Snow Falling on Cedars

World War II is the backdrop for many a fascinating story, and this is one of them. David Guterson sets his story on a fictional island in Puget Sound and introduces us to a small community where the economy depends mostly on fishing and strawberry farming. The present, urgent story centers around a murder trial, in which Kabuo Miyamoto is accused of killing Carl Heine. It is 1954.

As the trial progresses, the author tells us the family stories of some of the island's residents, especially Kabuo's and Hatsue Imada's. Their families had been respected farmers on San Piedro Island for many years before the Pearl Harbor attack. After that, they were suddenly under the most horrible suspicions. First, policemen visited the homes of every family of Japanese ancestry and arrested men for having "weapons" (tools that all farmers and fishermen on the island had, if they'd all been searched), and not long after, their families were deported to Manzanar. Kabuo and Hatsue were married in Manzanar, and Kabuo joins the US Army shortly afterwards.

One of the reporters covering the story of this trial is Ishmael Chambers, who remembers both Kabuo and Hatsue from school. In fact, Ishmael has always been in love with Hatsue and has his own world of issues. And of course there is Carl Heine's story, and his family's past dealings with Kabuo's father is also important to the plot. (By the way, Hatsue, Kabuo, Ishmael, and Carl are contemporaries, all born in the United States.)

Racial prejudice was always present in this small community, but the war brought it to the fore, and now, ten years later, an American man, a WWII veteran, is once again singled out without reason. Kabuo and his family are faced with another crisis simply because of their ancestry.

It's a riveting story.

The author of the book is a wanderer. He shows us a window into the lives of many of the characters, but I just don't care about them. The main thing that ran through my mind throughout the whole novel was, "Can we just get back to the trial already?" Strangely, this book slightly reminds me of some of Jodi Picoult's books but this is much more drawn out and there are many scenes in the book that I feel do not serve any purpose to the story. I do not want to know about the acused man's wife's little childhood crush. I don't want to know that the dead man had sex with his wife the day he died. I don't want to know how a reporter lost his arm in the war. What I want to know is the relationship of the accused man and his wife. I want to know about the dispute over the land. I want David Guterson to get to the point already!

To continue with the flaws, I found some of the language was extremely flowery and symbolic and I didn't like it very much. I was personally turned off by the long paragraphs filled with unnecessary descriptions and metaphors. When Guterson's language wasn't flowery, it was simple and I loved it. I enjoyed his dialogue as well, as I felt that his characters felt much more alive than through his descriptions.

Despite these flaws, this was an enjoyable book. When I think of racism, the Japanese aren't exactly the first thing to come to my mind. I feel that it accurately described how many people felt at the time towards the Japanese. I'm not American (I'm a Filipino born in Canada rather) so my knowledge about Pearl Habour and such is limited. Also, as someone who loves Japanese culture, I'm almost surprised at their attitudes towards the Japanese. It was so extremely unfair but then again, nothing's fair, is it?

It was a long read, and it took me a while to fully get into it. When I was about a little more than halfway through the book did it really pick up. It was interesting enough, but I wouldn't recommend and promote it everywhere. It was a good journey.