A review by notoriousagk
Surfacing by Margaret Atwood

2.0

Two stars because I think this was probably a "good" book, but I didn't care for it at all. I've read both Surfacing and Life Before Man now, and I think I just may not connect with Atwood's older work. In this case, I felt like I was missing some of the key cultural context that would have allowed me to fully "get it." I think that might be a generational thing, as well as a geographical/political thing (I lack the necessary understanding of environmentalist arguments, Canadian/Quebecois national identity, and growing up in a post-WWII environment/living as a young person in the sixties, for starters). Certainly, of the Atwoods I've read, I feel like her oldest work was also the densest, and the least accessible to a general audience reading a few decades after publication (I didn't have the same problems with, say, Cats Eye or The Robber Bride).

That said, I really didn't care for The Handmaid's Tale either, when I read it in high school, and now it's one of my all-time favorite novels. I'd consider re-reading, maybe in a different season of my life. And The Edible Woman is one I've been hoping to read, but now I'm thinking I may put it off a few years. Not giving up on Margaret Atwood just yet.