Scan barcode
A review by geowhaley
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
3.0
If I had a ranking system for the novels I read and it was based on beauty, Snow Falling on Cedars would definitely be towards the top of that list. It has to take an amazing writer/wordsmith to make me want to live on a small island off the coast of Washington State and take up farming of some sort. I read this book for my Books into Movies book group at the local library and I am VERY glad I did. I plan on watching the movie later this evening or tomorrow.
Snow Falling on Cedars focuses on a murder trial, but it is not just a legal story, or a love story, or even just a war story as you might think from the back cover. It is a novel about a town forced to look into the mirror and see the harsh truths and realities simmering just under the surface. Set almost ten years after the end of World War II, the novel was a lot broader and a lot more powerful (and suspenseful) than the back-cover synopsis led me to think. But, more than anything, what took my breath away was the vitriol of some of the (surprisingly mostly female) characters and their overt racism. I was surprised at how upset I was at various points throughout the novel when placed into a character’s shoes and how they were treated.
And my guttural reaction was in direct response to Guterson’s astounding skills as a writer, specifically his gut wrenching passages of the Japanese islanders being rounded up and taken to the dock with their non-Japanese (read white) fellow islanders watching to the heart breaking images of thousands of years of Japanese history and family mementos being hidden and buried or confiscated by the FBI. I only vaguely remember learning about the Japanese American internment during WWII, but if it’s even half as harrowing as Guterson’s writing makes you believe then there should be more taught about it rather than just a brief glossing over.
Click here to continue reading on my blog The Oddness of Moving Things.
Snow Falling on Cedars focuses on a murder trial, but it is not just a legal story, or a love story, or even just a war story as you might think from the back cover. It is a novel about a town forced to look into the mirror and see the harsh truths and realities simmering just under the surface. Set almost ten years after the end of World War II, the novel was a lot broader and a lot more powerful (and suspenseful) than the back-cover synopsis led me to think. But, more than anything, what took my breath away was the vitriol of some of the (surprisingly mostly female) characters and their overt racism. I was surprised at how upset I was at various points throughout the novel when placed into a character’s shoes and how they were treated.
And my guttural reaction was in direct response to Guterson’s astounding skills as a writer, specifically his gut wrenching passages of the Japanese islanders being rounded up and taken to the dock with their non-Japanese (read white) fellow islanders watching to the heart breaking images of thousands of years of Japanese history and family mementos being hidden and buried or confiscated by the FBI. I only vaguely remember learning about the Japanese American internment during WWII, but if it’s even half as harrowing as Guterson’s writing makes you believe then there should be more taught about it rather than just a brief glossing over.
Click here to continue reading on my blog The Oddness of Moving Things.