Snow Falling on Cedars -- reader response

Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson, is one of my new favorite books. It takes place around the time of World War II on San Piedro Island. This novel is about discrimination, war, and justice. I think that it has a very good structure and that it has an interesting plot.

Guterson did an amazing job organizing the time periods and flow of his novel. He begins with Kabou’s court case and then goes back in time to explain the background of the characters and the events leading up to Kabou’s accusation of murder. Periodically, the author will return to present time to describe what is happening during the case. One thing that did disappoint me, however, was the ending. “The heart of any other, because it had a will, would remain mysterious” (460), is something that Ishmael is typing up at the very end of the book. It is after Kabou is found innocent and Hatsue is returning to him. I felt that there was just so much leading up to this moment that it was frustrating that Ishmael and Hatsue did not end up together. We learned of their love story, their past, and it seemed that they should end up married. I was not sure why Guterson chose to have it be that Hatsue was never as in love as she thought she was. It almost seems pointless for there to have been a past with those two because in the end, Hatsue and Kabou remained in love and together.

I really enjoyed all of the characters. This book is similar to The Things They Carried because of the many references to the effect of war on a man: “He had not been particularly happy in this time period, but in that regard he was like other veterans. He was keenly aware of his pinned up sleeve, and troubled because it troubled other people. Since they could not forget about it, neither could he” (31). I think that there is a meaning behind Ishmael’s name. Ishmael Chambers. On the last sentence of the book, it says, “…That accident ruled every corner of the universe, except the chambers of the human heart” (460). I am still trying to discover its complete meaning, but I do think that it has something to do with Ishmael’s name. I think that it symbolizes how deeply his heart aches for Hatsue.

I found it disturbing how the people of Japanese origin were discriminated against. “It was also a matter of having to go because his face was Japanese. There was something extra that had to be proven, a burden this particular war had placed on him…” (92). Many Japanese-Americans felt that they had to go to war or they would be thought of as spies. It did not seem to matter anyway as many were put into internment camps. This was a very troubling part because a few years of their lives were wasted in camps. Ishmael and Hatsue were separated; Hatsue eventually marries Kabou in these camps. No one was actually a spy, and no one deserved to be treated as such. The fact that Kabou is Japanese made him nervous about his court trial. He felt that he was going to be discriminated against and therefore found guilty. Fortunately, Nels Gundmundson, his attorney, was able to prove everyone wrong.

I think that it was very impressive that one book could include love, war, discrimination, and a trial all in one. It was very involving and I learned a lot more about the Japanese internment camps.