Margaret Atwood has been described as one of the most important writers of contemporary literature. She is an international best-seller and the winner of more than 50 literary awards, including the prestigious Booker Prize for Literature, as well as Canada’s own Governor General’s Award for both her fiction and her poetry.

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of Atwood’s poetry, as I find it rather stolid and flat. Atwood’s poetry doesn’t jump off the page for me in the oral tradition that I believe poetry belongs in. But Atwood’s novels on the other hand, are an amazing and wonderfully accessible set of work that deserves to be read.

For those who have taken a University-College Canadian Literature course, they may have been introduced to the work of Margaret Atwood, most likely through her first novel, “The Edible Woman,” and of course through some of her poetry. That’s how I was introduced to Atwood, and now I’ve branched out and begun to read more of her novels, in the order they were published, starting with Atwood’s second novel, “Surfacing.”

“Surfacing,” like “The Edible Woman,” focuses on a young nameless woman and her inner-search for who she is and how she relates to the world around her. The narrator’s journey is quiet incredible, taking us to the desolate island cabin of her childhood, and we follow her on a search for her missing father.

“Surfacing” is not a long novel, and in fact it may be one of Atwood’s smallest, but it is no less powerful then any other novels in her oeuvre. And like the length of the novel, the time-span of the story is short, covering less than a week, and the journey is harrowing and tepidly dangerous for the narrator, as the novel threads its way to an ending that deaftly challenges the concepts of human individuality. Atwood’s ending for ’’Surfacing’’ is much darker then her first novel, and like Robertson Davies’s ’’Fifth Business,’’ it leaves a number of different plausibilities open for readers to consider.

It’s easy argue that Atwood is exploring some meaty feminist ideas through her narrator, and it is very much true that the language of feminism was in develoment during the time that this novel was written. In fact, the language of feminism didn’t exist when Atwood wrote ’’The Edible Woman,’’ which puts forth many of the quesitons and ideas that feminism tries to answer.

’’Surfacing,’’ like ’’The Edible Woman’’ before it, really explores the narrator’s role as a woman in society. And one thing I have found throughout Atwood’s first three novels, is that Atwood can paint almost cruel but forgiving portraits of men. The female characters of Atwood’s early novels (and this may continue into her later work - I don’t know yet) seem to subconciously view their men as a given, as something that is just there in life, something that goes a long way in complicating life.

And there are other social commentaries that subtly thread their way through ’’Surfacing,’’ including the encroachment of American culture and values on Canadian society; the state of our environment; and the battle between small-town values and needs with that of invasion of tourists.

In addition to the narrator’s compelling inner-journey, what really stood out for me in Atwood’s “Surfacing” are the descriptions of the scenery of Northern Quebec. The desolate and isolated feelings really came alive for me. I found that as I moved through small towns I too felt the grandeur of the nature all around me the narrator, and I was reminded of my own rural roots that lie in the small towns and majestic scereny of Central British Columbia. In the end, its fascinating how Atwood has crafted a story with themes and imagery that all tie very deeply into the novel’s title: ’’Surfacing.’’

And its through novels like ’’Surfacing’’ that help exemplify the fondness I’ve gained for Canadian Literature, and in particular to the early works of Atwood. Like all great Literature, Canadian Literature not only explores the frailties of our individual human existence, but they reach beyond that into a greater sphere, helping to identify and question the larger aspects of our collective human existence. Great literature always does this, and Atwood certainly does this, and in fact, she does it extraordinarily well.

Grade: B+

Plot Revealed In The Review:	Somewhat revealed
Purchase Price (INR):	-
Purchased From:	No Comment