MARGARET ATWOOD’S ‘SURFACING’
Never
take ‘ SURFACING’ to be a bedtime story. Margaret Atwood this time is with a
plot set against the Canadian backdrop. As the novel unwinds, we find the
protagonist (reduced to an anonymous narrator) going in search of her
disappeared father. She is accompanied by her boyfriend and a couple. They go
to a remote area of Northeast Canada. And here begins the narrator’s
psychological conflict! Initially she tries to misinterpret her father’s cabin but
eventually while trying to find out her father, she ends up unfreezing her own
traumatised mind. And yeah.. to the surprise of the readers we find the
narrator adopting a wild version of herself towards the end. She thinks that
she would now be in tune with the natural world. And the end of the novel would
indeed surprise the readers..
The segments of the couple are
a kind of digression, nevertheless they strengthen the plot. There is a
particular paragraph in the novel which describes the image of an aborted
baby floating on the lake. I was
reminded of Anne Sexton at this part of the novel. Sexton’s poem on ‘Abortion’-
Abortions do have a terrible effect on Women. However this image really scared
me. Imagination really runs wild at this juncture. So all soft-hearted readers
be careful while you come across this particular image. It can even cause nightmares
at times. And still more is waiting towards the end of the novel. The narrator
becomes universal as she is not confined to a particular name. She literally is
hunting for an abandoned childhood and this we would get to know as the novel
progresses. Nature is given a prominent place throughout the novel. The
Characterisation runs deep and highly metaphorical. Religion is being
questioned. The novel is more a Secular piece of text. All of us, as we grow, would
actually move from our childhood geography to an urban life, but here it
happens the other way round. The unnamed narrator goes in search of her past. I
felt like calling her an escapist as she like Keats rejects the world of
reality. A nostalgic breeze blew upon me while I was going through the Fishing
Episode. It reminded me of my childhood days. There is a strong Anti-American,
Anti-Colonial theme working to repel those who want to take over and spoil the
wilderness. Atwood wanted to free women from a stereotypical Life. Linda Hogan advocates
the idea of women becoming a wild Flower- untamed, untouched, not meddled with.
The same idea appears here with the protagonist. Lovers of Frost would easily
get into the novel as the beginning lines would remind the readers of Robert Frost’s Road Not Taken. I was reminded
of him in the following line “ I’m on this road..”
May be a feminist novel in all sense- It
throws light on the treatment of wife by the husband, the woman searching her
own self-identity, moving away from stereotypical ways of living and so on. The
narrator’s association with nature makes her conscious of the victimization of
Women. Like Celie in ‘Color Purple’ writing herself into being, here the
protagonist expresses her mental condition through her language. Fragmentation
at the psyche level is clear through Atwood’s language.
The text at large can be seen from various
perceptions. It can be a Psychological- thriller or a feminist or a postmodern
or even an eco-critical one. I personally look at it as a thriller- a
psychological thriller which creates an expectation and the narration doesn’t
fail to fulfil the created expectation. As the text has to be dealt in a
slow-paced manner, I would suggest the fast readers to slow down a bit with
this novel in order to extract the essence out of it. May be I would prefer a
second reading for myself to discover few more aspects of the novel. The novel at every reading can add
fresh perceptions to the already existing ones. Kudos to Margaret Atwood for
penning down such beautiful lines
“ The trouble is all in the knob at the top of
our bodies. I’m not against the body or the head either : only the neck, which
creates the illusion that they are separate.”
This philosophy of Atwood is
something that captured my attention. This mind-body dichotomy is something that has to be understood. I would
give the novel a FOUR on FIVE, but I’m sure that a second reading of the text
would definitely urge me to increase its rating. A very serious text to be
dealt with- It demands patience and deep insights- As Bacon’s lines go, this is
a novel that can’t just be ‘tasted’, rather it has to be ‘chewed and digested.’ The
novel at every stage reminded me of various writers like Robert Frost, Anne
Sexton, Linda Hogan, Alice Walker etc. Contrary to the title, the plot goes
deeper and deeper rather than coming to the surface. Recommended for readers
who can patiently deal with it and not for those who wanted reading to just be
a mere pleasure as to rejuvenate from the drudgery of monotonous daily life!!!
- Mohana Priya
