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| Plot Summary of Surfacing |
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"A nameless artist, accompanied by her lover and a married couple, returns to a small cabin in the wilderness of northeastern Quebec, where she grew up. The others look on the trip as a vacation and chance for the men to take some photos for a book they're trying to put together, but the protagonist is searching for her botanist father, who has disappeared. As the days pass, each character's individual uglinesses and weaknesses are exposed. The protagonist begins to drift in and out of reality, remembering painful episodes of her past. The novel is a meditation on love, wildness, and wounds men and women can inflict on each another; its tone is reminiscent of The Bell Jar."
A. J. Bell, Resident Scholar
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"In Margaret Atwood's 1972 novel, a young woman returns to the remote island in Quebec where she grew up. Her father has disappeared and she brings two friends (a married couple) and her estranged boyfriend to search for him. Over the course of a week, they search for traces of him while the narrator uncovers suppressed pieces of her past. The marriage between her friends begins to erode as their supplies dwindle and American tourists invade the pristine landscape. "
Jennifer Martin-Romme, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Surfacing |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book?
- depressed
Time/era of story
- 1960's-1970's
Internal struggle/realization?
Yes
Struggle over
- search for family/history
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Coping with loss of loved one(s)
Yes
Main Character
Gender
- Female
Profession/status:
- artist
Age:
- 20's-30's
Eccentric/Mental
Yes
Eccentric:
- eccentric
- mentally ill
- emotionally unstable
- wild
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
How sensitive is this character?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
- hard edged
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- very athletic
- average physique
Main Adversary
Identity:
- none
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 5 (an average amount)
The Americas (not US):
Yes
The Americas:
- Canada
Forest?
Yes
Water?
Yes
Water:
- swimming on
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
Sex in book?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- vague references
Unusual Style:
- a lot of flashback and forwards
- a lot of stream of consciousness
Amount of dialog
- significantly more descript than dialog
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Click here for more information about this book
Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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