Surfacing

Title: Surfacing

Author: Margaret Atwood

Number of pages: 186

Started: 14 March 2009

Finished: 18 March 2009

Opening words:

I can't believe I am on this road again, twisting along past the lake where the white birches are dying, the disease is spreading up from the south, and I notice they now have seaplanes for hire. But this is still near the city limits; we didn't go through, it's swelled enough to have a bypass, that's success.

Plot summary:

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.

What I thought:

I always have mixed views about Margaret Atwood’s books. Of her books, this is probably the one that I have enjoyed the most. I thought it was a good read and I enjoyed the plot and the way it was written. Some of the reviews that I have read about it don’t really seem to fit with what actually happened in the book, but I can see that this might not be ideal reading as an assigned text at school and had I read it then I don’t think I would have liked it.

So all in all I thought it was a good book and has made me feel that it might be worth persevering with her books a bit longer. It does have a weird ending though...