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Snow Falling on Cedars
Gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric—a masterpiece of suspense San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies. But in 1954 a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese American named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder. In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than a man's guilt. For on San Pedro, memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become Kabuo's wife; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbors watched.
460 pages, Paperback
First published September 12, 1994
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83k people want to read
About the author
David Guterson
43 books1,184 followersDavid Guterson is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, journalist, and essayist. He is best known as the author of the bestselling Japanese American internment novel Snow Falling on Cedars.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 6,282 reviews
March 22, 2016
You know that guy who's at every party, the one who loves to hear himself talk and tells long-winded stories while the unlucky few who got caught in his gravitational pull nod politely and and start eyeing the exits?
Yeah. David Guterson is That Guy.
His book has a really intersesting subject: a few years after World War Two, a man of Japanese descent is accused of killing a white man on the small island community of San Piedro. The story follows the trial and breaks every now and then for flashbacks about various characters' pasts. Good story, but Guterson bogs it down with absolutely pointless backstories and details. I didn't need to know, for example, what six different random San Piedro residents did when the huge blizzard hit, or how the accused man's wife's mother was a mail order bride from Japan. And I think the book would have been equally enjoyable if Guterson hadn't treated his readers to a description of how the murder victim spent his last day alive screwing his wife in the shower.
Guterson also works hard to keep his story dramatic (the courtroom scenes, I might add, are mind-numbingly boring). The accused man, Miyamoto, at first denies knowledge of the murder and then changes his story towards the end of the book, and whenever a character asks Miyamoto why he didn't tell the truth from the beginning, Guterson is careful to arrange the dialogue so Miyamoto never has to actually answer that question. Similarly, when a character uncovers some Very Important Evidence towards the end of the book, he takes his sweet time delivering the evidence to the judge so Guterson can stretch his story out for thirty more pages.
By the last fifty pages of the book, I was just waiting for it to end and hoping there would be a really good twist ending that would make the whole experience better.
(by the way: there isn't one)
UPDATE: This. A thousand times this.
Yeah. David Guterson is That Guy.
His book has a really intersesting subject: a few years after World War Two, a man of Japanese descent is accused of killing a white man on the small island community of San Piedro. The story follows the trial and breaks every now and then for flashbacks about various characters' pasts. Good story, but Guterson bogs it down with absolutely pointless backstories and details. I didn't need to know, for example, what six different random San Piedro residents did when the huge blizzard hit, or how the accused man's wife's mother was a mail order bride from Japan. And I think the book would have been equally enjoyable if Guterson hadn't treated his readers to a description of how the murder victim spent his last day alive screwing his wife in the shower.
Guterson also works hard to keep his story dramatic (the courtroom scenes, I might add, are mind-numbingly boring). The accused man, Miyamoto, at first denies knowledge of the murder and then changes his story towards the end of the book, and whenever a character asks Miyamoto why he didn't tell the truth from the beginning, Guterson is careful to arrange the dialogue so Miyamoto never has to actually answer that question. Similarly, when a character uncovers some Very Important Evidence towards the end of the book, he takes his sweet time delivering the evidence to the judge so Guterson can stretch his story out for thirty more pages.
By the last fifty pages of the book, I was just waiting for it to end and hoping there would be a really good twist ending that would make the whole experience better.
(by the way: there isn't one)
UPDATE: This. A thousand times this.
April 26, 2016
From the age of 18 to approximately 22, I went through my blue period. This era was marked by dateless Friday nights, dateless Saturday nights, Soprano-less Sunday nights (The Sopranos not having gone on air yet), and a long flirtation with hipsterism. During this time, I watched relationships end with such arbitrariness that I was left to conclude the Universe had conspired against me.
Maybe you've gone through a period like this. It's called youth. And if you have, you know there's a certain pleasure to be taken from the pain. Sure, part of me was preparing for my eventual transformation into the male version of a cat lady (a priest, I guess). But another part of me enjoyed dwelling in a half-depression. I listened to sad songs, I pretended to read poetry, I rewatched Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise 2,000 times, and I drank countless Moscow Mules at various hipster bars.
It was during this time I read David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars. Despite its pretentious title, it is an accessible, mixed-genre book: a police procedural, courtroom drama, and story of star-crossed love, all rolled into one. (Of course, the movie version starred Ethan Hawke, the patron saint of morose twenty-somethings). The uniqueness of the book comes from its setting in Puget Sound in 1954. It is a place of snow and fog and a dark legacy with regards to its Japanese-American population, who were shipped off to internment camps during World War II.
Snow Falling on Cedars unabashedly harkens to Moby Dick. It's main character is named Ishmael, and he, like Ahab, is a cripple, who lost a hand during World War II. He is obsessed with Hatsue, a Japanese girl whom he loved as a child. Love and obsession, two sides of the same coin.
The main storyline concerns Hatsue's husband, Kabuoe, a fisherman who is charged with killing Carl Heine. By way of motive, Kabuoe believes that Carl's family reneged on a contract to sell Kabuoe a strawberry field.
Ishamel, the crippled former lover of Kabuoe's wife, is a writer for the local paper. He covers the story while moping through life like the protagonist in a thousand emo songs. While the trial is taking place, there are flashbacks to Ishmael and Hatsue's relationship; the internment of Hatsue's family; and Ishmael's service in the war. Guterson is quite successful in evoking the everything-in-life-hinges-on-this feel of young love:
Ah, young love. And no, I am not and have never been a 12 year-old girl.
Way back when I first read this book, a great measure of my enjoyment came from wallowing in Ishmael's misery. However, there are other pleasures to be had, for readers who have learned that the sun and moon do not rise and set with every relationship.
There is a wide cast of characters possessed of the rural quirkiness well-mined by the likes of the Cohen brothers. Aside from Ishmael, Hatsue, and Kabuoe, you meet sheriff Art Moran, the prosecutor Alvin Hooks, the Gerry Spence-like defense attorney, Nels Gudmundsson, and Ole, the elderly strawberry farmer.
More than the characters there is a sense of place. This is a lush, tactile novel, and you get enveloped in the weather and atmosphere:
Part of the problem with life is we grow old too soon and forget too fast. When I think back to all the time I spent listening to Belle & Sebastian and pondering the monastery, I want to build a time machine just to go back in time and punch myself in the face.
A book like Snow Falling on Cedars helps me remember what it meant to be young, and in love, and certain that all happiness hinged on these very things.
Maybe you've gone through a period like this. It's called youth. And if you have, you know there's a certain pleasure to be taken from the pain. Sure, part of me was preparing for my eventual transformation into the male version of a cat lady (a priest, I guess). But another part of me enjoyed dwelling in a half-depression. I listened to sad songs, I pretended to read poetry, I rewatched Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise 2,000 times, and I drank countless Moscow Mules at various hipster bars.
It was during this time I read David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars. Despite its pretentious title, it is an accessible, mixed-genre book: a police procedural, courtroom drama, and story of star-crossed love, all rolled into one. (Of course, the movie version starred Ethan Hawke, the patron saint of morose twenty-somethings). The uniqueness of the book comes from its setting in Puget Sound in 1954. It is a place of snow and fog and a dark legacy with regards to its Japanese-American population, who were shipped off to internment camps during World War II.
Snow Falling on Cedars unabashedly harkens to Moby Dick. It's main character is named Ishmael, and he, like Ahab, is a cripple, who lost a hand during World War II. He is obsessed with Hatsue, a Japanese girl whom he loved as a child. Love and obsession, two sides of the same coin.
The main storyline concerns Hatsue's husband, Kabuoe, a fisherman who is charged with killing Carl Heine. By way of motive, Kabuoe believes that Carl's family reneged on a contract to sell Kabuoe a strawberry field.
Ishamel, the crippled former lover of Kabuoe's wife, is a writer for the local paper. He covers the story while moping through life like the protagonist in a thousand emo songs. While the trial is taking place, there are flashbacks to Ishmael and Hatsue's relationship; the internment of Hatsue's family; and Ishmael's service in the war. Guterson is quite successful in evoking the everything-in-life-hinges-on-this feel of young love:
Inside their cedar tree, for nearly four years, he and Hatsue had held one another with the dreamy contentedness of young lovers. With their coats spread against a cushion of moss they'd stayed as long as they could after dusk and on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. The tree produced a cedar perfume that permeated their skin and clothes. They would enter, breath deeply, then lie down and touch each other - the heat of it and the cedar smell, the privacy and the rain outside, the slippery softness of their lips and tongues inspired in them the temporary illusion that the rest of the world had disappeared...
Ah, young love. And no, I am not and have never been a 12 year-old girl.
Way back when I first read this book, a great measure of my enjoyment came from wallowing in Ishmael's misery. However, there are other pleasures to be had, for readers who have learned that the sun and moon do not rise and set with every relationship.
There is a wide cast of characters possessed of the rural quirkiness well-mined by the likes of the Cohen brothers. Aside from Ishmael, Hatsue, and Kabuoe, you meet sheriff Art Moran, the prosecutor Alvin Hooks, the Gerry Spence-like defense attorney, Nels Gudmundsson, and Ole, the elderly strawberry farmer.
More than the characters there is a sense of place. This is a lush, tactile novel, and you get enveloped in the weather and atmosphere:
Center Valley's strawberry fields lay under nine inches of powder and were as fuzzy through the snowfall as a landscape in a dream, with no discernible hard edges. On Scatter Springs Drive the trees had closed the road in so that the sky was little more than an indistinct, drab ribbon overhead, but down here the dramatic expanse of it was visible, chaotic and fierce. Looking out past the windshield wipers Ishmael saw billions of snowflakes falling in long tangents, driven southward, the sky shrouded and furious.
Part of the problem with life is we grow old too soon and forget too fast. When I think back to all the time I spent listening to Belle & Sebastian and pondering the monastery, I want to build a time machine just to go back in time and punch myself in the face.
A book like Snow Falling on Cedars helps me remember what it meant to be young, and in love, and certain that all happiness hinged on these very things.
December 4, 2016
"Accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart."
There are books that are to be read with all your senses, Snow Falling on Cedars is such a book. Here you fell and read about prejudice and star-crossed love, flashbacks of war times coupled with recollections of the dramatic Japanese-American internment during the Second World War. All in a all-present atmosphere, Snow Falling on Cedars has enough ingredients to assure a great read. But there is more, lovers furtive encounters, a crime and a trial; I'm sure I'm leaving much behind... Nevertheless, what more could any reader wish for?
David Guterson writes masterfully, transmitting to us readers a fascinating scenery and ambiance that goes well beyond relationships. As you turn the pages, without even realizing, you can feel profoundly not only on your skin but in your heart:
"Inside their cedar tree, for nearly four years, he and Hatsue held one another with the dreamy contentment of young lovers. With their coats spread against a cushion of moss they'd stayed as long as they could after dusk... The tree produced a cedar perfume that permeated their skin and clothes. They would enter, breath deeply, then lie down and touch each other - the heat of it and the cedar smell, the privacy and the rain outside, the slippery softness of their lips and tongues inspired in them the temporary illusion that the rest of the world had disappeared..."
But those had been indeed hard times:
"I know you'll think this is crazy, but all I want is to hold you, and I think if you let me do that just for a few seconds, I can walk away, and never speak to you again."
But aside from making you feel alive, Guterson creates a wide variety of full-blooded characters, with their own agonies, sentiment most acute in the case of Ishmael and his misery for the lost love and his war sufferings. Indeed, I found Guterson quite successful in evoking feelings long dormant within me. Ah, to be young and to love regardless of reality. But we do grow old, and when we least expect reality shows its hard countenance. We suffer, we loose, we adapt, we grow up, but we ultimately survive.
December 8, 2022
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson, is based on remote San Pedro Island (fictional) in Puget Sound, Washington State. Kabuyo Miyamoto, an American-Japanese man is accused of murdering a fellow salmon fisherman whose body is found mysteriously tangled up in his fishing net. San Pedro Island is a very small community, everyone knows each other – Salmon fishing is a major industry as is farming crops such as strawberries (yum).
There is a substantial Japanese community on the island and during WWII this group of people were subject to unpleasant treatment by the locals and even worse, discrimination, racism and suspicion of corroboratring with the enemy from both local folk and the US Government. Xenophobic sentiment is bubbling over, this had been distilling for decades. The plight of the Japanese-Americans was a significant take away for me after reading this book – I didn’t realise how poorly these people were treated during and after WWII. Many had even fought for the US Army after the attack on Pearl Harbour for heaven’s sake!
This book started off as would any other courtroom drama – so I strapped myself in, as I was well in the mood for such a story. Well, after only a few pages along comes our first flashback – this annoyed me a bit, then another and some flashbacks even had their very own flashback, within a flashback – yes, they came thick and fast.
This, when all I wanted was a good courtroom scrap.
Of course, Guterson was using this device to provide the reader with an in-depth perspective of the community and the people in it. Once I got over my hissy-fit and stopped stomping all over the house, huffing and puffing - I sat down, grew a pair, and really, really enjoyed it. In fact, I loved it.
There’s a whole lotta ‘small village’ crime stuff here, there’s the victim, the alleged murderer, their wives/husbands, kids, relationships, sad stories of loneliness, small town politics, WWII, nasty skulduggery and more.
In fact, Guterson force fed this witless reader, who thought he was starting a mere crime/courtroom drama with an in-depth tale of people and relationships in a rural community. These 460 pages have a lot in them, but Guterson writes them with lubricated ease – it’s even gentle, as the name suggests.
One last thing, I would imagine this part of the world – North West USA & South East Canada has have some of the most beautiful scenery in the World, I’d love to go!!
A very solid 4 Stars
There is a substantial Japanese community on the island and during WWII this group of people were subject to unpleasant treatment by the locals and even worse, discrimination, racism and suspicion of corroboratring with the enemy from both local folk and the US Government. Xenophobic sentiment is bubbling over, this had been distilling for decades. The plight of the Japanese-Americans was a significant take away for me after reading this book – I didn’t realise how poorly these people were treated during and after WWII. Many had even fought for the US Army after the attack on Pearl Harbour for heaven’s sake!
This book started off as would any other courtroom drama – so I strapped myself in, as I was well in the mood for such a story. Well, after only a few pages along comes our first flashback – this annoyed me a bit, then another and some flashbacks even had their very own flashback, within a flashback – yes, they came thick and fast.
This, when all I wanted was a good courtroom scrap.
Of course, Guterson was using this device to provide the reader with an in-depth perspective of the community and the people in it. Once I got over my hissy-fit and stopped stomping all over the house, huffing and puffing - I sat down, grew a pair, and really, really enjoyed it. In fact, I loved it.
There’s a whole lotta ‘small village’ crime stuff here, there’s the victim, the alleged murderer, their wives/husbands, kids, relationships, sad stories of loneliness, small town politics, WWII, nasty skulduggery and more.
In fact, Guterson force fed this witless reader, who thought he was starting a mere crime/courtroom drama with an in-depth tale of people and relationships in a rural community. These 460 pages have a lot in them, but Guterson writes them with lubricated ease – it’s even gentle, as the name suggests.
One last thing, I would imagine this part of the world – North West USA & South East Canada has have some of the most beautiful scenery in the World, I’d love to go!!
A very solid 4 Stars
July 15, 2007
When I found the word "cedars" 7 times on a 2 page spread, I shut down. The language is simple; maybe I'm supposed to perceive it as deep, mysterious, or simply written in a beautiful way, but I just found it dull. I was so tired of hearing about snow and cedars.
I think it had a trial in it, and a Japanese fisherman, and some discrimination; maybe it happened in an internment camp in Washington state or something. Or maybe the main character is investigating his father's involvement in a trial in the 1940's. I don't remember. My book club read it and our discussion of it was not very interesting.
Funny- I just read a review by Gina- she called the language flowery and gave this example:
"By October San Piedro had slipped off its summer reverler's mask to reveal a torpid, soporific dreamer whose winter bed was made of wet green moss....The gutters filled with rust-colored pine needles and the pungent effluvium of alder leaves, and the drainpipes splashed with the winter rain."
I guess I just skim over this flowery language because it's so meaningless to the story. If I want imagery, I'll read some poetry, not this snowy cedary schlock. This language is flowery to the point of making no sense- a waste of the reader's time to ask them to parse out the convoluted imagery.
Another reviewer on this site said the book had endless narration- I agree- it needed less description of the scenery and more about the characters and time period.
I think it had a trial in it, and a Japanese fisherman, and some discrimination; maybe it happened in an internment camp in Washington state or something. Or maybe the main character is investigating his father's involvement in a trial in the 1940's. I don't remember. My book club read it and our discussion of it was not very interesting.
Funny- I just read a review by Gina- she called the language flowery and gave this example:
"By October San Piedro had slipped off its summer reverler's mask to reveal a torpid, soporific dreamer whose winter bed was made of wet green moss....The gutters filled with rust-colored pine needles and the pungent effluvium of alder leaves, and the drainpipes splashed with the winter rain."
I guess I just skim over this flowery language because it's so meaningless to the story. If I want imagery, I'll read some poetry, not this snowy cedary schlock. This language is flowery to the point of making no sense- a waste of the reader's time to ask them to parse out the convoluted imagery.
Another reviewer on this site said the book had endless narration- I agree- it needed less description of the scenery and more about the characters and time period.
August 22, 2008
Dense, plodding, dull, and lifeless. The plot is buried under a mass of irrelevant description and pointless detail.
Guterson painstakingly describes every object, every person, every place, every building, every change in the weather, and the entire life history of every character who appears in the novel, in great detail and at great length.
Take out all that pointless description, and you'd be left with maybe six pages of actual story, and even that story would be boring.
Read To Kill a Mockingbird instead.
Guterson painstakingly describes every object, every person, every place, every building, every change in the weather, and the entire life history of every character who appears in the novel, in great detail and at great length.
Take out all that pointless description, and you'd be left with maybe six pages of actual story, and even that story would be boring.
Read To Kill a Mockingbird instead.
December 11, 2017
"None of those other things makes a difference. Love is the strongest thing in the world, you know. Nothing can touch it. Nothing comes close. If we love each other we're safe from it all. Love is the biggest thing there is."
I believe that this suspenseful novel would also appeal to fans of To Kill a Mockingbird.
I believe that this suspenseful novel would also appeal to fans of To Kill a Mockingbird.
August 28, 2016
It’s 1954 on an island off the Washington coast and Kabuo Miyamota is on trial for his life. Kabuo, a struggling commercial fisherman, has been accused of killing another fisherman, Carl Heine, over a land dispute.
It’s easy to see why he might be convicted. There’s motive, opportunity, and a pile of circumstantial evidence. There’s also a lot of prejudice against Japanese Americans who are regarded with hostility especially after World War II. And Kabuo himself doesn’t help. Here is the opening sentence of this beautiful novel.
“You look like one of Tojo’s soldiers,” his wife later tells him. “You’d better quit sitting up so straight and tall. These jury people will be afraid of you.”
But he can’t. And that detachment, that strict insistence on giving nothing to the world, is one of the many themes Guterson explores. Another is the idea of perspective. As we get deeper into the trial and learn the secrets of each person involved, we see what's happened to these characters and how their life experiences influences everything they do. How can the true cause of a death be determined when everyone—even the medical examiner—can only see through the tiny, flawed lens of his or her own beliefs.
This is especially true for another one of the novel’s protagonists, Ishmael Chambers. Ishmael, who runs the island’s newspaper, lost his arm fighting the Japanese, and the terrible pain in that phantom limb represents all the things he doesn’t have—a wife, a sense of community, the life he wanted. Ishmael fell in love with Kabuo’s wife when they were young, and he’s never really left the hollowed out cedar tree where they used to meet. Kabuo may hold himself back at his trial, but Ishmael isn’t even really there.
This is a wonderful novel. It’s addictively plot-driven yet the events that take place are all in the service of the larger ideas that Guterson is exploring. Highly recommend.
It’s easy to see why he might be convicted. There’s motive, opportunity, and a pile of circumstantial evidence. There’s also a lot of prejudice against Japanese Americans who are regarded with hostility especially after World War II. And Kabuo himself doesn’t help. Here is the opening sentence of this beautiful novel.
The accused man, Kabuo Miyamota, sat proudly upright with a rigid grace, his palms placed softly on the defendant’s table—the posture of a man who has detached himself insofar as this is possible at his own trial. Some in the gallery would later say that his stillness suggested a disdain for the proceedings; others felt certain it veiled a fear of the verdict that was to come. Whichever it was, Kabuo showed nothing—not even a flicker of the eyes.
“You look like one of Tojo’s soldiers,” his wife later tells him. “You’d better quit sitting up so straight and tall. These jury people will be afraid of you.”
But he can’t. And that detachment, that strict insistence on giving nothing to the world, is one of the many themes Guterson explores. Another is the idea of perspective. As we get deeper into the trial and learn the secrets of each person involved, we see what's happened to these characters and how their life experiences influences everything they do. How can the true cause of a death be determined when everyone—even the medical examiner—can only see through the tiny, flawed lens of his or her own beliefs.
This is especially true for another one of the novel’s protagonists, Ishmael Chambers. Ishmael, who runs the island’s newspaper, lost his arm fighting the Japanese, and the terrible pain in that phantom limb represents all the things he doesn’t have—a wife, a sense of community, the life he wanted. Ishmael fell in love with Kabuo’s wife when they were young, and he’s never really left the hollowed out cedar tree where they used to meet. Kabuo may hold himself back at his trial, but Ishmael isn’t even really there.
This is a wonderful novel. It’s addictively plot-driven yet the events that take place are all in the service of the larger ideas that Guterson is exploring. Highly recommend.
March 12, 2020
Published in 1994, and set in 1954, Snow Falling on Cedars is an atmospheric novel with a strong sense of place. It is set on San Piedro, a fictional island off the coast of the state of Washington. As the story opens, Kabuo Miyamoto is on trial for the murder of Carl Heine, a fellow fisherman. Miyamoto is alleged to have resorted to murder in order to settle a land dispute that dates back to WWII when the Miyamotos were forced to relocate to an internment camp. Ishmael Chambers, owner of the local newspaper, is covering the trial. He is the childhood sweetheart of Miyamoto’s wife, Hatsue, and has remained obsessed with her. The story gradually reveals the backstories of the characters, in non-linear segments, including many violent and traumatic episodes experienced during WWII, which have had a lasting psychological impact.
It is an interesting blend of mystery, courtroom drama, history, and first love. Rather than focus on a blow-by-blow question and answer of witnesses during the trial, the author artfully employs narrative sequences and flashbacks to provide the essence of the testimony without overburdening the reader with detailed courtroom procedures. Themes include racism, justice, obsession, and the emotional trauma of war. It explores the difficulties several characters experience in moving on from the past to be able to more fully live in the present. The presence of a winter storm sheds light on the role of unpredictability of life:
“Those who had lived on the island a long time knew that the storm's outcome was beyond their control. This storm might well be like others past that had caused them to suffer, had killed even—or perhaps it might dwindle beneath tonight's stars and give their children snowbound happiness. Who knew? Who could predict? If disaster, so be it, they said to themselves. There was nothing to be done except what could be done. The rest—like the salt water around them, which swallowed the snow without any effort, remaining what it was implacably—was out of their hands, beyond.”
This novel is beautifully written in a traditional style with a strong storyline, vivid setting, and deeply drawn characters. It is engrossing, creative, and engenders an emotional response. It meets all my criteria for an exceptional reading experience. I loved it and have added it to my list of favorites.
It is an interesting blend of mystery, courtroom drama, history, and first love. Rather than focus on a blow-by-blow question and answer of witnesses during the trial, the author artfully employs narrative sequences and flashbacks to provide the essence of the testimony without overburdening the reader with detailed courtroom procedures. Themes include racism, justice, obsession, and the emotional trauma of war. It explores the difficulties several characters experience in moving on from the past to be able to more fully live in the present. The presence of a winter storm sheds light on the role of unpredictability of life:
“Those who had lived on the island a long time knew that the storm's outcome was beyond their control. This storm might well be like others past that had caused them to suffer, had killed even—or perhaps it might dwindle beneath tonight's stars and give their children snowbound happiness. Who knew? Who could predict? If disaster, so be it, they said to themselves. There was nothing to be done except what could be done. The rest—like the salt water around them, which swallowed the snow without any effort, remaining what it was implacably—was out of their hands, beyond.”
This novel is beautifully written in a traditional style with a strong storyline, vivid setting, and deeply drawn characters. It is engrossing, creative, and engenders an emotional response. It meets all my criteria for an exceptional reading experience. I loved it and have added it to my list of favorites.
April 30, 2024
In my quest to read more books from my library, once again I have just read a beautiful autographed gem from my bookshelves, Snow Falling on Cedars, a debut novel by David Guterson first published in 1994. The story takes place on the fictional island of San Piedro, an island of rugged and spectacular beauty in Puget Sound, renowned for its salmon fishing and strawberry farming. The book highlights the treatment of Japanese citizens during World War II in the American West, such as internment camps splitting families of Japanese descent. Snow Falling on Cedars highlights their treatment during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s in the Pacific Northwest. This is a very lyrical and atmospheric novel as it evokes throughout the richness and raw beauty of the sea and the land, and sometimes even its people, as well as its inherent danger.
The year is 1954 but the shadow of World War II is present in the courtroom where Kabuo Miyamoto’s trial is underway for the brutal killing of a fellow salmon fisherman, Carl Heine. Ishmael Chambers, who lost an arm in the Pacific war now runs the island newspaper inherited from his father and is one of the reporters covering the trial. It is this trial that brings him close once again to Hatsu Miyamoto, the wife of the accused man and his boyhood love. But now, as a heavy snowfall surrounds and impedes the progress of Kabuo Miyamoto’s trial, a decorated war veteran, they all must come to a reckoning, not only with the past, but with culture, nature, and love. It was said best on the cover of my book: ”Both suspenseful and beautifully crafted, ‘Snow Falling on Cedars’ portrays the psychology of a community, the ambiguities of justice, the racism that persists even between neighbors, and the necessity of individual moral action despite the indifference of nature and circumstance.”
Ishmael, reflecting on his father as he sat in his study admiring the desk that his father had built himself from a vast expanse of cherry wood, the size of an English baron’s dining table with smoked glass covering much of it. As he stared at his bookcases with collected Shakespeare, Jefferson essays, Thoreau, Paine, Hawthorn, Twain and Dickens, he thought of his father and how he ran the newspaper noting that he was an anguished editorialist incapable of fully indulging himself when it came to condemnation.
The year is 1954 but the shadow of World War II is present in the courtroom where Kabuo Miyamoto’s trial is underway for the brutal killing of a fellow salmon fisherman, Carl Heine. Ishmael Chambers, who lost an arm in the Pacific war now runs the island newspaper inherited from his father and is one of the reporters covering the trial. It is this trial that brings him close once again to Hatsu Miyamoto, the wife of the accused man and his boyhood love. But now, as a heavy snowfall surrounds and impedes the progress of Kabuo Miyamoto’s trial, a decorated war veteran, they all must come to a reckoning, not only with the past, but with culture, nature, and love. It was said best on the cover of my book: ”Both suspenseful and beautifully crafted, ‘Snow Falling on Cedars’ portrays the psychology of a community, the ambiguities of justice, the racism that persists even between neighbors, and the necessity of individual moral action despite the indifference of nature and circumstance.”
Ishmael, reflecting on his father as he sat in his study admiring the desk that his father had built himself from a vast expanse of cherry wood, the size of an English baron’s dining table with smoked glass covering much of it. As he stared at his bookcases with collected Shakespeare, Jefferson essays, Thoreau, Paine, Hawthorn, Twain and Dickens, he thought of his father and how he ran the newspaper noting that he was an anguished editorialist incapable of fully indulging himself when it came to condemnation.
”For he’d recognized limits and the grayness of the world, which is what endeared him to island life, limited as it was by surrounding waters, which imposed upon islanders certain duties and conditions foreign to mainlanders. An enemy on an island is an enemy forever, he’d been fond of reminding his son. There was no blending into an anonymous background, no neighboring society to shift toward. Islanders were required, by the very nature of their landscape, to watch their step moment by moment. No one trod easily upon the emotions of another where the sea licked everywhere against an endless shoreline.”
April 8, 2016
Kevin Ansbro, author of Kinnara, reminded me of this book...( having just read "The Translation in Love".
Although both stories are different...the history is heartwrenching of how the American - and Canadian- Japanese were treated during and post WWII.
I just saw that the author has a new book of 'short stories' coming out. "Snow Falling on Cedars" was a beautiful book. I must have read it before I was a Goodreads member -- (I still remember his 'writing'). Always did want to read another book by this author!
February 15, 2019
A good story ruined for me by the way it's told - too many irrelevant sideshows, a constant flooding of insignificant details, too much flowery prose. The two important themes of this book - the racial prejudice harboured towards the Japanese-Americans during and after WW2 and the damage war does to a man's soul - often get lost in the surfeit of irrelevant detail, the backstories of incidental characters and the endless long passages about weather and landscape. A Japanese American is on trial for murdering a fellow fisherman who he seemingly has a motive to kill. The trial itself is an example of how overly detailed this novel is, the author painstakingly including all the nuances of courtroom protocol and thus dragging it out throughout the novel. We're consistently told things we don't need to know or already know and I eventually found myself skipping entire sections, something I rarely do. Disappointing.
March 13, 2024
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson was an interesting novel. At first i didn’t like it at all. I persevered and ended up loving it. Set in 1954 on a small fictional island off the coast of Washington State 10 years after the end of WW2 prejudices still ran high against the Japanese. When a fisherman comes up dead an investigation leads to possible foul place. The defendant has to prove his innocence with a big odd against him, his race. This books takes the reader through multiple genres that would fit many book lovers. It is character driven with a historical fiction setting and romance. Police and detective working against racism and prejudices of all kinds that ultimately fits the courtroom dramas many readers enjoy. In 1999 this enjoyable novel was made into a movie.
December 22, 2015
Not sure why I have never read this before but I really enjoyed it anyway. Usually I am not a fan of court room dramas but the way this one alternated the court room scenes with background information and scenes from the past was wonderful. The representation of the Japanese people was a little stereotypical - no, a lot stereotypical - but it did not spoil the fascinating story. I was interested too to hear about this chapter in the history of the war. I knew about the way anyone with any German heritage was rounded up in England, but I did not know about the Japanese in America. It was a very low point for humanity around the world. This is a good book anyway and worth reading for anyone who has not already done so!
February 10, 2017
This book is many things: historical fiction, police procedural, courtroom drama, and love story. It is a densely-written, character-driven novel set on the isolated island of San Piedro in Puget Sound, where the hatreds, bitterness, and wounds of WWII have not completely healed almost ten years after the war's end.
The story opens in December, 1954, as Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese-American fisherman, is on trial for the premeditated murder of Carl Heine, a fellow island fisherman. The motive appears to be seven acres of land that Kabuo believes the Heines stole from his family while they were interned during the war. Kabuo gazes out the courtroom window and sees snow falling; he has not seen the light of day since his arrest in September, seventy-seven days ago, and realizes he has completely missed autumn.
Also in the courtroom is the reporter Ishmael, who was the childhood lover of Kabuo's wife, Hatsue, and still suffers in his soul from unrequited love. As he also watches the snow fall, he thinks about the contested land: "The world was one world, and the notion that a man might kill another over some small patch of it did not make sense--though Ishmael knew that such things happened. He had been to the war, after all." The rugged island setting is very important to the story--the isolatedness of life for its five-thousand residents, who are at the mercy of the changeable weather and the sea.
As the trial unfolds and witnesses come forward to testify, flashbacks reveal what has led to the current situation--what has shaped each life and caused them to have the feelings and make the choices and judgments they have made: events such as Pearl Harbor and its aftermath, the internment of Japanese-Americans in camps, horrifying WWII fighting experiences, cultural forces and bigotry that thwart love's fulfillment.
The mystery comes to a satisfying conclusion which I thought was well done. I thoroughly enjoyed the richness of these peoples' stories and believe they will stay with me for a long time, which is why I gave the book my top rating. It has been a long time since I've read a novel this well-done and I highly recommend it.
I found these last thoughts from Ishmael most poignant: "The heart of ANY other, because it had a will, would remain forever mysterious. (H)e understood this, too: that accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart."
The story opens in December, 1954, as Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese-American fisherman, is on trial for the premeditated murder of Carl Heine, a fellow island fisherman. The motive appears to be seven acres of land that Kabuo believes the Heines stole from his family while they were interned during the war. Kabuo gazes out the courtroom window and sees snow falling; he has not seen the light of day since his arrest in September, seventy-seven days ago, and realizes he has completely missed autumn.
Also in the courtroom is the reporter Ishmael, who was the childhood lover of Kabuo's wife, Hatsue, and still suffers in his soul from unrequited love. As he also watches the snow fall, he thinks about the contested land: "The world was one world, and the notion that a man might kill another over some small patch of it did not make sense--though Ishmael knew that such things happened. He had been to the war, after all." The rugged island setting is very important to the story--the isolatedness of life for its five-thousand residents, who are at the mercy of the changeable weather and the sea.
As the trial unfolds and witnesses come forward to testify, flashbacks reveal what has led to the current situation--what has shaped each life and caused them to have the feelings and make the choices and judgments they have made: events such as Pearl Harbor and its aftermath, the internment of Japanese-Americans in camps, horrifying WWII fighting experiences, cultural forces and bigotry that thwart love's fulfillment.
The mystery comes to a satisfying conclusion which I thought was well done. I thoroughly enjoyed the richness of these peoples' stories and believe they will stay with me for a long time, which is why I gave the book my top rating. It has been a long time since I've read a novel this well-done and I highly recommend it.
I found these last thoughts from Ishmael most poignant: "The heart of ANY other, because it had a will, would remain forever mysterious. (H)e understood this, too: that accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart."
December 23, 2011
This PEN/Faulkner winning novel employs a narrative technique that distinguishes it. The tale is told from the points of view of the cast of characters. From their viewpoints the tale unfolds and we come to know the characters themselves more intimately because of their roles in relating the tale. Faulkner used this same approach in As I Lay Dying in which a group of travelers narrate their perspectives in the course of arduous travel. Chaucer likewise in The Canterbury Tales. The structure hinges around the murder trial of a Japanese-American who fought on the European front for the Allies during WWII. Unobtrusive flashbacks take us inside the minds of the characters as the tale unravels in an otherwise straight-ahead narrative style. The author's descriptions were quite beautifully moving and complete and finely drawn. The allusions to the snowfall during a great storm were a cohesive leitmotif repeated throughout the novel. The dialogue was, I found, a little uneven and a few of the characters seemed a little flat. However, the novel has heart and the primary characters rise to meet the harsh crises that life sends their way with dignity and honor and grace. The novel deals intelligently and unsentimentally about the subject of bias during a painful epoch for Asian-Americans. I would rate the novel between four and five stars: just shy of great for this appealing mainstream novel.
February 28, 2021
My first 5-star read of the year! The novel is set in 1954 on San Piedro, an island of 5,000 off the coast of Washington state. A decade on from the war, the community’s chickens come home to roost when a Japanese American man, Kabuo Miyamoto, is charged with murdering a fellow fisherman, Carl Heine. The men had been engaged in a dispute over some land – seven acres of strawberry fields that were seized from the Miyamoto family when, like the rest of the country’s Japanese population, they were rounded up in internment camps. Meanwhile, Ishmael Chambers, who runs the local newspaper and lost an arm in the war, stumbles on a piece of evidence that might turn the case around. Still in love with Hatsue, now Kabuo’s wife but once his teenage obsession, he is torn between winning her back and wanting to do what’s right.
Guterson alternates between trial scenes and flashbacks to war service or stolen afternoons Ishmael and Hatsue spent kissing in the shelter of massive cedar trees. The mystery element held me completely gripped – readers are just as in the dark as the jurors until very close to the end – but this is mostly a powerful picture of the lasting effects of racism. All the characters are well drawn, even minor ones like elderly defense attorney Nels Gudmundsson. Even though I only read 10 or 15 pages at a sitting over the course of a month, every time I picked up the book I was instantly immersed in the atmosphere, whether it was a warm courtroom with a snowstorm swirling outside or a troop ship entering the Pacific Theater. This has the epic feel of a doorstopper, though it’s only 400 pages. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Guterson alternates between trial scenes and flashbacks to war service or stolen afternoons Ishmael and Hatsue spent kissing in the shelter of massive cedar trees. The mystery element held me completely gripped – readers are just as in the dark as the jurors until very close to the end – but this is mostly a powerful picture of the lasting effects of racism. All the characters are well drawn, even minor ones like elderly defense attorney Nels Gudmundsson. Even though I only read 10 or 15 pages at a sitting over the course of a month, every time I picked up the book I was instantly immersed in the atmosphere, whether it was a warm courtroom with a snowstorm swirling outside or a troop ship entering the Pacific Theater. This has the epic feel of a doorstopper, though it’s only 400 pages. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
February 3, 2019
David Guterson's award-winning debut is set in 1954 on the fictional island of San Pietro, off the coast of Washington state. When the body of fisherman Carl Heine is discovered early one foggy morning, the police are in no doubt that they have a murder on their hands. Suspicion falls upon Kabuo Miyamoto, a fellow fisherman who was known to been in dispute with the Heine family. Home to a large Japanese community, tensions have been high on San Pietro ever since Pearl Harbor, and the ensuing trial only serves to add fuel to the flames. With evidence piling up, thing are looking grim for Kabuo - his wife Hatsue and their children are starting to lose hope. But local newspaperman Ismael Chambers has a nagging feeling that the case is not as clear-cut as it seems, and he begins his own inquiries into Carl's death.
A review in the Independent on Sunday praised this novel for having a "page-whizzing narrative" and I can't think of a more inaccurate description. The pace is languorous for the most part, as Guterson gives us an intricate backstory of every major and minor character. Some of these detours I found absorbing, such as Ismael's horrific experiences in World War II. But other chapters, like a plodding reminiscence of his teenage romance with Hatsue almost put me to sleep. Yet I kept reading. The characters are so detailed and believably rendered, I had to find out their fates. So if you're looking for a nail-biting courtroom drama, I'd advise steering clear. However, if thoughtfully-constructed murder mysteries are your thing, then you can't go far wrong with this one.
A review in the Independent on Sunday praised this novel for having a "page-whizzing narrative" and I can't think of a more inaccurate description. The pace is languorous for the most part, as Guterson gives us an intricate backstory of every major and minor character. Some of these detours I found absorbing, such as Ismael's horrific experiences in World War II. But other chapters, like a plodding reminiscence of his teenage romance with Hatsue almost put me to sleep. Yet I kept reading. The characters are so detailed and believably rendered, I had to find out their fates. So if you're looking for a nail-biting courtroom drama, I'd advise steering clear. However, if thoughtfully-constructed murder mysteries are your thing, then you can't go far wrong with this one.
December 29, 2022
I thought I was about to dive into a cozy romance. Nope! It opened up in court where a Japanese, Kabuo Miyamoto, was on trial for the murder of another islander, a gill-netter, Carl Heine. Crap! I can’t stand law and order and courtroom novels. BUT, this one’s different. I ended up loving it. The story is actually told in-between witnesses, and boy was it told. The author had done incredible research to tell this story. Every aspect of it was so real and true, from the lives of the islanders, young love, the experience of the Japanese concentration camps, to the racism against the Japanese in the 1950’s, which was still strong after the bombing of Pearl Harbor just ten years earlier. He did great in setting the scene for Washington and making you feel like you were there.
There was no reading through pages and pages of court proceedings. Although, I felt he could have left out the “retelling” of the whole murder incident by the journalist on the last several pages that seemed to go on and on.
The story is set in 1954, September 15 and 16th to be exact, on fictitious San Piedro Island in Washington. (This island is said to actually be based on the real Bainbridge Island.)
In 1940’s, Kabuo’s father had made arrangements with Carl’s father, Carl Sr., to purchase 7 acres of land for growing strawberries at a time when it was unlawful for Japanese, or any foreigners, to even own land in the U.S. Carl’s mother, Etta, was as racist as they came and never wanted Carl Sr. to sell any of their land to the Japanese, but the agreement was made and was to be completed by the time Kabuo was to become a citizen of the U.S.
The Miyamoto’s couldn’t make the last two payments because of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the war with Japan. All the Japanese around the U.S. were being rounded up and sent to concentration camps. This included the Miyamoto’s and all the other Japanese on the island. Unfortunately, during this time, Carl Sr. died of a heart-attack and Etta sold the strawberry land out from underneath the Miyamoto’s.
It’s now 1954, and Etta's son, Carl Jr., is found dead. He was found drowned and all tangled up in his gill net with a big gash and cracked skull behind his left ear. They believed it was murder, and they believed Kabuo, Carl’s long-time friend, who had his land stolen out from under him by this family, was the culprit. The evidence seemed to be piling up against him, and so was the prejudice.
Ishmael Chambers, a journalist, is very interested in this case because he and Kabuo’s wife, Hatsue, had a young-love, secret affair while in high school. Ishmael was sent off to war to fight the Japanese and Hatsue was sent off to a concentration camp with her family. Their love would never be. It was absolutely forbidden, but Ishmael was trapped inside his own head after coming back from the war with only one arm and having lost Hatsue. He never married and never had children. Hatsue had moved on. She married and now had three children by Kabuo and living life back on the island.
At the end of the trial, Ishmael had gone to the U.S. Coast Guard station and researched what exactly the weather and ships in the channel were doing the night of Carl’s death. He found evidence that there was a ship that had been re-routed through the Shipping Channel and would definitely have caused a wake that ended up knocking Carl off the boat and killing him, but was holding back that information until he realized what a loser he was, in life in general, and how bad he must have appeared to Hatsue. He ended up doing the right thing because it was the descent thing to do as a human-being, but also to prove to himself (and maybe even to Hatsue) that he was worth more than just printing school and town functions and advertisements in his father’s newspaper, which he had taken over after his father’s death. This evidence caused the judge to declare a mistrial and the case was thrown out of court, giving Kabuo back his life.
----------
MOVIE: "Snow Falling on Cedars" (1999), starring Ethan Hawke as Ishmael Chambers (Journalist) and others I don't really know.
There was no reading through pages and pages of court proceedings. Although, I felt he could have left out the “retelling” of the whole murder incident by the journalist on the last several pages that seemed to go on and on.
The story is set in 1954, September 15 and 16th to be exact, on fictitious San Piedro Island in Washington. (This island is said to actually be based on the real Bainbridge Island.)
In 1940’s, Kabuo’s father had made arrangements with Carl’s father, Carl Sr., to purchase 7 acres of land for growing strawberries at a time when it was unlawful for Japanese, or any foreigners, to even own land in the U.S. Carl’s mother, Etta, was as racist as they came and never wanted Carl Sr. to sell any of their land to the Japanese, but the agreement was made and was to be completed by the time Kabuo was to become a citizen of the U.S.
The Miyamoto’s couldn’t make the last two payments because of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the war with Japan. All the Japanese around the U.S. were being rounded up and sent to concentration camps. This included the Miyamoto’s and all the other Japanese on the island. Unfortunately, during this time, Carl Sr. died of a heart-attack and Etta sold the strawberry land out from underneath the Miyamoto’s.
It’s now 1954, and Etta's son, Carl Jr., is found dead. He was found drowned and all tangled up in his gill net with a big gash and cracked skull behind his left ear. They believed it was murder, and they believed Kabuo, Carl’s long-time friend, who had his land stolen out from under him by this family, was the culprit. The evidence seemed to be piling up against him, and so was the prejudice.
Ishmael Chambers, a journalist, is very interested in this case because he and Kabuo’s wife, Hatsue, had a young-love, secret affair while in high school. Ishmael was sent off to war to fight the Japanese and Hatsue was sent off to a concentration camp with her family. Their love would never be. It was absolutely forbidden, but Ishmael was trapped inside his own head after coming back from the war with only one arm and having lost Hatsue. He never married and never had children. Hatsue had moved on. She married and now had three children by Kabuo and living life back on the island.
At the end of the trial, Ishmael had gone to the U.S. Coast Guard station and researched what exactly the weather and ships in the channel were doing the night of Carl’s death. He found evidence that there was a ship that had been re-routed through the Shipping Channel and would definitely have caused a wake that ended up knocking Carl off the boat and killing him, but was holding back that information until he realized what a loser he was, in life in general, and how bad he must have appeared to Hatsue. He ended up doing the right thing because it was the descent thing to do as a human-being, but also to prove to himself (and maybe even to Hatsue) that he was worth more than just printing school and town functions and advertisements in his father’s newspaper, which he had taken over after his father’s death. This evidence caused the judge to declare a mistrial and the case was thrown out of court, giving Kabuo back his life.
----------
MOVIE: "Snow Falling on Cedars" (1999), starring Ethan Hawke as Ishmael Chambers (Journalist) and others I don't really know.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 7, 2008
I really enjoyed the language and imagery the author created in this book. The title in itself sets the tone. I saw this years before the film and really felt the author conveyed what it was like living in the Pacific Northwest during the Second World War. I think the storyline is timeless. Forbidden love, societal rules...war. Recommended to those interested in period pieces with settings not often written about.
October 19, 2017
I loved this book. It was a slow start for me but then I really began to enjoy it. I liked the way that the writer gave such detail and background to all the characters; this helped to build the story and for me to feel as if I knew them. It has a lot of themes; murder, prejudice, hatred and humanity. I will now have to check out his other books.
September 9, 2012
Imagine what WEST SIDE STORY would have been like if Maria had married Chino like a good little girl. And Tony just sat around Pop's Soda Shop feeling sorry for himself. For ten years.
David Guterson has written a careful, elegant novel that pushes all the right liberal buttons (racial prejudice, evil military men, small town nastiness) but resolutely avoids any kind of heat, sexual, political, racial, or otherwise. The "oppressed" Japanese are sentimentalized to the point of being laughably unreal. The white, small-town rubes are a flock of sheep. They're all empty-headed gossips as well as weak-minded bigots. Small towns are all alike. Big cities are full of enlightened, independent thinkers. Natch! (This story must have really wowed them on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Hey, that's where all the book reviewers are. Do you think maybe . . . maybe Guterson planned it that way? Nah . . .)
What makes this book so offensive -- is that it isn't offensive. There's nothing in it that anyone IMPORTANT could find frightening, or objectionable. It's written beautifully, with tasteful nature descriptions on every page. It's all very careful, very reverent, very dull.
David Guterson has written a careful, elegant novel that pushes all the right liberal buttons (racial prejudice, evil military men, small town nastiness) but resolutely avoids any kind of heat, sexual, political, racial, or otherwise. The "oppressed" Japanese are sentimentalized to the point of being laughably unreal. The white, small-town rubes are a flock of sheep. They're all empty-headed gossips as well as weak-minded bigots. Small towns are all alike. Big cities are full of enlightened, independent thinkers. Natch! (This story must have really wowed them on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Hey, that's where all the book reviewers are. Do you think maybe . . . maybe Guterson planned it that way? Nah . . .)
What makes this book so offensive -- is that it isn't offensive. There's nothing in it that anyone IMPORTANT could find frightening, or objectionable. It's written beautifully, with tasteful nature descriptions on every page. It's all very careful, very reverent, very dull.
December 21, 2017
I loved the writing and the subject.
January 14, 2023
Listened to on audio.
An interesting tale that toggles between a courtroom drama and the historical background of the main characters: Kabuo, a Japanese man is accused of murdering Carl, a fellow salmon fisherman. There is a land dispute that provides the motive and much circumstantial evidence to support the accusations. Kabuo's wife and the town newspaper editor have history that bring additional layers to this complicated story that delves into first loves, jealousy, prejudice, the effects of war, and the quicksand that small towns can create when everyone knows everyone.
What I appreciated most was how the same basic "facts" could be seen and interpreted differently by various characters, depending on the filter they had operating as a result of their own personalities, histories, and attitudes. It brought to mind the phrase "we see things as we are, not as they are". Watching the various characters go through their mental gyrations, I was not sure until close to the end how things might turn out, which created both curiosity and a sense of dread for the characters.
There was much to appreciate about this story, including the historical elements that played out as the U.S. engaged with Japan in WWII, with the resulting internment camps and mistreatment of the Japanese Americans, even those who served in the war. It was a shameful time which is well represented here, along with the residual suspiciousness that comes with those racial/ethnic divides.
What kept this from being a five star read was some repetitiveness that became almost annoying in the courtroom testimony, and perhaps a tad too much detail at times, which slowed down the read. But, overall, I found it interesting and enjoyable.
An interesting tale that toggles between a courtroom drama and the historical background of the main characters: Kabuo, a Japanese man is accused of murdering Carl, a fellow salmon fisherman. There is a land dispute that provides the motive and much circumstantial evidence to support the accusations. Kabuo's wife and the town newspaper editor have history that bring additional layers to this complicated story that delves into first loves, jealousy, prejudice, the effects of war, and the quicksand that small towns can create when everyone knows everyone.
What I appreciated most was how the same basic "facts" could be seen and interpreted differently by various characters, depending on the filter they had operating as a result of their own personalities, histories, and attitudes. It brought to mind the phrase "we see things as we are, not as they are". Watching the various characters go through their mental gyrations, I was not sure until close to the end how things might turn out, which created both curiosity and a sense of dread for the characters.
There was much to appreciate about this story, including the historical elements that played out as the U.S. engaged with Japan in WWII, with the resulting internment camps and mistreatment of the Japanese Americans, even those who served in the war. It was a shameful time which is well represented here, along with the residual suspiciousness that comes with those racial/ethnic divides.
What kept this from being a five star read was some repetitiveness that became almost annoying in the courtroom testimony, and perhaps a tad too much detail at times, which slowed down the read. But, overall, I found it interesting and enjoyable.
March 31, 2015
This novel is a gem, a pleasure to read, and goes somewhat unnoticed in the realm of modern literature. It has striking similarities to "To Kill a Mockingbird". It's themes of prejudice, forbidden love, and greed are played out on a sleepy Puget Sound island in 1954. A white fisherman dies while out fishing one morning, and a Japanese American is accused of his murder. The prejudice surrounding Japanese Americans is strong in the aftermath of World War II, in spite of the fact most of them were native born American citizens. There is a trial and there are flashbacks to World War II right after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when these same Japanese American citizens were placed in internment camps. So well written, an absolute necessity for a dialogue driven novel.
September 20, 2022
Na een mistige nacht wordt de vissersboot van Carl Heine Jr. stuurloos op zee gevonden. Bij nader onderzoek wordt zijn lichaam gevonden in zijn netten onder water. Wat is er gebeurd? Een ongeluk....of moord?
Niet lang daarna wordt Kabuo Miyamoto beschuldigd van moord op Carl. In zijn boot worden sporen gevonden die daarvan het bewijs zouden kunnen zijn.
Het proces begint. Dat is eigenlijk de kern van het verhaal. De locatie van het het verhaal: het eiland San Piedro.
De auteur laat ons kennis maken met vele eilandbewoners. Eigenlijk kent bijna iedereen iedereen daar, en velen hebben met elkaar te maken.
Er woont ook een aantal Japanezen op het eiland. In 1942, na Pearl Harbor, zijn ze allemaal weggevoerd, omwille van hun ras, dat op dat moment als 'de vijand' beschouwd werd. Dit veranderde heel veel in het leven van de mensen van San Piedro.
Hatsue, de vrouw van Kabuo, speelt ook een grote rol in het verhaal. In haar jeugd had zij namelijk een geheime relatie met Ishmael Chambers, die eindigde toen Hatsue en haar familie van het eiland verdreven werden. En Hatsue trouwde met Kabuo.
Nog veel meer wordt er verteld over verschillende mensen en hun levens voor en na de oorlog. En er ontstaan situaties die het zouden kunnen verklaren dat Miyamoto en Heine zich als vijanden tegenover elkaar zouden kunnen gedragen.
Heel veel 'zou' dus echter....
Ik vond de verhalen over de mensen interessant en boeiend, en op het einde van het boek, als het proces goed op gang kwam, werd het dan ook nog eens spannend.
Ik heb dit boek graag gelezen.
Niet lang daarna wordt Kabuo Miyamoto beschuldigd van moord op Carl. In zijn boot worden sporen gevonden die daarvan het bewijs zouden kunnen zijn.
Het proces begint. Dat is eigenlijk de kern van het verhaal. De locatie van het het verhaal: het eiland San Piedro.
De auteur laat ons kennis maken met vele eilandbewoners. Eigenlijk kent bijna iedereen iedereen daar, en velen hebben met elkaar te maken.
Er woont ook een aantal Japanezen op het eiland. In 1942, na Pearl Harbor, zijn ze allemaal weggevoerd, omwille van hun ras, dat op dat moment als 'de vijand' beschouwd werd. Dit veranderde heel veel in het leven van de mensen van San Piedro.
Hatsue, de vrouw van Kabuo, speelt ook een grote rol in het verhaal. In haar jeugd had zij namelijk een geheime relatie met Ishmael Chambers, die eindigde toen Hatsue en haar familie van het eiland verdreven werden. En Hatsue trouwde met Kabuo.
Nog veel meer wordt er verteld over verschillende mensen en hun levens voor en na de oorlog. En er ontstaan situaties die het zouden kunnen verklaren dat Miyamoto en Heine zich als vijanden tegenover elkaar zouden kunnen gedragen.
Heel veel 'zou' dus echter....
Ik vond de verhalen over de mensen interessant en boeiend, en op het einde van het boek, als het proces goed op gang kwam, werd het dan ook nog eens spannend.
Ik heb dit boek graag gelezen.
March 11, 2025
FIRST REVIEW FROM 2009:
Very depressing, somewhat predictable so far. However, it's great for anyone discovering "better" fiction. It will definitely appeal to teenagers in the high school setting.
REVISITED REVIEW: SEPTEMBER 3, 2013
I revisited “Snow Falling on Cedars” by David Guterson because I am planning on teaching this book to my upcoming 10th graders this school year. At first when I read it for pleasure reading a few years back, I found the novel to be quite trite and predictable, with a maudlin love story at the center of a story that concerned itself with racial prejudice, the Manzanar internment camps, and Japanese honor.
However, this time, I found myself less cynical, and more open to the possibilities of a good love story, set among the bleak backdrop of World War 2 and Washington’s Puget Sound. Kabuo Miyamoto is a Japanese American fisherman who wishes to reclaim land that his father had paid for from the Heine family, ironically, German-American immigrants who had themselves been persecuted for their Nazi sympathies. Mr. Miyamoto finds himself accused of murdering Carl Heine Jr., and this murder-mystery sets up stories of flashbacks- of passion, of longing between Miyamoto’s wife, Hatsue and her forbidden romance with journalist Ishmael Chambers, a white boy who has loved her from afar.
Gorgeous images of snow literally falling, strawberry fields, grey skies and water pervade this haunting love story, of honor, of cultures going and coming; of assimilation, and of a history that many of us don’t wish to face- the Japanese internment camps are a part of our history that should be seen with shame, yet acknowledged and learned from.
Very depressing, somewhat predictable so far. However, it's great for anyone discovering "better" fiction. It will definitely appeal to teenagers in the high school setting.
REVISITED REVIEW: SEPTEMBER 3, 2013
I revisited “Snow Falling on Cedars” by David Guterson because I am planning on teaching this book to my upcoming 10th graders this school year. At first when I read it for pleasure reading a few years back, I found the novel to be quite trite and predictable, with a maudlin love story at the center of a story that concerned itself with racial prejudice, the Manzanar internment camps, and Japanese honor.
However, this time, I found myself less cynical, and more open to the possibilities of a good love story, set among the bleak backdrop of World War 2 and Washington’s Puget Sound. Kabuo Miyamoto is a Japanese American fisherman who wishes to reclaim land that his father had paid for from the Heine family, ironically, German-American immigrants who had themselves been persecuted for their Nazi sympathies. Mr. Miyamoto finds himself accused of murdering Carl Heine Jr., and this murder-mystery sets up stories of flashbacks- of passion, of longing between Miyamoto’s wife, Hatsue and her forbidden romance with journalist Ishmael Chambers, a white boy who has loved her from afar.
Gorgeous images of snow literally falling, strawberry fields, grey skies and water pervade this haunting love story, of honor, of cultures going and coming; of assimilation, and of a history that many of us don’t wish to face- the Japanese internment camps are a part of our history that should be seen with shame, yet acknowledged and learned from.
April 23, 2012
What. A. Boring. Book.
Absolutely pointless, with half-dead characters, mystery that leads nowhere, and a big fat bunch of stereotypes about small communities, Japanese, Germans, war veterans, men, women, you name it. One of those books where a noble intent only infuriates the reader. Why was it even written? To show that East is East and West is West and they can have sex but not love or what?
The Japanese elements were beyond lame. OMG there is nothing like "odori dance", "Shizuoka-ken-prefecture" or whatever, and if the author thinks that mono-no aware means "the ultimate beauty", then fine, but he might want to know that it's about as appropriate a compliment to a woman on her wedding night as memento mori. Of course young Japanese people born in the States eat only rice balls and fish and drink only green tea. Ah and they write on rice paper. I'd write more but just don't want to waste any more time on this. 悪しからず。
Absolutely pointless, with half-dead characters, mystery that leads nowhere, and a big fat bunch of stereotypes about small communities, Japanese, Germans, war veterans, men, women, you name it. One of those books where a noble intent only infuriates the reader. Why was it even written? To show that East is East and West is West and they can have sex but not love or what?
The Japanese elements were beyond lame. OMG there is nothing like "odori dance", "Shizuoka-ken-prefecture" or whatever, and if the author thinks that mono-no aware means "the ultimate beauty", then fine, but he might want to know that it's about as appropriate a compliment to a woman on her wedding night as memento mori. Of course young Japanese people born in the States eat only rice balls and fish and drink only green tea. Ah and they write on rice paper. I'd write more but just don't want to waste any more time on this. 悪しからず。
March 12, 2025
I really loved this one back in the day, but have been disappointed with his offerings since.
April 28, 2020
Once in a while a novel stops me completely in my treks, its visual impact is poetry. The main story is set years after the Second World War; the bombing of Pearl Harbor has left its mark. The opening has my complete attention, it’s a court scene, it doesn’t take me long to realise this is Ishmael Chamber’s story and when Hatsue Miyamoto, of Japanese descendent, tells him to go away I know something big is coming in how it’s weighed down by subtext.
When I turned over the last page, I hadn’t imagined the weaving tapestry of a variety of hates in different measures and triggered by different things. For Ishmael it’s a pining love that has been festering away and sucking life out of him. All this goes on whilst Hatsue’s husband, Kabuo, is being trialled for murder. However, as the story unfolds more layers emerge showing it’s a town on trial for their prejudice. It’s the kind of injustices that would be easy to be aggravated by but David Guterson handles it sensitively by using irony and the frailty of human nature, illustrating how easy it is to fall into the trappings of hate.
As a read, this could have been told with a heavy hand, but it’s the little details of poetic injustices that deeply moved me. Ishmael not ready to let go of Hatsue drew my sympathies, she understood long before he did they were not right for each other. I couldn’t help feeling if Pearl Harbor hadn’t happened would they’ve had a chance? David Guterson answered this by his drawing of characters; I’m not sure if Ishmael would have got the code of dignity and honour instilled in Hatsue and Kabuo; one of which was to show no emotions. Also, unlike Ishmael, Hatsue never forgot they were from different cultures, and she did not let their romance draw her to impractical daydreams.
Away from the romance is a gritty realism of how the American Japanese community were treated after the war. It was heart-breaking to read, especially the living conditions of the camp that undermine the dignity that they live by.
I also liked how the novel is peppered with examples of misunderstandings stemming from cultural differences. The worst part of it is the blindness to righteousness inflaming the anger the prejudice shadows. When Kabuo is on trial his lack of emotions is read as lack of remorse. This is further compounded when witnesses give their accounts, their words that become evidence using a subjective empirical system – their feelings. Feelings, which are raw from losing or having friends and family fight in a war against Japan. The war may have been over for years, but in this small-town prejudice is awakened when the war is revived on a much smaller scale, begging the question when something is over is it truly ever left in the past?
When I turned over the last page, I hadn’t imagined the weaving tapestry of a variety of hates in different measures and triggered by different things. For Ishmael it’s a pining love that has been festering away and sucking life out of him. All this goes on whilst Hatsue’s husband, Kabuo, is being trialled for murder. However, as the story unfolds more layers emerge showing it’s a town on trial for their prejudice. It’s the kind of injustices that would be easy to be aggravated by but David Guterson handles it sensitively by using irony and the frailty of human nature, illustrating how easy it is to fall into the trappings of hate.
As a read, this could have been told with a heavy hand, but it’s the little details of poetic injustices that deeply moved me. Ishmael not ready to let go of Hatsue drew my sympathies, she understood long before he did they were not right for each other. I couldn’t help feeling if Pearl Harbor hadn’t happened would they’ve had a chance? David Guterson answered this by his drawing of characters; I’m not sure if Ishmael would have got the code of dignity and honour instilled in Hatsue and Kabuo; one of which was to show no emotions. Also, unlike Ishmael, Hatsue never forgot they were from different cultures, and she did not let their romance draw her to impractical daydreams.
Away from the romance is a gritty realism of how the American Japanese community were treated after the war. It was heart-breaking to read, especially the living conditions of the camp that undermine the dignity that they live by.
I also liked how the novel is peppered with examples of misunderstandings stemming from cultural differences. The worst part of it is the blindness to righteousness inflaming the anger the prejudice shadows. When Kabuo is on trial his lack of emotions is read as lack of remorse. This is further compounded when witnesses give their accounts, their words that become evidence using a subjective empirical system – their feelings. Feelings, which are raw from losing or having friends and family fight in a war against Japan. The war may have been over for years, but in this small-town prejudice is awakened when the war is revived on a much smaller scale, begging the question when something is over is it truly ever left in the past?
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