This isn’t the book I really wanted to read for this year’s Margaret Atwood Reading Month (hosted by Marcie of Buried in Print) – that would have been The Blind Assassin, but it’s such a long book I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish it in time. Surfacing is much shorter – in fact, at just under 200 pages in my edition, it also qualifies for Novellas in November – so I decided to read it instead. I suspect I would have enjoyed The Blind Assassin more, though; I found a lot to interest me in Surfacing, but I can’t say that I particularly loved it.
First published in 1972, the book is narrated by an unnamed woman who travels to her childhood home on a remote island in northern Quebec in search of her father, who has gone missing. She’s accompanied by her boyfriend, Joe, and another couple – her friend Anna and her husband, David. The narrator has never been back to the island since getting divorced years earlier as she felt too ashamed to talk to her parents about her marriage and why it ended. Now her mother is dead and her father’s old friend, Paul, has contacted her to tell her that her father has disappeared from his cabin by the lake.
Joe and David have brought a camera along with them, hoping to find some interesting scenes to film for a documentary they’re making called Random Samples. While they focus on that, the narrator tries to find out what has happened to her father, but it’s clear that even if she finds him she doesn’t particularly want to speak to him and that the whole experience is bringing back memories she has been trying to forget.
Suppressed memories coming back to the surface could be one explanation for the title of the novel; another is the psychological resurfacing of the narrator as she tries to move on from the past and go forward with her life. The lake which forms such a big part of the setting is also symbolic of hidden depths and things rising to the surface. As the book progresses we begin to see just how much the narrator has been hiding from us, from her friends and even from herself.
This is a sad, poignant story in many ways and the narrator is obviously deeply damaged by the traumatic events of her past. All she tells us about her marriage at first is that she had a husband once and there was a child, but it eventually emerges that there was more to the situation than she has revealed – and her failure to come to terms with what happened is impacting her new relationship with Joe. Meanwhile as we learn more about Anna and David, we see that their marriage is not a happy one either and is quite disturbing on several levels. There also seems to be a strong anti-American sentiment running through the book, with the narrator and her friends very hostile towards any Americans they meet; it’s not really explained why they feel like that, but I’m assuming the book is a product of its time. I did like the Quebec setting as I’ve read very little fiction set there and I was interested in the way Atwood writes about the barriers to communication between French and English speakers and how the narrator feels like an outsider in her father’s community because of her inability to speak fluent French.
I got quite a lot out of this book, then, but I also felt that there was a lot I didn’t really understand and didn’t know how to interpret. I found the insular, unreliable narrator difficult to connect with as much as I would have liked to and the other characters were either unpleasant or held at arm’s length by the narrator. It’s definitely not a favourite Atwood novel, but I’m still glad I read it and will look forward to reading The Blind Assassin when I have more time!
She Reads Novels 
I also found it a bit cold and unengaging compared to other Atwood books. The Blind Assassin is a lot richer, so hopefully you’ll enjoy that more – although it’s far from being my favourite. (That would be Alias Grace).
Alias Grace is my favourite Atwood book so far too, although I still have a lot left to read. I think The Blind Assassin sounds like something I would enjoy so I’m pleased to hear you found it better than this one.
It’s a long time since I read this, and being early Atwood I don’t know how I would find it now – I suspect it might be very much of its time. Maybe I’ll have to plan yet another retirement project of re-reading all of her novels in order!!
I’ve just been reading her books at random as I come across them, but reading (or re-reading) in order sounds like an interesting project!
Bill has been kind of doing that in his MARM reading (although I don’t think her books are quite so ubiquitous in Australia) and it’s been really interesting to see how he experiences her “from the beginning”.
Sometimes I think Atwood is brilliant, and other times I think she is a little too weird for me. But this one sounds worth reading. I haven’t read any Atwood for a while.
Yes, I definitely think this one is worth reading, although I didn’t like it as much as some of her others.
A timely nudge for me to read another Atwood! Given your reviews generally, I think you’ll revel in The Blind Assassin. It is marmite, though – I was nearly lynched by my book group for making them read it! You either get it or you don’t, I guess!
Yes, I’m hoping The Blind Assassin will be more to my taste than this one was. I’ll find out soon!
I read this years ago and don’t really remember much. I think it was an Atwood that I didn’t fully get on with.
It’s not a book I really got on with either, but it was still an interesting read!
Funnily enough, this and The Blind Assassin have been my favourite Atwoods! Very different, as you say.
My favourites so far are Alias Grace and The Handmaid’s Tale. All of her books seem very different from each other!
That’s so interesting. I hadn’t thought of them in the same breath, but just having finished The Blind Assassin, and reading Helen’s post about Surfacing, I realised just how many similarities there are (inaccessible fathers, caught between two worlds, what we don’t know/understand about the storyteller, changing times economically/politically,etc.) so now I can easily see how you’d be attached to two such seemingly different books at such different career junctures too.
I can completely relate to your response. When I first read this, I felt like it was both the simplest story ever (the dynamics, the setting, even the language so clear and sparse) and it was entirely over my head (but I never surfaced). I can see where it comes across as anti-American, and that sense of “Canadian identity” is the part of the book that I remember most clearly. The roots of the current “Canada should be the 51st state, it’s not a proper country” has, arguably always been a part of Canadian/US relations, but it definitely notched up with some intensity in those years while she would have been writing this book, sparked again in the mid-80s, and again now under the 47th admin. It’s a question of how one remains true to one’s roots/self (whatever what means, when we settlers came into this land as guests but behaved like pirates) when there are bigger and powerful forces standing alongside, with might and a sense of entitlement. Dunno if that’s helpful or only more confusing? Your post makes me want to reread: thanks for writing it! I’m certain you will enjoy TBA more!