Margaret Atwood is a beautiful writer, and it is easy to get lost in the imagery of her words, but this alone does not make a solid story. In the end, you have to have a story, and Surfacing by Atwood does not contain a solid plot line. It is about two couples living in a desolate cabin in the hopes of finding out what happen to the main protagonist's father. That alone is interesting enough, but the story focuses more on Atwood's philosophical viewpoints on preserving the environment and feminist issues that often define women as something other than being an individual and often victims of society. I don't mind these viewpoints, but not in a story. This book should have been more of an essay. I have the same problem with this story as I have with Anthem by Ayn Rand which is over a hundred pages of someone's opinion about the evils of collectivism. There is no plot There is no story. In the end, I found myself skimming this novel. I'm not sure I can recommend it, but I can recommend other Atwood novels like Cat's Eye and both Handmaid books one and two.
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