🍃Book : Surfacing 
🍃Author : Margaret Atwood
🍃Genre : Psychological novel, Survivalism
🍃Pages : 186
🍃Publication: 1972, Virago Press
🍃Format : paperback
🍃Book Cost : £6.99 (bought for ₹100)

Blogpost by Dhanu

4.2 /5

Insanity is the definition of being sane and genuine to oneself and being crazy to the outer world. No one needs to prove themselves to others about their being as a part of this universe. Travel as per the mind goes and true towards your psyche is sane. There will be no place for regrets.

The novel is set in northern Quebec, the naturistic region of Canada during the post-colonial period. The novel opens with the narration of an unnamed narrator who is tracing her father’s whereabouts with her boyfriend, Joe and friends, David and Anna in her childhood place. The narrative begins as the narrator and her friends arrive in the untouched wilderness in Canada. The narrator herself has lots of psychological breakdowns due to the aftermath of American influence over the world which abruptly alters the long-established lifestyle, her failed marriage, giving up her own child, loss of her brother, mother and father and the hopeless love life. The novel has the huge influence of the concept of Diaspora and eco-literature.


After returning to her childhood home, the narrator realizes herself and understands her love towards nature who wants to preserve it from the encroachment of invaders. The narrator wishes to remain so close to nature and wants to annihilate the contact of humans, especially from the exploitation of Americanization. The Americanism and their culture have been fiercely rebelled by the narrator who tries hard to eradicate the touches of them from nature. Often it forces the readers to re-read whether she talks about nature or humans.


In this novel, the author expresses the aftermath of postcolonialism during the time of 60s in Canada. The exploitation of land, culture, identity, ethnicity and creed in the guise of Americanism and westernization have been detailly picturized. In addition to this, the personal issues and trauma of the narrator have been maintained with the equilibrium of the significant social identity shift. Atwood marks the political changes of Quebec where the Quiet Revolution took place. The way the author handled the mystical element with the melodramatic story of the protagonist is incredible to create the scenario as a separate universe from the way of existence by the exploited third world.


The setting of the novel is in northern Quebec during the 1960s. The writing style is simple and slow yet carries a profound connotation. The novel has bagged the Booker Prize in 2000 and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction. Reading about the experiences of the protagonist in the middle of wilderness makes the story unique and kindles the longing for life towards the untouched part of nature. The struggle of the protagonist to crawl back towards her peaceful past where everything was right before westernizing and whitewashing the thoughts and mind of the native dwellers have prompted the readers to take a closer look at the changes that everyone is going through without awareness.

Even though the novel is packed with minimal four primary characters, it never made the necessity for few more characters to hold the storyline. There were sporadic appearance of side characters which are limited and appropriate. This resembles that the author even in her story does not want the exploitation by adding unnecessary influences of other characters.

I highly suggest this novel to experience the voyage of insanity towards early whitewashed wilderness.

Happy Reading!

They were once caught in a three-week rainstorm, my father said if you could spend three weeks in a wet tent with a man without killing him or having him kill you then he was a good man. P.17