Non of these things happened. There was a lot of awkward silence, sun-bathing, detective novel reading, canoeing, fishing (or lack-there-of,) and Anti-American ("Yankee") notions. Since I was such a fan of the writing, (and who would't love Atwood?) I'm progressing onto Life Before Man. On the dust jacket of this next read, the text points out that Atwood continues on with her gender role bending writing, which wasn't something I noticed in Surfacing until I read this comment. Other than an occasional slip of the word "groovy," its easy to forget that this novel was written in the 70's. Women's suffrage is ever-evolving, so nothing struck me as "out of the ordinary" about the protagonist's wilderness skills, life goals or attitude. I now see what I had missed during my reading experience and I just know I would have had a different outlook on this novel had I read it in the 1970's or early 80's (yes pre-dating my birth!) verses reading now in 2012.
I didn't think the book felt dated. I kind of reminded me of traveling to my hometown in Maine. The novel is relatable, even with the lack of technology. I connected with the protagonist, even though I never even knew her name. What I found so off-putting was something that probably could have been worked out through spacing, or the use of dig-bats: there were moments when the placement in time was difficult to decipher. The protagonist reminisced (often,) but the text just meshed together as one, so it could be difficult to place what was happening "now" and in memory. 3/5 stars.
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