In chapter one, I kept tripping over the awkward sentence structure and wondered if I'd get used to it after a while. By the end, that seems like a faded memory to me now, and I can't tell if I just got used to it, or if it was a device the author was using. If it was, that's genius. But either way the experience is extremely fitting for this work.
Like a lot of Atwood's other books, Surfacing is deeply feminist. The main character is trapped in countless layers of...social conformity/gender identity? That doesn't seem quite right. I'm not completely sure, but it builds and builds—quietly and sensitively at first, and then suddenly slamming down like a hammer in a terrifying way. It's seriously jarring, and kept me very on edge.
It's a depiction of how dark life really is, man. She's mad in the end, but she's one of the most relatable characters I've ever read, so easy to sympathize with and so mature and reliable, at least on the surface. Her insanity doesn't come from her being ridiculous, if that makes any sense. Her relationship with her parents reminded me of my own at times, like a big shadow, and it's unsettling how it loomed at the edge of my conscious throughout.
I had a used copy that had the most random excerpts underlined in spasmodic slashes, and it was seriously distracting and really annoying. At some point this lunatic was just underlining chapter numbers. Maybe the book drove them over the same edge as the heroine in this book.
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