AUSTRALIA ~ The Antipodes

AUSTRALIA ~ The Antipodes
I love a sunburnt country / A land of sweeping plains / Of ragged mountain ranges / Of droughts and flooding rains / I love her far horizons / I love her jewel-sea / Her beauty and her terror / The wide brown land for me / ~ Dorothea Mackellar (1885-1968)

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Monday, March 24, 2008

Margaret Atwood's "Surfacing" ~ for Totally Optional Prompts



Ever since reading "The Handmaid's Tale", for high school studies, I have been totally fascinated with the work of Margaret Atwood. But I have selected "Surfacing", her small second novel (of 1972), because this one seems to be fragmenting in the wake of more recent "heavies" such as "Blind Assassin" and "Cat's Eye."

The setting is a remote, wild island in a northern Quebec lake. The narrator travels here to find her missing father, and slowly finds it is actually a journey of consciousness, peeling away the layers of her own past. The young woman travels there with her boyfriend and two married friends. All shape the perspectives of her journey.

Using quotes from the novel as a foundation, I am the narrator voicing a kind of shredded, dramatic monologue.

I envy people whose parents died when they were young, that’s easier to remember, they stay unchanged.
My father is a vague being
Shaped by his island and people there ~

When I am ready I will find him
If he is ready to find me
~
Nothing is the same, I don't know the way any more.
Perhaps I am inventing pain
Because I fear to face our shared pain ~

Is it more hurtful to run away
And never know what truth there is?
Or face the shadows of agony
And free fall in a wise abyss?
~
I can't really get here unless I've suffered; as though the first view of the lake, which we can see now, blue and cool as redemption, which we can see now, should be through tears an a haze of vomit.
Billboards announce island lifestyles
Blue Moon Cottages sound so tempting
But peeling paint sours the magic ~
One diseased spirit knows another
~
Now I'm in the village, walking through it, waiting for the nostalgia to hit...but nothing happens.
I am a soft, damp parchment slate
Longing for a pen to find me
Longing even for some stray ink pot
To spill some ancient life on me ~
Even my mother's old diary
Is no key to what I should be
The weather and duties are noted
But thoughts and emotions are empty ~
I was not there at her funeral
I was just a blank page to her
~
Probably when we get there my father will have returned from wherever he has been, he will be sitting in the cabin waiting for us.
I need hope no matter how fragile
I must know I am shape and substance
~
He turns toward me and it's not my father. It is what my father saw, the thing you meet when you've stayed here too long alone.
Surfacing from deep water worlds
I know there is no heart in darkness
~

9 comments:

paisley said...

wow.. this sounds like an amazing book.. you have definitely whet my appetite to read it... i love the first stanza,, the acknowledgeable that the father may not be ready to find her... that is the essence of human understanding isn't it???

Tumblewords: said...

This one surely has a surreal, not quite spiritual, undertone that seeks truth by re-writing layers. 'or face the shadows of agaony/and free fall in a wise abyss' is a stark shape. Very nice!

World So Wide said...

"Shredded dramatic monologue" - great description of what you did there!

anthonynorth said...

I haven't read any of her novels, but I seem to remember some intriguing short stories by her.

Stan Ski said...

'Deep water' and 'darkness' sum up the sense of mystery and frustration attached to the subject. The book must have been a very emotional read.

Anonymous said...

I really like where you went with this......you did a great job, some lovely thoughts, good use of Atwood too.

Linda Jacobs said...

Very cool take on this prompt! Your poetry complements Atwood's words so well!

Andy Sewina said...

Yeah, it works well the way you did it - I enjoyed reading this.

Anonymous said...

You do justice to her. I am currently reading The Blind Assassin. It is a bit slow. I loved Handmaid;s Tale and Surfacing very much.

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