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Sep 10, 2008

Aerin rated it:

This is one of the best books I have ever read. I went into it with some skepticism. Though I adore most of Atwood's work, I wasn't a huge fan of The Edible Woman, which was written around the same time as this one. And Surfacing consistently gets rapturous praise from English-major types and mediocre reviews from average readers - this is usually a big red flag that I'll find the book boring, pretentious, and impenetrable. Really, the only reason I picked this up was that it was the only More...

3 comments like (10 people liked it)

Aug 25, 2007

Suzanne rated it:

I first read this book in high school and had absolutely no comprehension of it. A few advanced English classes later, I found myself returning to the book and appreciating it much more.

A nameless narrator goes on a trip with her current boyfriend and another couple, and is forced to confront gender, reproduction, national identity, and language itself. What's fascinating is that this is all internal -- there's very little "action" in the book, but a lot of things ha More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jo rated it:

The more Margaret Atwood I read, the better I feel I "get" her writing. Surfacing is not the type of book I typically enjoy. I'm a fast reader with a short attention span and too often find myself skimming details to find out what happens next. Books like this one, however, don't work that way. The characterizations run deep and Atwood is not afraid to bare her characters' flaws. It's also deeply methaphorical and rather slow-paced, in a traditional sense, but once I caught on, slowe More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Donald rated it:

This book is very fragmented, which I would argue is the primary narrative technique throughout this novel; that's fine but I really wish it would have been a little bit easier to decipher how reliable this narrator was--in this respect Atwood overdid her fragmentary approach. The image of the lynched blue heron is powerful.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 19, 2011

K.D. rated it:

This book was written by the Canadian author Margaret Atwood in the late 60's when Quebec (Canada) was trying to establish itself as an independent French country. One of the novel's characters, David was the most vocal about his hatred to all Americans and their language.

I prefer male writers. Most female writers have the tendency to be too melodramatic and full of crap. However, there are some exceptions like Virginia Woolf and Madame Iris Murdoch who write with intelligence in eve More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 05, 2008

Reese rated it:

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 More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 06, 2008

Jake rated it:

Margaret Atwood says:

You fit into me like a hook in an eye
A fishhook
An open eye

Haha. Well, she was a bit dark and bitter in the 60's and 70's. I haven't read any of her later stuff.

This was a good book, a woman who turns into an animal living on a remote island. For all of us who have turned animal on remote islands and feasted on our companions, hypnotized by the maddening silence and wind in the trees.

Her boyfriend musters up things t More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 01, 2011

Andy rated it:

I picked this up in a camp site book selection earlier this year in a rather isolated area, which seems somewhat fitting.

We spend most of the book in the head of our protagonist, absorbed in the past physically and emotionally as she tries to determine what happened to her missing Father. Very little 'happens' as such but Atwood takes us on a journey none the less.

The language and prose is magical and precise at conjuring a vivid and completely visual wilderness. The envi More...

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Jul 13, 2011

Colin rated it:

As Surfacing comes to a close, it is difficult to tell if the protagonist is losing her sanity or obtaining great clarity. I think most will conclude great clarity, with the added observation that sometimes acting abnormally is really quite normal. It is (Warning: this way rather vague spoilers lie!) possible to grow into feelings for a lost child and father, and it is possible to grow out of feelings for friends and lovers, and though the running from one towards another grows frantic and even More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 27, 2011

Josh rated it:

Damn, this book is great. I've only read two books by Atwood, but this and The Blind Assassin are enough to place among my favorite authors. I love her, even though she is really old and somewhat decrepit. She's a really good writer.

Supposedly this is the type of book that only literary snobs like, so I'm not sure I'd recommend this to very many people. But I'm totally* not a literary snob and this is one of the top 10 best books I've read. Hooray for unexpectedly good reads!
More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 25, 2010

Badly Drawn Girl rated it:

I will admit it took me some time to appreciate this book. I had to read some other people's interpretations, and spend some time thinking before I could honestly evaluate it. This is a book that could be re-read often and the reader would discover new insights and throw away old ones. I wasn't prepared for how deeply I would need to process what I was reading. This is the most challenging of Atwood's books that I've read yet. But there are so many absolutely beautiful sentences in thi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 17, 2010

Juushika rated it:

When her father disappears, the protagonist of Surfacing returns to his remote lakehouse in a search which leads not to her father—but into the wilds of the land and her own past. One of Atwood's earliest novels, Surface's plot is deceptively simple and its themes complex. The real world events of the book are sparse and straightforward, but complexity lies in the protagonist's past and her mental state. Her flawed communication, false memories, and lies make her the consummate unreliable narrat More...

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May 07, 2009

Donna rated it:

"To become like a little child again, a barbarian, a vandal; it was in us too, it was innate."
--Margaret Atwood, Surfacing

Surfacing would be a very interesting book to study. From a literary standpoint, it's deep, rich, and powerful. If Margaret Atwood has not yet been considered for a Pulitzer or Nobel Prize in literature (she's won pretty much every other award), it's just a matter of time.

That said, I didn't like this book. The mood, images, and themes More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 07, 2012

Magdelanye rated it:

Was it my lack of awareness or the author's skill that it wasn't until afterwards, mulling over how to review without a major spoiler, that I realized that this first person narrative never once reveals this first person's name. This realization sent me scurrying back into the pages,but no, even in crucial scenes where it would have been easy to slip it in, I could find no reference.

My imagination is not satisfied.I think of her as Catherine.

In a way, it is entirely fitti More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 29, 2010

Anita rated it:

What this novels lacks in length it makes up for in its mantra like prose. This being my first Atwood I cannot compare it to any of her other works. The protagonist a) hates Americans b) suffers mentally c)has issues with abortion and d) feels anger towards unnessary killing of animals.
It's hard to get over the repeated American bashing but if I were to put that aside for a moment I'm left realizing that Atwood has a lot of talent when it comes to writing.
The protagonist is a very de More...

1 comment like

Sep 03, 2011

Frank rated it:

Canada is a country caught between two powerful and potentially overwhelming and dangerous forces: The United States to the south and the Arctic to the north. It is the relationship to these forces that Margaret Atwood attempts to define in her second novel, Surfacing, from 1973. These two threats imperil and provide the impetus for the development of the Canadian psyche, Canadian culture.

Atwood’s father was a government entomologist, and like the unnamed narrator, she spent her chil More...

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Jan 24, 2011

Alison rated it:

I can't get enough of Margaret Atwood. This won't top my favorites list, but as usual I loved her prose and the almost mischievous peek into the darker side of humanity. She seems loathe to leave out the schoolyard and social scene bullies - characters who aren't evil in the strictest sense but whose petty and mean actions add up. In this story, they surround the protagonist to hinder and distract her from a dual mission of finding her father and reconciling with her past.

I appreciated More...

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Feb 05, 2012

Gaurav rated it:

I bought this book early this morning. I was in the mood for Atwood. This has come to mean a very specific thing for me. I want to say dark but that's unfair to Atwood. Her works are not necessarily dark, though they do tend to tap into those types of feelings, characters. "Deep" that's a better word. Atwood for me is something deep. She has a way of burrowing into the furthest reaches of your mind, your heart, she finds the humanity that exists and brings it to the front.

S More...

2 comments like

Jun 19, 2009

Kaylia rated it:

Surfacing is the story of a woman’s search of self as she searches for signs of her father on her family’s island home. Is he dead? Has he simply faded away in the untamed wilderness? She must know... but it isn’t just him she is looking for, it is a way to connect to him and to herself. She returns to the remote island she grew up on accompanied by two friends who are strangers and her lover and Atwood does a beautiful job of showcasing the difference between the “city” and the “country”, the ‘ More...

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Feb 07, 2012

Gaurav rated it:

I bought this book early this morning. I was in the mood for Atwood. This has come to mean a very specific thing for me. I want to say dark but that's unfair to Atwood. Her works are not necessarily dark, though they do tend to tap into those types of feelings, characters. "Deep" that's a better word. Atwood for me is something deep. She has a way of burrowing into the furthest reaches of your mind, your heart, she finds the humanity that exists and brings it to the front.

More...

0 comments like

Sep 06, 2010

Ron rated it:

I liked this (at the end), but not as much as a few of her other novels. This is complicated. I liked the last 20 pages to an extreme degree. But it took me so long to get into it. There isn't much plot, almost nothing happens, but it's incredibly psychological. Thing is, Atwood is one of the best living writers in English, incredibly perceptive always about human nature and her use of language always superb. Just love her. This was just OK for her.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 15, 2010

Elizabeth rated it:

STRANGE....easiest way to describe it.

The nameless character goes back to her childhood home on a remote island looking for her father....she brings all kinds of emotions and "hangups" with her.

She spends little over a week with her boyfriend and another couple...they all start getting on each other's nerves. When it is time to leave, the nameless heroine hides and doesn't go with them....even stranger things happen when she is there alone.

While the More...

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Mar 05, 2009

Cecily rated it:

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 met More...

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Jun 14, 2011

Jake rated it:

I recently finished "Housekeeping" by Marilynne Robinson and the similarities between these two books are striking. A lake, a drowning, a crazy protagonist, absent parents, odd companions...

Like "Housekeeping" extremely well written but, in the end, not exactly engaging. I am glad it wasn't any longer (200 pages or so).

It was odd to read reviews and comments on Surfacing and to realize that most of what those reviews were very "surface" with lit More...

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Dec 17, 2010

Leslie rated it:

A few days ago, when I was at my favourite used bookstore, I stumbled across Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing. When it was published in 1972, Atwood was elevated to a new level of literary recognition for her caustic portrait of the Canadian wilderness and the wilderness within one woman’s tormented mind (establishing Atwood’s longstanding fascination with the seamy side of nature). But what I remember most vividly about this old novel – from when I plucked it off my mother’s bookshelf and first read More...

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Jun 01, 2009

Kirsten rated it:

I started reading this since my book club was going to discuss it. I was behind every one else - they all finished first - and I decided to finish it even though nearly all the group gave it a negative reading. I was advised not to bother. It was depressing and you should be ready to dislike the characters.

Humph! I did not have that experience at all. I really enjoyed it. (Though, to be fair, I don't think it really qualified as a mystery.) You have to be pretty careful reading Marg More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2009

Rashida rated it:

I finished this book because I can't stand not finishing one. The point where I was tempted to end was only about 2 chapters to go- the twist that happens at the point was just too unbelievable and much too over the top. It took away from the powerful subtlety of what Atwood had accomplished thus far. The things that saved it from being one star: Atwood does write some beautiful, multilayered phrases and I think that part of the book just doesn't translate well 30 years after it was written. More...

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Sep 30, 2009

Madeline rated it:

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 More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2012

Lindsey rated it:

Surfacing follows an unnamed female narrator as she heads back home into the forest of Quebec. Her father has gone missing and she must find out if he is still alive. She is accompanied on this trip by her boyfriend and by another couple.

This is a strange book and not a good entry point if you are picking up your first Atwood. This is a deeply psychological novel chronicling the descent of a young woman into madness. She is far removed from other people, at times seeming like a conspi More...

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Feb 25, 2009

Mookie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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