Atwood is one of my favourite authors. I was amazed I found one of her novels that I hadn’t read. This is one of her earlier works – her second novel first published in 1972.

Plot summary from Wikipedia …

The book tells the story of a woman who returns to her hometown in Canada to find her missing father. Accompanied by her lover and another married couple, the unnamed protagonist meets her past in her childhood house, recalling events and feelings, while trying to find clues for her father’s mysterious disappearance. Little by little, the past overtakes her and drives her into the realm of wildness and madness.

This novel has a wonderful sense of place – I can picture the lake and the cabin. The characters are beautifully portrait, but they are people of a definite era (I can imagine the men with hairy chests and medallions). The sexual revolution has started – both women took the pill and then stopped – women are beginning to be emancipated, but not quite.

The descent into madness is fabulous to read and it all seems quite logical.

I think this is a fabulous novel, but Atwood goes onto greater things with Cat’s Eye, Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace and Oryx and Crake. If you’re an Atwood fan, then it’s worth reading to see where she came from, but otherwise I probably wouldn’t bother.

Here are some other (and better) reviews …

http://silverseason.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/margaret-atwood-surfacing/

http://amandasrandombookthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/10/surfacing-margaret-atwood.html

http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2009/09/best-thing-i-read-recently-surfacing-by.html

I’m a keen Margaret Atwood fan so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this week. Being slightly more organised that normal, I re-read Oryx and Crake (although I think The Year of the Flood can be read without having first read Oryx and Crake).

The way Atwood uses language is breath taking – it must be the poet in her. The name of the companies are fabulous, i.e  HelthWyzer and the genetic splices (lion and lamb, raccoon and skunk).

It is much easier to feel sympathy for the characters in this novel. Let’s face it – Snowman and Crake were very unpleasant.

Adam One, the kindly leader of the God’s Gardeners – a religion devoted to the melding of science, religion, and nature – has long predicted a disaster. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women remain: Ren, a young dancer locked away in a high-end sex club, and Toby, a former God’s Gardener, who barricades herself inside a luxurious spa. Have others survived? Ren’s bio-artist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers? Not to mention the CorpSeCorps, the shadowy policing force of the ruling powers… As Adam One and his beleaguered followers regroup, Ren and Toby emerge into an altered world, where nothing – including the animal life – is predictable.

 Atwood has created a (scarily) realistic world where commerce reigns supreme. I think it is very easy to see how we get from here (where we are now) to there. This novel is a bit more hopeful than Oryx and Crake or perhaps I should say less bleak. The survivors might just be able to stay alive and start a new civilization although I’m a bit worried about the torch bearers at the end.

In all honesty I do have to say that I liked her earlier works better.

http://dovegreyreader.typepad.com/dovegreyreader_scribbles/2009/09/the-event.html

http://shelf-monkey.blogspot.com/2009/10/monkey-droppings-year-of-flood-by.html

http://overbookedlibrarian.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/the-year-of-the-flood-by-margaret-atwood/