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A review by beaconatnight
Der lange Traum by Margaret Atwood
5.0
Surfacing starts out as mystery detective novel. A woman returns to her hometown after she received a message that her father disappeared. They had been alienated for many years, ever since she got a divorce. The town is somewhat secluded and his home can only be reached by boat. He couldn't have left the island, yet there is no obvious trace to pursue.
The woman narrates her own story. For her the return is coupled with deep-rooted emotions. When certain events and objects trigger memories, inner and outer sensations enter her account. There is no real danger, yet her prose is very brutal and intense, and the more so the more she readopts to the environment. People grow their own food, live without electricity, strongly endorse separatist politics. When they eat fish or meat, they kill the animals themselves.
It feels as if almost every moment is important in her change of character ever since she came back there. The scene when she accompanies a friend on a fishing trip is a case in point. He has no experience, for him it's more like a game, something you do when being on such kind of vacation. The narrator, on the other hand, she is very upfront about how she kills a frog as bait or how the stumps on a fish to kill it. It's relentless, somehow as if heady ideals don't even figure in her actions.
She travels with others, but she talks about them almost as disinterested spectator. Joe, a man you might even call her lover, is a very good example. She lives and sleeps with him, to some extent the perhaps confides in him, yet there has never been any real connection. In an important moment he asks her to marry her and although it's clear that she wouldn't, it's fascinating to read about her inner struggle.
The novel is often praised for its feminist qualities. It's evident how her sentiments and actions contrast with ideas usually associated with femininity. The narrator clearly suffers from societal expectations and the lack of perspective and among the strongest aspects of the novel is how themes of oppression are reflected in the way that people think and act. Marriage, masculinity, make-up, the pill, inequality, adultery, in the harsh environment these ideas take on a unique form that shapes the narrator's perception.
The experiential language is incredibly cold and vivid. She describes unpleasant smells and uses unsettling metaphors like amputation. There are phrases like "death is logical, there is always a motive". There are many references to WWII and the reflects about whether violence is innate and part of the human condition. Before she didn't feel anything; here, in the wilderness, she might reconnect with this evolutionary heritage.
The narrator often thinks about how her father might have gone mad. In the end, isolation and overwhelming emotions lead her down the same path. At this point the prose seriously got under my skin and becomes this haunting account of back-to-nature. These days you might get used again to the dankish autumn weather that makes you long for a warm tea at home. Imagine that instead you would spend the night in a forest outside town – this is essentially what reading Surfacing feels like.
Rating: 5/5
The woman narrates her own story. For her the return is coupled with deep-rooted emotions. When certain events and objects trigger memories, inner and outer sensations enter her account. There is no real danger, yet her prose is very brutal and intense, and the more so the more she readopts to the environment. People grow their own food, live without electricity, strongly endorse separatist politics. When they eat fish or meat, they kill the animals themselves.
It feels as if almost every moment is important in her change of character ever since she came back there. The scene when she accompanies a friend on a fishing trip is a case in point. He has no experience, for him it's more like a game, something you do when being on such kind of vacation. The narrator, on the other hand, she is very upfront about how she kills a frog as bait or how the stumps on a fish to kill it. It's relentless, somehow as if heady ideals don't even figure in her actions.
She travels with others, but she talks about them almost as disinterested spectator. Joe, a man you might even call her lover, is a very good example. She lives and sleeps with him, to some extent the perhaps confides in him, yet there has never been any real connection. In an important moment he asks her to marry her and although it's clear that she wouldn't, it's fascinating to read about her inner struggle.
The novel is often praised for its feminist qualities. It's evident how her sentiments and actions contrast with ideas usually associated with femininity. The narrator clearly suffers from societal expectations and the lack of perspective and among the strongest aspects of the novel is how themes of oppression are reflected in the way that people think and act. Marriage, masculinity, make-up, the pill, inequality, adultery, in the harsh environment these ideas take on a unique form that shapes the narrator's perception.
The experiential language is incredibly cold and vivid. She describes unpleasant smells and uses unsettling metaphors like amputation. There are phrases like "death is logical, there is always a motive". There are many references to WWII and the reflects about whether violence is innate and part of the human condition. Before she didn't feel anything; here, in the wilderness, she might reconnect with this evolutionary heritage.
The narrator often thinks about how her father might have gone mad. In the end, isolation and overwhelming emotions lead her down the same path. At this point the prose seriously got under my skin and becomes this haunting account of back-to-nature. These days you might get used again to the dankish autumn weather that makes you long for a warm tea at home. Imagine that instead you would spend the night in a forest outside town – this is essentially what reading Surfacing feels like.
Rating: 5/5