her entire life and have somehow kept her separate from others, even from herself, even from the reader (who cannot hope to relate to her, and doesn't ever even learn her name).
They stay in her father's very rustic cabin while she searches for him. And tensions mount. There is a constricting malevolence present; there are eyes that seem to be watching, a predatory atmosphere. What should be an idyllic week of camping in the woods, is ... not. Though this book definitely has environmental themes, it isn't described in Wordsworthian swoon-inducing curlicues. In fact, what with the leeches, the rotting bird carcass, the entrails, et al, nature isn't something to mess with.
You could decide she's losing her mind, there's plenty of things that would support that idea. But the way I see it, our girl is in the process of "surfacing" - which to me is someone coming out of the depths, to breathe air. She's rejecting the world she came from, rejecting marriage, kids, religion, French Canadians, Americans (SO anti-American... this I gotta say I didn't quite understand), career, and sex (described several times as death). She morphs into her true self, where titles, statuses, even forms are not necessary to define her identity.
I am not an animal or a tree, I am the thing in which the trees and animals move and grow, I am a place
I enjoyed and was fascinated by this book, all the way through. I marvelled at the writing. It's poetic, visually evocative, full of mood. But it's complex. It's slippery. I wouldn't say it's an easy or "delightful" read. It's more how I feel about eating a kale salad... I know it's good for me, I know it's important. Margaret Atwood is such a powerhouse, "feminist" does not cover it; she shoots female identity so far out of the box, she isn't contained by language, clothes, or definitions.
I tried for all those years to be civilized but I'm not and I'm through pretending.
Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. But I do know I loved it then, and I love it now.
What was different this time around was I had a better idea of the time in which it was set, what it might have been like for a woman then. As well, having spent 8 years living in Quebec, I know first hand the prejudices and tensions between English and French. I've also read a hell of a lot more contemporary literary fiction, and, yep, this one still stands up. Magnificently.
What's it about? Hah. That's a fantastic question. I'll attempt to answer...
A nameless protagonist is in northern Quebec, in a very remote area, in search of her father who has gone missing. She brings with her Joe (her boyfriend) and another couple, Anna and David (who are super effed up, btw). She also brings with her ghosts from her past, things that have haunted her her entire life and have somehow kept her separate from others, even from herself, even from the reader (who cannot hope to relate to her, and doesn't ever even learn her name).
They stay in her father's very rustic cabin while she searches for him. And tensions mount. There is a constricting malevolence present; there are eyes that seem to be watching, a predatory atmosphere. What should be an idyllic week of camping in the woods, is ... not. Though this book definitely has environmental themes, it isn't described in Wordsworthian swoon-inducing curlicues. In fact, what with the leeches, the rotting bird carcass, the entrails, et al, nature isn't something to mess with.
You could decide she's losing her mind, there's plenty of things that would support that idea. But the way I see it, our girl is in the process of "surfacing" - which to me is someone coming out of the depths, to breathe air. She's rejecting the world she came from, rejecting marriage, kids, religion, French Canadians, Americans (SO anti-American... this I gotta say I didn't quite understand), career, and sex (described several times as death). She morphs into her true self, where titles, statuses, even forms are not necessary to define her identity.
I am not an animal or a tree, I am the thing in which the trees and animals move and grow, I am a place
I enjoyed and was fascinated by this book, all the way through. I marvelled at the writing. It's poetic, visually evocative, full of mood. But it's complex. It's slippery. I wouldn't say it's an easy or "delightful" read. It's more how I feel about eating a kale salad... I know it's good for me, I know it's important. Margaret Atwood is such a powerhouse, "feminist" does not cover it; she shoots female identity so far out of the box, she isn't contained by language, clothes, or definitions.
I tried for all those years to be civilized but I'm not and I'm through pretending.
June 18, 2017
If you ever happen to walk up to a fresh water lake and see me in it, go find a damn life preserver and toss it in, immediately. There are only two reasons that I'd ever stick one toe in that leech-infested nastiness: I have fallen in and I am drowning, or I'm rescuing another person who is drowning. Either way, we require assistance.
Similarly, if you ever happen to walk up and see me with a fishing pole in my hand, you can consider me the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse. The day I stick bait on a hook to fish will symbolize the End Times and you can know with great certainty that all men on the planet are now dead.
So, if you happen to know the general plot of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing, you can understand, with confidence, that I have very little in common with the Unnamed Protagonist. We both might have had unusual parents, but the commonalities stop there.
Unnamed Protagonist is a woodsy gal, not necessarily by choice, but by a plan of her father's making. She and her brother were raised by their bizarre parents on a remote island surrounded by a remote village somewhere in a remote and very Catholic corner of Quebec.
And in case this sounds idyllic to any of you compost-your-own-waste types, it's not. It's agony. As far as this reader can tell, Mom was a distant/aloof type and Dad was occasionally cool but waaay out there in his thinking. Neither parent supported the natural social growth or adolescent curiosity of their offspring, and when the kids went to school in the city during the winters, they suffered as the subjects of a cruel scrutiny and social disdain.
Plus, they had to use an outhouse. God-help-me.
The bottom line is. . . Unnamed Protagonist is pretty messed up.
And, I'm going to be honest here. . . I kind of hate her. Seriously, I don't know if a woman could be less relatable to me. She is wishy-washy, she is totally disconnected and unattached from her self, other people, and certainly as far distant from a spiritual being as a human can possibly be.
When she morphs into an amoeba or whatever the hell happens to her in the end, her tentacles and whatnot, I'm sort of just hoping that she'll die.
This book is way too I-hate-God and Single-Cell-Organisms-Rule for me. I love Nature, but I can't even begin to tell you how much I DON'T want to return to my primitive state of a pile of mud.
Surfacing has always been my tied-for-least-favorite-with-Alias-Grace Atwood novel, and unfortunately, this reread didn't change my mind.
But, damn it, this woman can write.
Similarly, if you ever happen to walk up and see me with a fishing pole in my hand, you can consider me the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse. The day I stick bait on a hook to fish will symbolize the End Times and you can know with great certainty that all men on the planet are now dead.
So, if you happen to know the general plot of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing, you can understand, with confidence, that I have very little in common with the Unnamed Protagonist. We both might have had unusual parents, but the commonalities stop there.
Unnamed Protagonist is a woodsy gal, not necessarily by choice, but by a plan of her father's making. She and her brother were raised by their bizarre parents on a remote island surrounded by a remote village somewhere in a remote and very Catholic corner of Quebec.
And in case this sounds idyllic to any of you compost-your-own-waste types, it's not. It's agony. As far as this reader can tell, Mom was a distant/aloof type and Dad was occasionally cool but waaay out there in his thinking. Neither parent supported the natural social growth or adolescent curiosity of their offspring, and when the kids went to school in the city during the winters, they suffered as the subjects of a cruel scrutiny and social disdain.
Plus, they had to use an outhouse. God-help-me.
The bottom line is. . . Unnamed Protagonist is pretty messed up.
And, I'm going to be honest here. . . I kind of hate her. Seriously, I don't know if a woman could be less relatable to me. She is wishy-washy, she is totally disconnected and unattached from her self, other people, and certainly as far distant from a spiritual being as a human can possibly be.
When she morphs into an amoeba or whatever the hell happens to her in the end, her tentacles and whatnot, I'm sort of just hoping that she'll die.
This book is way too I-hate-God and Single-Cell-Organisms-Rule for me. I love Nature, but I can't even begin to tell you how much I DON'T want to return to my primitive state of a pile of mud.
Surfacing has always been my tied-for-least-favorite-with-Alias-Grace Atwood novel, and unfortunately, this reread didn't change my mind.
But, damn it, this woman can write.
April 13, 2014
A story of loss and struggle for identity around a remote Canadian lake in the 60s (ish). It starts out slowly and straightforwardly with two couples visiting the remote island cabin that belonged to the narrator’s missing father. However, it becomes evident (I can hardly say “clear�) that there is much more going on. There are tensions between and within the couples, the narrator’s own story is tantalisingly contradictory and it’s not always clear at first whether she’s talking literally or metaphorically. This is acknowledged to some extent, when the narrator checks herself and wants to be sure her memories are her own, rather than other people’s commentary on how they think she felt.
There is plenty of symbolism, principally different types and states of trees (live, stumps, ash, sawdust); problems of understanding between French and English speakers and also between those ostensibly speaking the same language, and watery visions of drowning, inundating and surfacing. There is also a strong anti-American, anti-colonial theme: wanting to repel those who want to take over and spoil the wilderness.
There is plenty of symbolism, principally different types and states of trees (live, stumps, ash, sawdust); problems of understanding between French and English speakers and also between those ostensibly speaking the same language, and watery visions of drowning, inundating and surfacing. There is also a strong anti-American, anti-colonial theme: wanting to repel those who want to take over and spoil the wilderness.
December 19, 2023
Not my favourite Atwood novel. I listened to the audiobook despite owning a physical copy, I just don’t think it would have held my attention.
August 3, 2016
An always thought-provoking, awe-inspiring and disturbing plunge into the depths of Atwood's (early) vision, voice and artistry. Everything and more than I remembered. It reads equally as powerful and mostly as relevant today as it did when I first read it, not so long (these things are relative; I re-read this on my 50th birthday) after it was published in 1972.
I feel sorry for readers who find this plotless, obtuse and unfinished. It is nothing short of perfect, in my mind. Atwood probes memory, language, meaning and identity (personal, national), knitting together a story of a mind unravelling under the pressure of grief, de-individuation, and the conventional social and gender roles that just don't fit and need to be shed like skin. She uses characters, dialogue and scenes to skim in and out of internal and external realities, diving into and through layers of consciousness and back and forth through time. But this is by no means post-modern (or is it? Is this novel pre post-modern? Discuss.). There seems to me nothing meta or deliberately self-conscious happening here. Atwood quickly immerses you and holds you down in the story.
She forces you to pay attention. Every word matters; every image thrums with poetic resonance of what has gone before and what will come after. She constructs her story by deconstructing her protagonist's past, and more specifically, the many layers of self-deception, delusion and imposed meaning (the sediment of personal history) that muddies the truth. Yet, does the protagonist ever really go mad? She devolves; she goes down and in, in order to confront her past and her truth and to emerge whole. The novel is, after all, called Surfacing. That doesn't seem to me insane; it seems necessary.
There's another review to be written about the theme of Canadian national identity that was, in the early 70s, also (re-)surfacing: the Quebec v. rest of Canada theme, which gives the themes of language, of the difficulty communicating, and the idea of separation an entirely new meaning; and Canada v. America, with the idea of cultural appropriation and overtaking violence the undertone. These themes Atwood weaves together with the personal story. And there is, of course, an environmental / conservation theme that is important. So there are these three worlds colliding and transforming--the personal, the political and the natural--providing not just setting and context but illuminating the commentary the novel is making on separation / individuation, self-definition, and identity; creativity and destruction; birth (and rebirth) and death.
Here are some of my favourite bits - spoilers because they mark essential revelations (I would call them plot points, but let's face it, plot is a little too generous a concept). These mark the most Atwoodian use of language: poetic and suggestive, more than descriptive or concrete. They rely on the reader having read carefully to that point; and then they deliver with a gut-punch of comprehension that belies the abstract, disembodied words and images themselves. Read these at the risk of potentially dulling their impact if you're going to read or re-read this novel:
and then (with the always satisfying visceral, gritty Atwood detail; also, read it aloud and hear the SOUND of the words--another element of the poetry):
The best writing, ever. The best writer. Not to diss Munro, but god Atwood should've - should still - get the Nobel.
I feel sorry for readers who find this plotless, obtuse and unfinished. It is nothing short of perfect, in my mind. Atwood probes memory, language, meaning and identity (personal, national), knitting together a story of a mind unravelling under the pressure of grief, de-individuation, and the conventional social and gender roles that just don't fit and need to be shed like skin. She uses characters, dialogue and scenes to skim in and out of internal and external realities, diving into and through layers of consciousness and back and forth through time. But this is by no means post-modern (or is it? Is this novel pre post-modern? Discuss.). There seems to me nothing meta or deliberately self-conscious happening here. Atwood quickly immerses you and holds you down in the story.
She forces you to pay attention. Every word matters; every image thrums with poetic resonance of what has gone before and what will come after. She constructs her story by deconstructing her protagonist's past, and more specifically, the many layers of self-deception, delusion and imposed meaning (the sediment of personal history) that muddies the truth. Yet, does the protagonist ever really go mad? She devolves; she goes down and in, in order to confront her past and her truth and to emerge whole. The novel is, after all, called Surfacing. That doesn't seem to me insane; it seems necessary.
There's another review to be written about the theme of Canadian national identity that was, in the early 70s, also (re-)surfacing: the Quebec v. rest of Canada theme, which gives the themes of language, of the difficulty communicating, and the idea of separation an entirely new meaning; and Canada v. America, with the idea of cultural appropriation and overtaking violence the undertone. These themes Atwood weaves together with the personal story. And there is, of course, an environmental / conservation theme that is important. So there are these three worlds colliding and transforming--the personal, the political and the natural--providing not just setting and context but illuminating the commentary the novel is making on separation / individuation, self-definition, and identity; creativity and destruction; birth (and rebirth) and death.
Here are some of my favourite bits - spoilers because they mark essential revelations (I would call them plot points, but let's face it, plot is a little too generous a concept). These mark the most Atwoodian use of language: poetic and suggestive, more than descriptive or concrete. They rely on the reader having read carefully to that point; and then they deliver with a gut-punch of comprehension that belies the abstract, disembodied words and images themselves. Read these at the risk of potentially dulling their impact if you're going to read or re-read this novel:
and then (with the always satisfying visceral, gritty Atwood detail; also, read it aloud and hear the SOUND of the words--another element of the poetry):
The best writing, ever. The best writer. Not to diss Munro, but god Atwood should've - should still - get the Nobel.
January 19, 2020
In The Evil Dead these kids go and stay in a remote cabin out in the woods and they release evil spirits that want to kill them etc. In Cabin Fever these kids go and stay in a remote cabin out in the woods and catch a flesh eating disease and die and go mad, etc. In The Cabin in the Woods these kids go and stay in a remote cabin way out in the woods where a zombie army tries to kills them etc. Now these are movies but in Surfacing, which is a book, these kids go and stay in a remote cabin out in the woods but the big difference is there are no zombies and flesh eating bugs and evil spirits at all all though are they. It is a profound question.
The couples go fishing and they catch something that I thought was a symbol, but I did not know what it was a symbol of.
The prottergonist does not have a name. This surprises me. It may be no one noticed but you will think that somebody should of read this book before it was printed and pointed this out. So I will have to describe the prottergonist as The Prot as it is easier.
The prot’s father has disappeared and that is why they go to the remote cabin. They think he had gone feral . The situation could be like Man Thing, which is a manga I have read, but it is not, as the Prot’s father does not became a Man Thing. I was thinking that if the father did become a Man Thing he would be waiting in the woods and catch them and rip them up to make more Man Things, but this does not happen.
There is not much action at all. There is no fighting, no gun play, no tree masking, no aliens. For instance, in The Kurosawi Corpse Delivery Service which is a manga I have read there is mutilation, embalming and martial arts fighting, it is an exciting story. But in Surfacing there isn’t any of that. The Prot spends a lot of time looking for somethig, either the missing father or something else. If you ask me, I think it was excitement she was looking for.
I do not recommend this novel and I have to give it a low score. There are better books about kids staying in remote cabins and anyway Cabin Fever is way better, e.g. when the main guy’s foot comes off.
The couples go fishing and they catch something that I thought was a symbol, but I did not know what it was a symbol of.
The prottergonist does not have a name. This surprises me. It may be no one noticed but you will think that somebody should of read this book before it was printed and pointed this out. So I will have to describe the prottergonist as The Prot as it is easier.
The prot’s father has disappeared and that is why they go to the remote cabin. They think he had gone feral . The situation could be like Man Thing, which is a manga I have read, but it is not, as the Prot’s father does not became a Man Thing. I was thinking that if the father did become a Man Thing he would be waiting in the woods and catch them and rip them up to make more Man Things, but this does not happen.
There is not much action at all. There is no fighting, no gun play, no tree masking, no aliens. For instance, in The Kurosawi Corpse Delivery Service which is a manga I have read there is mutilation, embalming and martial arts fighting, it is an exciting story. But in Surfacing there isn’t any of that. The Prot spends a lot of time looking for somethig, either the missing father or something else. If you ask me, I think it was excitement she was looking for.
I do not recommend this novel and I have to give it a low score. There are better books about kids staying in remote cabins and anyway Cabin Fever is way better, e.g. when the main guy’s foot comes off.
March 19, 2024
In one of the languages there are no nouns, only verbs held for a longer moment.
Having ‘surfaced� from binge-reading this short novel, I’m blown sideways. I was expecting some reflective, slightly ascerbic, litfic, not � whatever this turned out to be. Slow-burn psychological horror? 1970s slipstream eco-weird? Sure, you could read this as realist fiction: a young woman’s emotional breakdown and reawakening in the wilderness. The book lays plenty of groundwork for that interpretation.
Or you can take the surreal and supernatural events not as figments of a broken mind, but at their face value, as a true eco-gothic horror story. The ‘horror� results from our anthropocentric point of view, humanity’s estrangement from nature. Atwood’s skills as a poet are on full display, with the text frequently shifting into prose poetry. This particular blend of literary and eldritch might mean Surfacing has only niche appeal, but within that niche it is a total winner.
The characters and dialogue may be dated � from the bellbottoms to the casual misogyny, it’s so very early 1970s � but the book’s ecological concerns are prescient, as are its psychological precursors to our current era’s climate anxiety. Surfacing is a novel ripe for rediscovery as a cult classic.
Having ‘surfaced� from binge-reading this short novel, I’m blown sideways. I was expecting some reflective, slightly ascerbic, litfic, not � whatever this turned out to be. Slow-burn psychological horror? 1970s slipstream eco-weird? Sure, you could read this as realist fiction: a young woman’s emotional breakdown and reawakening in the wilderness. The book lays plenty of groundwork for that interpretation.
Or you can take the surreal and supernatural events not as figments of a broken mind, but at their face value, as a true eco-gothic horror story. The ‘horror� results from our anthropocentric point of view, humanity’s estrangement from nature. Atwood’s skills as a poet are on full display, with the text frequently shifting into prose poetry. This particular blend of literary and eldritch might mean Surfacing has only niche appeal, but within that niche it is a total winner.
The characters and dialogue may be dated � from the bellbottoms to the casual misogyny, it’s so very early 1970s � but the book’s ecological concerns are prescient, as are its psychological precursors to our current era’s climate anxiety. Surfacing is a novel ripe for rediscovery as a cult classic.
July 7, 2020
This novel of Atwood's borders on being speculative fiction. It has neither supernatural nor futuristic elements, but the reader sees into the head of an individual on the verge of insanity. We are shown the world of the central protagonist’s distorted and twisted imagination.
The central protagonist is a woman in her late twenties. She is unnamed and the narrator of the story. She is searching for her missing father, who had been residing on an island in a lake in northern Quebec. She travels there with a lover and another wed couple. It is on this island that she herself grew up. Returning there, leads her to reexamine her life.
The novel could be classified as a psychological thriller, and as such it does not appeal to me. It is intended that the reader be confused. Repeatedly pronouns are used in an ambiguous fashion; often whom they refer to is not clear. The reader is to be kept guessing. We are to be tantalized by the mystery. We are meant to be left in the dark but egged on to search for understanding. I prefer writing that is clear. I don’t like guessing games.
The story’s themes encompass not only the psychological consequences of separation but also Canadian nationalism, feminism and environmental concerns. In my view, the additional themes are simply touched upon. They are mere side commentaries to what is supposed to be an exciting mystery. I do not even think the central mystery of the missing father is adequately probed.
Kim Handysides narrates the audiobook very well. Through the intonations, you hear always who is speaking. The two women and the two men are each easily distinguishable. The voices of the men and the women are equally well done. Each sound as they should sound. The intonations fit the characters� personalities. The narration I have given four stars.
I like some of the lines, but on the whole, the book failed me.
***
* 4 stars
* 4 stars
* 3 stars
* 2 stars
* 1 star
* 1 star
The central protagonist is a woman in her late twenties. She is unnamed and the narrator of the story. She is searching for her missing father, who had been residing on an island in a lake in northern Quebec. She travels there with a lover and another wed couple. It is on this island that she herself grew up. Returning there, leads her to reexamine her life.
The novel could be classified as a psychological thriller, and as such it does not appeal to me. It is intended that the reader be confused. Repeatedly pronouns are used in an ambiguous fashion; often whom they refer to is not clear. The reader is to be kept guessing. We are to be tantalized by the mystery. We are meant to be left in the dark but egged on to search for understanding. I prefer writing that is clear. I don’t like guessing games.
The story’s themes encompass not only the psychological consequences of separation but also Canadian nationalism, feminism and environmental concerns. In my view, the additional themes are simply touched upon. They are mere side commentaries to what is supposed to be an exciting mystery. I do not even think the central mystery of the missing father is adequately probed.
Kim Handysides narrates the audiobook very well. Through the intonations, you hear always who is speaking. The two women and the two men are each easily distinguishable. The voices of the men and the women are equally well done. Each sound as they should sound. The intonations fit the characters� personalities. The narration I have given four stars.
I like some of the lines, but on the whole, the book failed me.
***
* 4 stars
* 4 stars
* 3 stars
* 2 stars
* 1 star
* 1 star
November 11, 2018
A fascinating early work by Atwood, if perhaps not quite one that hits the heights of the likes of Cat's Eye, Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin.
We meet the unnamed narrator travelling north through Quebec in a car with two men and another woman. It transpires that they are two couples, going to investigate the disappearance of her father, who has been living in a remote cabin on a lake island where he has been largely self sufficient. They spend longer than planned on the island, relationships are strained and the final part gets very strange. The story draws the reader in brilliantly as it becomes clear that what she is really investigating is her own past.
We meet the unnamed narrator travelling north through Quebec in a car with two men and another woman. It transpires that they are two couples, going to investigate the disappearance of her father, who has been living in a remote cabin on a lake island where he has been largely self sufficient. They spend longer than planned on the island, relationships are strained and the final part gets very strange. The story draws the reader in brilliantly as it becomes clear that what she is really investigating is her own past.
September 30, 2009
I checked the copyright date on this book and found out that it was first published in 1972. Let's all pause and bow our heads to offer a silent prayer of thanks that Margaret Atwood has improved with time.
The copy I have of this book is part of a larger volume containing three Atwood novels. Because there's no plot synopsis on the back of the book or the inside of the jacket, I dove into it having no idea what it was going to be about. It took me thirty pages to figure it out. For the benefit of future readers, here is my summary: a woman (unnamed, in a very Rebecca-like move) goes to her hometown in Canada with her boyfriend and their two married friends. The narrator grew up on a island in the middle of a lake with her parents and brother, and her father still lives on the island. However, he has disappeared, and the narrator is returning home to find out what happened to him. Without giving away the ending, I will just say that it's confusing as hell and I still don't know what the point of it all was.
I make it sound like a mystery thriller. It is not. That would be much too straightforward for Atwood. Instead, we get pages of run-on sentences about nature and sex and death and I don't even know what else. But even confusing, no-clear-plot Atwood is still Atwood. Here's what her main character says about the paper dolls from her childhood:
"Little girls in gray jumpers and white blouses, braids clipped to their heads with pink plastic barrettes, owned and directed them; they would bring them to school and parade them at recess, propping them up against the worn brick wall, feet in the snow, paper dresses no protection against the icy wind, inventing for them dances and parties, celebrations, interminable changing of costumes, a slavery of pleasure."
Whoa.
The copy I have of this book is part of a larger volume containing three Atwood novels. Because there's no plot synopsis on the back of the book or the inside of the jacket, I dove into it having no idea what it was going to be about. It took me thirty pages to figure it out. For the benefit of future readers, here is my summary: a woman (unnamed, in a very Rebecca-like move) goes to her hometown in Canada with her boyfriend and their two married friends. The narrator grew up on a island in the middle of a lake with her parents and brother, and her father still lives on the island. However, he has disappeared, and the narrator is returning home to find out what happened to him. Without giving away the ending, I will just say that it's confusing as hell and I still don't know what the point of it all was.
I make it sound like a mystery thriller. It is not. That would be much too straightforward for Atwood. Instead, we get pages of run-on sentences about nature and sex and death and I don't even know what else. But even confusing, no-clear-plot Atwood is still Atwood. Here's what her main character says about the paper dolls from her childhood:
"Little girls in gray jumpers and white blouses, braids clipped to their heads with pink plastic barrettes, owned and directed them; they would bring them to school and parade them at recess, propping them up against the worn brick wall, feet in the snow, paper dresses no protection against the icy wind, inventing for them dances and parties, celebrations, interminable changing of costumes, a slavery of pleasure."
Whoa.
September 18, 2018
The second Atwood book I have read, and it was just as absorbing and as striking as the first, . Having finished just before I started on this, reading this felt like a companion book to The Vegetarian. Both books have female protagonists that develop an aversion for animal flesh and human beings and later themselves and retreat into themselves but with varying repercussions.
The unnamed female protagonist, together with three others leave the city for a cabin by a lake in the woods she grew up in. Experiencing the loss of her parents, the protagonist combs through her past and nature to find links that connect her to her childhood and her family.
Through the protagonist, Atwood examines the destructive nature of human beings, against each other and the other living creatures they have to share spaces with. In such vivid prose she transports the reader to a Canadian lake surrounded by woods.
The protagonist's final realization and arrival was such a spectacular ending to this book:
"This above all, to refuse to be a victim. Unless I can do that I can do nothing. I have to recant, give up the old belief that I am powerless and because of it nothing I can do will ever hurt anyone. A lie which was always more disastrous than the truth would have been."
The unnamed female protagonist, together with three others leave the city for a cabin by a lake in the woods she grew up in. Experiencing the loss of her parents, the protagonist combs through her past and nature to find links that connect her to her childhood and her family.
Through the protagonist, Atwood examines the destructive nature of human beings, against each other and the other living creatures they have to share spaces with. In such vivid prose she transports the reader to a Canadian lake surrounded by woods.
The protagonist's final realization and arrival was such a spectacular ending to this book:
"This above all, to refuse to be a victim. Unless I can do that I can do nothing. I have to recant, give up the old belief that I am powerless and because of it nothing I can do will ever hurt anyone. A lie which was always more disastrous than the truth would have been."
Read
March 17, 2022Oh this book... I am not sure I can describe or even fully know it's effect on me.
I can say that I like, respect and have enjoyed all of Atwood's book that I have read, it's just that , and maybe you can hear the 'but' in my voice. This is something else, like , it has a power that her other books (speaking of those which I have read) don't. It feels like something that she gave birth to, and the reading experience is like being present at that birth, the books of her's that I have read post Catseye are are neater, calmer works despite the shared themes. I have mentioned Catseye, now for the third time, because they seem to share the most in common and are most explicitly shaped by Atwood's childhood in northern Canada and her relatively late introduction to the world of religion. Both novels share an absent brother whose presence is felt, both have a narrator who has studied art, and in both cases the narrator like Atwood spent their earlier childhoods mostly in Canada's far north and neither feel themselves to be part of Canadian society, they are conscious of having to learn everything from scratch. Both are classic literary observer figures, reporting back to us on an alien world in which they attempt to pass as natives.
In this novel there is more explicit anti-Americanism than in Catseye, and it is of a different kind to that in her later novels which are generally unlove letters to the USA in one way or another.
But maybe you expect to learn something explicit about the book? The first page begins the flow of continuous text which ends on the last page, softly with an open ending. In between various things happen and don't happen, we learn something of the life of this young women who is narrating the story, why she is with the people she is with. And we see her surfacing, like a whale. Powerfully, as we come to know the events that pressure her and cause her to need to give birth to herself.
Sorry, that's your lot, this is one better experienced than described.
"The lake is quiet, the trees surround me, asking & giving nothing."
I can say that I like, respect and have enjoyed all of Atwood's book that I have read, it's just that , and maybe you can hear the 'but' in my voice. This is something else, like , it has a power that her other books (speaking of those which I have read) don't. It feels like something that she gave birth to, and the reading experience is like being present at that birth, the books of her's that I have read post Catseye are are neater, calmer works despite the shared themes. I have mentioned Catseye, now for the third time, because they seem to share the most in common and are most explicitly shaped by Atwood's childhood in northern Canada and her relatively late introduction to the world of religion. Both novels share an absent brother whose presence is felt, both have a narrator who has studied art, and in both cases the narrator like Atwood spent their earlier childhoods mostly in Canada's far north and neither feel themselves to be part of Canadian society, they are conscious of having to learn everything from scratch. Both are classic literary observer figures, reporting back to us on an alien world in which they attempt to pass as natives.
In this novel there is more explicit anti-Americanism than in Catseye, and it is of a different kind to that in her later novels which are generally unlove letters to the USA in one way or another.
But maybe you expect to learn something explicit about the book? The first page begins the flow of continuous text which ends on the last page, softly with an open ending. In between various things happen and don't happen, we learn something of the life of this young women who is narrating the story, why she is with the people she is with. And we see her surfacing, like a whale. Powerfully, as we come to know the events that pressure her and cause her to need to give birth to herself.
Sorry, that's your lot, this is one better experienced than described.
"The lake is quiet, the trees surround me, asking & giving nothing."
January 14, 2016
I don't even know how to start to review this. It's hard to believe that this was just Atwood's second novel. The writing is so powerful it knocked me off my feet in places. I had an extremely emotional response to this book. I actually finished it last night but I wanted to think about it a bit before I gave it five stars. The ending almost brought it down a star but after thinking about it more I've decided that it is worth the full 5.
The story starts out with an unnamed narrator who is on a trip to a remote cabin with her boyfriend and a married couple. She is going there to look for her estranged father who has disappeared. The couple and the boyfriend are filming a documentary and are hoping for some footage.
The narrator is extremely damaged from her past which she is not completely honest with herself about. The couple have a marriage that is crumbling.
In her search for her father our narrator comes face to face with her own demons and it's not a pretty picture.
I'm so glad that I read this and I definitely need more Margaret Atwood in my life.
The story starts out with an unnamed narrator who is on a trip to a remote cabin with her boyfriend and a married couple. She is going there to look for her estranged father who has disappeared. The couple and the boyfriend are filming a documentary and are hoping for some footage.
The narrator is extremely damaged from her past which she is not completely honest with herself about. The couple have a marriage that is crumbling.
In her search for her father our narrator comes face to face with her own demons and it's not a pretty picture.
I'm so glad that I read this and I definitely need more Margaret Atwood in my life.
January 10, 2022
بعد از آدمکش کور، این دومین کتابیه که از مارگارت اتود میخونم. کتاب در مورد زنی است که به نظرم رفتارهایش خیلی عادی نبود و همین باعث سردرگمی من میشد و اینکه اوایلش خیلی نتونستم باهاش ارتباط برقرار کنم ولی از اواسط کتاب به بعد خیلی بهتر شد. صد صفحه� آخر کتاب رو واقعا دوست داشتم. زمانیک� زن در جستجوی پدر گمشدش و گذشتها� و به جزیرها� میرود؛ واقعا برام جالب بود. خیلی قشنگ تنهایی و حسرته� و� نگرانیها� یک زن، دل کندن از گذشته و کنار آمدن با تمام خاطرات را نوشته بود. کتاب پر از تعلیقه. ترجمه هم خوب بود.
February 22, 2018
This was a really interesting read. I think it would have had more of an impact on me personally if I was able to read it in a sitting or two (but, alas, life inhibits uninterrupted reading). Surfacing resonates with many other works by Atwood, such as the MaddAddam trilogy and The Edible Woman. At first the writing style bothered me with the constant commas and seemingly unending sentences, but as I got into the novel, this style to facilitate the reader's comprehension of the narrator's stream of consciousness. This work, as many of Atwood's, comments on the physical nature of women, including the intricacies of childbirth, and the roles of men and women in domestic life. Though the narrator doesn't go into specific details, it is clear that there is political/socio-cultural tension between Canada and America. The narrator often mentions that a "disease" is spreading (up from American into Canada), but this is more of a metaphor for the spreading of capitalist American ideals and values encroaching on Canada's innate remoteness. I think the title refers to the narrator; throughout the book she is working to distance herself from the restrictions imparted on society, especially women, in everyday life. By the end, she is finally able to escape the institutionalized expectations of the female/human role and "surface" anew.
December 10, 2020
Surfacing by Margaret Atwood to my dismay was mostly unenjoyable.
The story is about two couples who venture out into the Canadian wilderness to look for the main character's missing father.
Initially I found the interplay between the 4 main characters interesting, as it was a good illustration of how some couples function, or don't function as it were.
But, I need to confess, there was so much of this story I just didn't understand. In fact, as I was barrelling towards the end, I felt the whole thing spinning out of control.
I believe the themes involve nature, madness, prehistoric history, vegetables, abhorrence of the modern world, self-sufficiency and maybe spirits - I think.
My first Atwood book, shame because it hasn't given me an appetite for more of her work. I was really happy to finish it.
2 Stars
The story is about two couples who venture out into the Canadian wilderness to look for the main character's missing father.
Initially I found the interplay between the 4 main characters interesting, as it was a good illustration of how some couples function, or don't function as it were.
But, I need to confess, there was so much of this story I just didn't understand. In fact, as I was barrelling towards the end, I felt the whole thing spinning out of control.
I believe the themes involve nature, madness, prehistoric history, vegetables, abhorrence of the modern world, self-sufficiency and maybe spirits - I think.
My first Atwood book, shame because it hasn't given me an appetite for more of her work. I was really happy to finish it.
2 Stars
July 15, 2018
This was not an easy read. The story starts out very simply with an unnamed woman who returns to her family home, a cabin in the wilderness of Quebec, Canada. This is not a happy homecoming as she had left home years earlier and has not spoken to anyone in her family since. There is the added layer of her reason for going back. She is hoping to find clues to her father's mysterious disappearance. She is accompanied by her partner, Joe, and a married couple, Anna and David.
As we go deeper into the story, huge themes of national identity, family, love, the role of women, marriage, as well as conservation, environment and mental health begin to surface. There are other themes as well but I don't want to ruin the story for anyone. There is a definite reason why our girl left home without looking back.
The story slowly unfolds through the protagonist's memories and feelings (and at times, lack of feeling or too much feeling. See, not easy.) I didn't see where Margaret Atwood was taking me on our protagonist's journey until the moment where a forgotten episode comes to the surface and causes a crisis of madness and wildness. It really was feral and dream-like, and I felt scared for her. It was the best part of the whole story.
The writing, of course, is so good and I never wanted it to end. This is the type of book that requires a second reading. There is just too much to take in the first time. The book takes place in the 70s but the themes are very timely.
As we go deeper into the story, huge themes of national identity, family, love, the role of women, marriage, as well as conservation, environment and mental health begin to surface. There are other themes as well but I don't want to ruin the story for anyone. There is a definite reason why our girl left home without looking back.
The story slowly unfolds through the protagonist's memories and feelings (and at times, lack of feeling or too much feeling. See, not easy.) I didn't see where Margaret Atwood was taking me on our protagonist's journey until the moment where a forgotten episode comes to the surface and causes a crisis of madness and wildness. It really was feral and dream-like, and I felt scared for her. It was the best part of the whole story.
The writing, of course, is so good and I never wanted it to end. This is the type of book that requires a second reading. There is just too much to take in the first time. The book takes place in the 70s but the themes are very timely.
December 29, 2014
Margaret Atwood's second novel and one I'm reading for the first time.
Atwood digs deep into the female psyche, as well as the human psyche, probing and poking in all the dark underwater caves that the modern world has separated us from. Her unnamed protagonist is searching for her missing father in a remote area of northeast Canada. She has brought along her current lover and a married couple whom, removed from their city life in Toronto, she is able to see clearly and critically, and bit by bit she comes to measure how far removed she has become from the more conscious life of her childhood.
She first misinterprets what she finds in her father's cabin, but while trying to decipher what she believes are clues to his whereabouts, she ends up having a deep epiphany and helps unfreeze her own traumatized mind. Giving the slip to her friends, she reverts back to a more wild version of herself, more in tune with the natural world she believes she has left behind, and finally able to live free again - or is she?.
Atwood uses this story to explore the traumas of abortion, unchecked development, imbalance between male and female partners, and Canadian resentment towards all those killer Americans. She pulls no punches and I found myself turning the pages to see just how deep she would go - and she did not disappoint!
Highly recommended.
Atwood digs deep into the female psyche, as well as the human psyche, probing and poking in all the dark underwater caves that the modern world has separated us from. Her unnamed protagonist is searching for her missing father in a remote area of northeast Canada. She has brought along her current lover and a married couple whom, removed from their city life in Toronto, she is able to see clearly and critically, and bit by bit she comes to measure how far removed she has become from the more conscious life of her childhood.
She first misinterprets what she finds in her father's cabin, but while trying to decipher what she believes are clues to his whereabouts, she ends up having a deep epiphany and helps unfreeze her own traumatized mind. Giving the slip to her friends, she reverts back to a more wild version of herself, more in tune with the natural world she believes she has left behind, and finally able to live free again - or is she?.
Atwood uses this story to explore the traumas of abortion, unchecked development, imbalance between male and female partners, and Canadian resentment towards all those killer Americans. She pulls no punches and I found myself turning the pages to see just how deep she would go - and she did not disappoint!
Highly recommended.
March 23, 2023
Margaret Atwood's writing is so vivid, and so clear-eyed in looking at people and their intentions and limitations. This book is somewhat an artifact of its time - I immediately guessed it had been written in the early 1970's - but it is also timeless in many ways. It is also a compelling read, something I needed after struggling with a couple of the books I am "actively" reading; Atwood's prose never disappoints, and her cutting insights about human nature are witty and unsparing.
October 5, 2008
I got about 2/3 of the way through this book and finally had to give up on it. Sure, the language was lovely and descriptive, but the plot just wouldn't move. There was a bit of suspense that something interesting could happen any second, but it just. never. did. I sensed that there may have been a more esoteric point to it all that I just wasn't getting yet, but I couldn't bring myself to care enough to stick with it anymore and find out, because really, if it was there, Ms. Atwood should have revealed SOME hint of it by the point I reached. I couldn't even feel for the characters. I found nothing to enjoy about it, but at least it was free.
*EDIT*SPOILERS**
OK, so I picked this back up recently, and I get the point now. Our heroine's mind slowly unravels while visiting her childhood home in the woods on a lake, with a small group of friends from the city whom she has brought along despite (or because of) feeling like an outsider among them and having zero emotional investment in them, and perhaps just zero emotion in general. It seems to be a statement on the return to the natural and the primitive as a response to the fucked-up-ness of modern life. The atmosphere remains well-crafted throughout the entire book, and I can understand a need to delay the plot advancement somewhat in the interest of developing said atmosphere, or, say, the characters, but there was just too much for this reader to trudge through, with little payoff. As for that character development, I can see how perhaps the lack thereof was a purposeful attempt to give the reader the same disconnection from them that our heroine feels, but it all just left me bored and feeling like I was wasting my time.
*EDIT*SPOILERS**
OK, so I picked this back up recently, and I get the point now. Our heroine's mind slowly unravels while visiting her childhood home in the woods on a lake, with a small group of friends from the city whom she has brought along despite (or because of) feeling like an outsider among them and having zero emotional investment in them, and perhaps just zero emotion in general. It seems to be a statement on the return to the natural and the primitive as a response to the fucked-up-ness of modern life. The atmosphere remains well-crafted throughout the entire book, and I can understand a need to delay the plot advancement somewhat in the interest of developing said atmosphere, or, say, the characters, but there was just too much for this reader to trudge through, with little payoff. As for that character development, I can see how perhaps the lack thereof was a purposeful attempt to give the reader the same disconnection from them that our heroine feels, but it all just left me bored and feeling like I was wasting my time.
September 2, 2016
I just want to start by saying that I've read some strange books, but this one's definitely up there. There's only one thing I'm sure about, and that's that the writing is gorgeous. This is my first Atwood novel, and I will definitely be reading more. Beyond that, I'm not really sure what happened.
The protagonist, a young woman from whose perspective the book is told but whose name is never revealed, returns to northern Quebec to the remote island of her childhood, with her lover and two friends, to investigate the disappearance of her father.
'Surfacing' explores personal, national, and gendered identity; the pressure of society; grief and loss; isolation and separation; and memory and language, and it does so in exquisite prose. Whether you see the ending to this book as complete or incomplete, and as portraying a woman driven to insanity or clarity and realisation, this is clearly a dark, powerful, and thought-provoking book. And at a mere 186 pages, you've nothing to lose by giving it a go.
"the Eskimoes had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them, there ought to be as many for love."
The protagonist, a young woman from whose perspective the book is told but whose name is never revealed, returns to northern Quebec to the remote island of her childhood, with her lover and two friends, to investigate the disappearance of her father.
'Surfacing' explores personal, national, and gendered identity; the pressure of society; grief and loss; isolation and separation; and memory and language, and it does so in exquisite prose. Whether you see the ending to this book as complete or incomplete, and as portraying a woman driven to insanity or clarity and realisation, this is clearly a dark, powerful, and thought-provoking book. And at a mere 186 pages, you've nothing to lose by giving it a go.
"the Eskimoes had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them, there ought to be as many for love."
February 10, 2017
Ever-insightful Margaret Atwood, who creates flawed and unlikable characters, projects us into their heads and makes us sympathize with them. I have yet to run into an Atwood novel I didn't enjoy, but I also think that this book is not quite the same caliber as some of her later work.
A woman goes back to the small Quebec village of her childhood vacation to look for her estranged father, who was reported missing. She doesn't really want to see him, but she needs to know he is safe. She brings her boyfriend Joe and their friend David and Anna on this little expedition, and like any situation where four people are stuck together in the middle of nowhere, it doesn't go very well. Her relationship with her boyfriend is strained, and their friends' relationship hides its own dysfunction under a veneer of normal happiness.
That story appealed to me for so many reasons: I was on very familiar territory with her setting and her nameless main character's deep need to escape it. I was amused by the way her city friends find the small, run down village to be cute and authentic when the people living in it would have rather been anywhere than there. But city people and country-side people always treat the other like zoo animals... I underlined many interesting reflections on social awkwardness, and the struggle of the introverts and how little the behavioral expectations of women and children have changed in the last forty years. Ms. Atwood doesn't miss much, does she?
I've noticed in "The Edible Woman" that Atwood is not afraid of going deep into a woman's mind and unearth the things she thought, did or felt that were completely unacceptable for the place and time the story is set at. She did it again with "Surfacing", which takes place in the early 70's. The narrator feels detached from her family; not just her parents, but her ex-husband and her child are also beings she feels no connection to whatsoever, an unimaginable sentiment to voice back then - barely acceptable to express even now. Also like "The Edible Woman", the protagonist in this novel sees her sanity slip away slowly when the pressures of other people's expectations become unbearable and un-relatable.
The male characters in "Surfacing" are obnoxiously misogynistic: given that this was written around the same time it is set in, it makes me really angry to think that women were subjected to this sort of talk on a daily basis (from their husbands!) and that this was considered perfectly normal. You begin to sympathize with the main character's revulsion at the idea of marriage if this is what she can be expected to deal with...
"He's got this little set of rules. If I break one of them, I get punished, except he keeps changing them so I am never sure."
As I read that line, I had a thought for a friend who has been stuck in a toxic relationship for months and I wondered why it is so hard for some people to simply be respectful and honest with their partners. Plus ça change...
I can see how some people wouldn't like this kind of book: there's not much action, and it is extremely introspective, a hashing out of memories the reader can easily loose their way into. The immersive narrative puts you in the middle of this woman's inner monologue and that can get unnerving, but I enjoyed it. Atwood's prose is evocative enough to make you feel like the story is happening to you and if you don't mind feeling slightly uncomfortable at time, it's a fascinating experience.
But as it's her second published work, it's not quite as tightly weaved as her later work like "The Blind Assassin" or "Cat's Eye" and some passages are a little too abstract for me (though I sense the Virginia Woolf fan in Atwood in those passages). But it's still a great character study, pretty and gritty all at once. If you are new to Atwood, I wouldn't recommend you start there: she has more accessible works out there that make for better introduction to her talent.
A woman goes back to the small Quebec village of her childhood vacation to look for her estranged father, who was reported missing. She doesn't really want to see him, but she needs to know he is safe. She brings her boyfriend Joe and their friend David and Anna on this little expedition, and like any situation where four people are stuck together in the middle of nowhere, it doesn't go very well. Her relationship with her boyfriend is strained, and their friends' relationship hides its own dysfunction under a veneer of normal happiness.
That story appealed to me for so many reasons: I was on very familiar territory with her setting and her nameless main character's deep need to escape it. I was amused by the way her city friends find the small, run down village to be cute and authentic when the people living in it would have rather been anywhere than there. But city people and country-side people always treat the other like zoo animals... I underlined many interesting reflections on social awkwardness, and the struggle of the introverts and how little the behavioral expectations of women and children have changed in the last forty years. Ms. Atwood doesn't miss much, does she?
I've noticed in "The Edible Woman" that Atwood is not afraid of going deep into a woman's mind and unearth the things she thought, did or felt that were completely unacceptable for the place and time the story is set at. She did it again with "Surfacing", which takes place in the early 70's. The narrator feels detached from her family; not just her parents, but her ex-husband and her child are also beings she feels no connection to whatsoever, an unimaginable sentiment to voice back then - barely acceptable to express even now. Also like "The Edible Woman", the protagonist in this novel sees her sanity slip away slowly when the pressures of other people's expectations become unbearable and un-relatable.
The male characters in "Surfacing" are obnoxiously misogynistic: given that this was written around the same time it is set in, it makes me really angry to think that women were subjected to this sort of talk on a daily basis (from their husbands!) and that this was considered perfectly normal. You begin to sympathize with the main character's revulsion at the idea of marriage if this is what she can be expected to deal with...
"He's got this little set of rules. If I break one of them, I get punished, except he keeps changing them so I am never sure."
As I read that line, I had a thought for a friend who has been stuck in a toxic relationship for months and I wondered why it is so hard for some people to simply be respectful and honest with their partners. Plus ça change...
I can see how some people wouldn't like this kind of book: there's not much action, and it is extremely introspective, a hashing out of memories the reader can easily loose their way into. The immersive narrative puts you in the middle of this woman's inner monologue and that can get unnerving, but I enjoyed it. Atwood's prose is evocative enough to make you feel like the story is happening to you and if you don't mind feeling slightly uncomfortable at time, it's a fascinating experience.
But as it's her second published work, it's not quite as tightly weaved as her later work like "The Blind Assassin" or "Cat's Eye" and some passages are a little too abstract for me (though I sense the Virginia Woolf fan in Atwood in those passages). But it's still a great character study, pretty and gritty all at once. If you are new to Atwood, I wouldn't recommend you start there: she has more accessible works out there that make for better introduction to her talent.
May 20, 2020
A dreary narrative from a protagonist who seems to be stuck in some sort of apathetic trance. Everything from the protagonist's childhood, relationships and occupation is totally lifeless, and what's worse is that the narrative is not following a plot line. This book only gave me a very vague idea of who the woman in the story is, and what role she plays for the people in her life.
I failed to see the depth in this novel that so many people applaud. Margaret Atwood has things to say about relationships, friendships, life etc. in this book, but perhaps she should have just written an essay instead of addressing them in this tedious novel.
I did not finish.
I failed to see the depth in this novel that so many people applaud. Margaret Atwood has things to say about relationships, friendships, life etc. in this book, but perhaps she should have just written an essay instead of addressing them in this tedious novel.
I did not finish.
April 9, 2020
Read for college
The only thing that kept me going isthe grade I will get on my assignment for it the sole amount of anger and resentment I felt while reading it.
The only thing that kept me going is
November 6, 2020
166th book of 2020.
3.5. This is my third Atwood book after The Handmaid's Tale (which I studied in college) and The Blind Assassin (which I read of my own accord at University). Atwood has always interested me as a writer but never particularly enchanted me. Here was the first time I was genuinely stunned by her control of language; the prose in Surfacing is wonderful, a true pleasure to read from start to finish.
The plot, rather stylistically, progresses gently, bobbing, or rippling. Things are left hidden throughout the book, we can see them, just about, but they only surface towards the end. Somehow, Atwood has created the feel of swimming, or diving, with the prose. The novel itself is partly a mystery, and partly a reflection on the self: in this case, the self being the unnamed narrator. Her father went missing many years ago and she returns to the place of her past with her boyfriend and two other friends.
Surfacing is a love-letter to Atwood's homeland of Canada; the descriptions, as I have suggested, are vivid and the musings of our narrator are engaging.
Though, despite only being shy of 200 pages, all this pales slightly as the plot ripples on with its quiet intensity. By the end, I was almost entirely worn out and glad to read the final page. A sort of Atwoodian nature does take hold of the plot at around 75% of the way through, as we begin to realise our narrator is not of a wholly sane mind.
But, Surfacing was only her second novel and it's no surprise that she has led a long literary career after such a book as this.
Atwood in Toronto, 1972: the year of Surfacing's publication. Photo from The Guardian.
3.5. This is my third Atwood book after The Handmaid's Tale (which I studied in college) and The Blind Assassin (which I read of my own accord at University). Atwood has always interested me as a writer but never particularly enchanted me. Here was the first time I was genuinely stunned by her control of language; the prose in Surfacing is wonderful, a true pleasure to read from start to finish.
The plot, rather stylistically, progresses gently, bobbing, or rippling. Things are left hidden throughout the book, we can see them, just about, but they only surface towards the end. Somehow, Atwood has created the feel of swimming, or diving, with the prose. The novel itself is partly a mystery, and partly a reflection on the self: in this case, the self being the unnamed narrator. Her father went missing many years ago and she returns to the place of her past with her boyfriend and two other friends.
Surfacing is a love-letter to Atwood's homeland of Canada; the descriptions, as I have suggested, are vivid and the musings of our narrator are engaging.
The blueberries were only beginning to ripen, the dots of them showing against the green like first rain pocking the lake.
The shoreline unrolls and folds together again as we go past; forty miles from here there's another village, in between there's nothing but a tangled maze, low hills curving out of the water, bays branching in, peninsulas which turn into islands, islands, necks of land leading to other lakes.
The forest thickens and I watch for blazes, still visible after fourteen years; the trees they're cut on have grown swollen edges around the wounds, scar tissue.
Though, despite only being shy of 200 pages, all this pales slightly as the plot ripples on with its quiet intensity. By the end, I was almost entirely worn out and glad to read the final page. A sort of Atwoodian nature does take hold of the plot at around 75% of the way through, as we begin to realise our narrator is not of a wholly sane mind.
It was before I was born but I can remember it as clearly as if I saw it, and perhaps I did see it: I believe that an unborn baby has its eyes open and can look out through the walls of the mother's stomach, like a frog in a jar.
I sum him up, dividing him into categories: he's good in bed, better than the one before; he's moody but he's not much bother, we split the rent and he doesn't talk much, that's an advantage. When he suggested we should live together I didn't hesitate. It wasn't even a real decision, it was more like buying a goldfish or a plotted cactus plant, not because you want one ni advance but because you happen to be in the store and you see them lined up on the counter. I'm fond of him, I'd rather have him around than not; though it would be nice if he meant something more to me. The fact that he doesn't makes me sad: no one has since my husband. A divorce is like an amputation, you survive but there's less of you.
When you can't tell the difference between your own pleasure and your pain then you're an addict. I did that, I fed him unlimited supplies of nothing, he wasn't ready for it, it was too strong for him, he had to fill it up, like people isolated in a blank room who see patterns.
But, Surfacing was only her second novel and it's no surprise that she has led a long literary career after such a book as this.
Atwood in Toronto, 1972: the year of Surfacing's publication. Photo from The Guardian.
May 24, 2018
Surfacing, or all the way you can be haunted - by your childhood, your parents, your marriage, your brother who may or may not have drowned before or after you were born - you may remember him, you may never have met him. Shadows and ghosts follow us. The past is never the past (I read that line somewhere. Where? I can’t remember).
This is a little bit In the Lake of the Woods and a little bit The Bell Jar. It’s bitter and broken and strange. Or it might all be PTSD from
He said he loved me, the magic word, it was supposed to make everything light up. I’ll never trust that word again.
**edit: I was thinking of Faulkner. "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
This is a little bit In the Lake of the Woods and a little bit The Bell Jar. It’s bitter and broken and strange. Or it might all be PTSD from
He said he loved me, the magic word, it was supposed to make everything light up. I’ll never trust that word again.
**edit: I was thinking of Faulkner. "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
November 17, 2015
This was my third reading of Surfacing and I'm still not sure I totally get it. Each read has been rewarding though. It went up a star for me this time. I think this novel works a lot like a poem. It's about what you feel rather than what can be perfectly, clearly articulated.
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