Snow Falling on Cedars

views updated

Snow Falling on Cedars
David Guterson
1994

Introduction
Author Biography
Plot Summary
Characters
Themes
Style
Historical Context
Critical Overview
Criticism
Sources
Further Reading

Introduction

David Guterson's reputation as a writer began with his first novel, Snow Falling on Cedars. It is a blend of courtroom drama and romance that takes place in a small town in Washington. Set in 1954, the novel examines the dynamics of the fictitious community of San Piedro Island after World War II. The past and present stories of many of the citizens of the small community spin off the central murder trial. Critics have embraced this novel for its sensitivity, vivid imagery, well-rounded characters, and thoughtful handling of difficult issues. Guterson admits that Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (which he assigned his high school students to read) was a major influence on his novel. He was inspired by the structure, which brings together separate stories, and the drama created by a racially-motivated trial in a small community.

Snow Falling on Cedars went virtually unnoticed when it was released in hardback. Once it was published in paperback, however, the book's popularity gained momentum from word of mouth, and the book became a paperback bestseller. In fact, Guterson's novel became the fastest-selling book in Vintage Books' (the publisher that picked up the novel's paperback rights) history. Overseas, the novel also enjoyed best-selling status; Snow Falling on Cedars has been translated into fifteen languages. The success of the book enabled Guterson to quit his teaching job and focus on writing. In addition, the novel won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award and the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1995.

Author Biography

David Guterson was born on May 4, 1956, in Seattle, Washington, the middle of five children to Murray (a criminal defense lawyer) and Shirley (a stay-at-home mother) Guterson. He enjoyed a happy childhood and spent lots of time outdoors. Since then, he has grown into an award-winning author, a contributing editor to Harper's magazine, and a vocal advocate of homeschooling.

Guterson first became interested in writing while studying at the University of Washington, from which he earned his bachelor's degree in 1978. The next year, he married Robin Radwick, a high school classmate. The newlyweds moved to Rhode Island, where Guterson attended Brown University's creative writing program for one semester. During the year they spent in Rhode Island, the Gutersons lived in a cabin on a tree farm. Robin worked as a speech therapist while her husband wrote short stories. Upon returning to the Pacific Northwest, Guterson completed a master's degree in writing at the University of Washington in 1982. The couple then moved to Puget Sound where Snow Falling on Cedars (1994) takes place.

Guterson continued writing after taking a job as a high school English teacher on Puget Sound, a job he held for ten years. When he accompanied students on a class trip to see an exhibit about Japanese internment camps, Guterson was inspired to write Cedars. The novel was so successful that he was able to quit his teaching job in 1994 and concentrate on writing. His teaching days were not over, however, because he and his wife have home-schooled their four children: Taylor, Travis, Henry, and Angelica.

Plot Summary

Chapters One-Eleven

Snow Falling on Cedars opens in 1954 in the small town of Amity Hill. The fictitious island of San Piedro in Washington's Puget Sound is the setting of a trial. Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with the murder of a fellow fisherman, Carl Heine Jr.; Carl's body was discovered in his nets by the sheriff and his deputy. A fracture in Carl's skull cast suspicion on his death. Evidence points to Kabuo.

In addition to fishing, farming (especially strawberries) is a major industry on San Piedro. Many Japanese worked these fields and became members of the community. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, however, people of Japanese descent were sent away to internment camps. In 1954, there is still lingering distrust towards the Japanese and the prejudice is an unspoken but important force in Kabuo's trial.

Guterson structures his novel around the trial, the only event told in chronological order. As each witness takes the stand, Guterson allows the reader to enter that character's mind and witness important experiences—related to the trial or not—in his or her life. Guterson also introduces the reader to Ishmael Chambers, the town's newspaper reporter and a veteran of the war.

In his youth, Ishmael had been romantically involved with a beautiful Japanese girl named Hat-sue Imada, who is now Kabuo's wife. Ishmael and Hatsue kept their relationship secret, meeting in a large hollow cedar in the woods. Hatsue felt guilty for keeping her romance hidden from her family. Ishmael was a romantic who believed that their love would conquer all obstacles. When Hatsue and her family were forced to go to the internment camp, Manzanar, the romance ended. Hatsue was ready to break off the relationship with Ishmael anyway (because she understood that their love could never survive), so she sent him a letter. Ishmael reacted with profound bitterness and hate.

Chapters Twelve-Twenty-Two

Guterson presents Ishmael's wartime experience, which includes, most notably, the loss of his arm. This experience sharpened Ishmael's feelings of bitterness and resentment. When he returned from the war, he occasionally saw Hatsue with Kabuo (whom she had married at Manzanar) and their children. Rather than move on with his life, Ishmael allowed his bitterness to consume him. At the beginning of Kabuo's trial, Ishmael sees the events as a potential opportunity to get back into Hatsue's life.

As the trial continues, details of a land deal gone wrong are revealed. In 1934, Kabuo's father, Zenhichi, made arrangements to secure seven acres of strawberry fields from Carl Heine Sr. Because foreign-born Japanese were not allowed to become citizens, and because only citizens could own land, Zenhichi and Carl Sr. worked out a lease-to-own arrangement so that the land would be paid for by the time American-born Kabuo would be old enough to own it. Although Carl Sr. was a sympathetic man, his wife, Etta, disapproved of the deal and felt that the Japanese were beneath them. When the Japanese Americans were sent to the internment camps, Carl Sr. assured Zenhichi he was not to worry about the land. Carl Sr. died in 1944, however, and because Zenhichi missed the last two payments on the land, Etta sold it to someone else and returned Zenhichi's money. When Kabuo returned home and discovered what had happened, he was angry and offered to buy the seven acres from the new owner, but the new owner would not sell. Without land, Kabuo opted to support his family as a fisherman. Years later, the new landowner was no longer able to work the land and sold it back to Carl Jr. Kabuo spoke with Carl about the possibility of buying the land from him. Carl agreed to consider it. The facts of this land deal gave Kabuo apparent motive to kill Carl, which only made his case more difficult to defend.

Chapters Twenty-Three-Thirty-Two

As the trial nears its close, Ishmael visits the lighthouse to find weather information for the newspaper. He discovers the watchman's notes from the night of Carl's death, and they contain information that would exonerate Kabuo. A freighter had passed by Carl's boat, throwing off a powerful wall of water that would have knocked a man overboard. Ishmael keeps the notes until he decides whether to reveal his discovery or keep it secret. He hopes that if Kabuo is imprisoned or executed, he will be able to win Hatsue back.

While the jury wrestles with a verdict (eleven members vote "guilty" and one finds reasonable doubt), Ishmael reveals the contents of the notes. The jury is released, Kabuo is freed, and Ishmael is finally able to consider a new life for himself. He makes peace with his painful memories and begins looking to the future.

Characters

Helen Chambers

Helen is Ishmael's mother. The nature of their relationship is revealed toward the end of the book after Ishmael discovers evidence that exonerates Kabuo. Rather than tell her exactly what is bothering him (whether to reveal the evidence), Ishmael talks to his mother about God and about moving on with life after the war. When he asks her what he should do, she thinks he is asking for advice about his life, not about the trial. She encourages him to get married and start a family. This discussion about deeply personal matters shows that their relationship is a close one while the advice she gives Ishmael shows that she still mothers her adult son.

Ishmael Chambers

As the reporter for the island of San Piedro, Ishmael is covering the murder trial. He is a native of the island, thirty-one years old, tall, with a hardened expression. Ishmael's father, Arthur (who is deceased at the time of the trial), started the town's newspaper many years ago, so the boy learned the trade from his father. Arthur was a somewhat controversial figure when he was running the newspaper because of his sympathetic views toward the Japanese. Despite losing subscribers, throughout the war Arthur continued to publish the kind of newspaper of which he could be proud. His dedication and integrity seem to be carried out in the character of Ishmael. Ishmael also studied journalism in college.

Ishmael's interest in the trial is personal, however, because he shared an adolescent romance with the accused's wife, Hatsue. Although Ishmael believed that their love would last despite the social obstacles they faced, Hatsue knew that her future lay elsewhere. When she broke off the relationship, he reacted with bitterness, cynicism, and hate, feelings that were compounded when he lost his left arm in World War II.

At the beginning of the novel, Ishmael harbors feelings for Hatsue and sees the trial as an opportunity to work his way back into her life. In the end, he chooses selflessness over selfishness by revealing evidence exonerating Hatsue's husband. At this point, he makes the important choice to move on with his life and seek a better future.

Nels Gudmundsson

Nels is Kabuo's appointed defense attorney. He is a doddering seventy-nine-year-old man who is plagued by partial blindness, arthritis, and various other ailments. He wears bow ties and often loops his thumbs under his suspenders when he addresses a witness.

Nels has a strong sense of justice, a low tolerance for prejudice, and a keen mind. He is sensitive to the humanity of his client, which the reader sees when he insists on giving Kabuo and Hatsue a few private moments to speak. In court, he is able to draw important facts and observations out of witnesses without being aggressive, and he is forthright in his closing statement when he discourages the jury from allowing the trial to be about race.

Carl Heine Jr.

As the novel opens, Carl's recent death is the cause of a murder trial. He was a salmon fisherman whose death aboard his boat leads the sheriff to suspect murder. At the time of Carl's death, he had a wife and three children. Carl was a large, quiet man with an imposing stature and a tendency to brood.

The land deal at the center of the trial was made between Kabuo's father, Zenhichi, and Carl's father, both of whom are deceased at the time of the trial. When the land came into Carl's possession ten years after the war, Kabuo approached him about the possibility of buying the seven acres his father had originally tried to purchase. According to Kabuo, Carl agreed to consider it. Because Carl was not a farmer, he probably intended to make money from it by leasing it to other farmers.

Carl Heine Sr.

At the time of the trial, Carl Sr. is deceased. Carl Sr. made the arrangement with Zenhichi that would enable the Japanese man to make payments toward the land he was leasing so that Kabuo could own it someday (because Kabuo was American-born, he was entitled to own land.) Carl Sr. was an understanding and sympathetic man. Before Zen-hichi was sent off to imprisonment, he assured Zenhichi that he need not worry about the land. Unfortunately, Carl Sr. died before Zenhichi returned from the camp.

Etta Heine

Etta is Carl Sr.'s widow, a Bavarian woman described as "stout, faded, and wind worn." Her distaste for the Japanese was evident before the war, and these feelings were only exacerbated by the fact that Japan was America's enemy during the war. She was rude to Zenhichi, and she detested the way her husband interacted with the Japanese and the Native Americans who came to work the strawberry fields. When her husband died, she took advantage of Zenhichi's inability to make the last two payments on his land and sold the land to another buyer. She never shows any sign of regret.

Susan Marie Heine

Susan Marie is Carl Jr.'s widow. She is a twenty-eight-year-old blonde woman who is involved in church activities. She looks fashionable in town, but plain at home. When she hears about her husband's death, she merely responds that she knew it would happen some day.

During her testimony, readers learn that Susan Marie believed that she and her husband were well-matched and that he was a good father. Despite Carl's reticence, Susan Marie feels that she understood her husband. Readers also learn that beneath Susan Marie's tough exterior is a woman who possesses a strong sense of ethics; she admits that what she knows about her husband and Kabuo is only hearsay because she was not present during their interactions. This suggests that she does not seek vengeance.

Alvin Hooks

Alvin is the prosecuting attorney. He presents the facts of the case with convenient omissions to make Kabuo look guilty.

Media Adaptations

Snow Falling on Cedars was adapted to audio by Random House in 1998. The abridged version is narrated by B. D. Wong, and the unabridged version is narrated by Peter Marinker.
In 1999, the novel was adapted to film by Universal Pictures. Directed by Scott Hicks, this well-received film starred Ethan Hawke as Ishmael and Youki Kudoh as Hatsue. In addition to an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography, the film was nominated for an American Society of Cinematographers Award, and Golden Satellite Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Actress, and Best Picture. The film won a number of awards for Best Cinematography from city and state film critics' groups.

Fujiko Imada

Fujiko is Hatsue's mother. Whether or not Fujiko is still alive at the beginning of the novel is unclear, but a great deal is told of her life before and during the war. Fujiko strove to teach her five daughters good values and self-respect. Having come from Japan under false pretenses (she was led to believe that her husband-to-be was wealthy), she was initially resistant to her new way of life in America. She came to respect her husband, however, and endured many hardships with him until they were able to make a secure life. Knowing what hardship is like, she spoke to her daughters about keeping their dignity in difficult times. This speech reveals to the reader her basic distrust of Americans (especially men).

Hisao Imada

Hisao is Hatsue's father. From him, she learns to respect the unique traditions and qualities of her heritage. He shows her how to behave in a dignified way in the face of disaster, and he demonstrates, through his own marriage, the gender roles appropriate to her culture.

Abel Martinson

Abel is Art's (the sheriff) deputy. He is twenty-four years old, and his family is not from the island. Abel becomes sick when he first sees Carl Jr.'s body, but he still insists on helping and even assists with the autopsy.

Hatsue (Imada) Miyamoto

Hatsue is Kabuo's wife. She watches his trial with intensity and controlled emotion. She is thirty-one, graceful, tall, and thin. When her husband is taken into custody, she becomes terribly lonely. Although she enjoyed a teenage romance with Ishmael, she knew that their relationship would never survive. As a teenager, she was known for her great beauty and was crowned Princess of the Strawberry Festival in 1941. Hatsue's mother taught her to be a proper Japanese young lady and to value tradition and family. Because of her secret romance with Ishmael, Hatsue felt deep shame. She also understood that the cultural differences between them would never support a lasting relationship, so she ended it. She met Kabuo at Manzanar and fell in love with him. When they were married, she finally felt that everything was right.

Hatsue is sensitive, insightful, and humble. Caught between the Japanese culture of her family and the American culture of her home, she struggled in her youth to make sense of her identity. Hat-sue is intelligent and aware of the differences between the Eastern and Western cultures. While her husband is on trial, she is devastated, yet she has the ability to advise her husband on how his expressionless manner probably makes him look guilty to the all-white jury.

Kabuo Miyamoto

As the novel opens, Kabuo stands accused of the murder of fellow fisherman Carl Heine Jr. Kabuo is composed, proud, and hard-working. He is physically strong and has angular facial features and short hair. His parents raised him to be a respectable Japanese man, teaching him their trade (strawberry farming) and kendo, the method of stick-fighting used by samurai. Kabuo's mind is strong, as seen in the description of his time spent in jail. Not only is he an excellent chess player, but he retains control of his surroundings by keeping his light bulb unscrewed so that he does not have to see his cell, allowing him to use his mind to maintain a sense of freedom.

Kabuo is unlike Hatsue in that he has never felt torn between two cultures; he adheres to his Japanese heritage while remaining capable of functioning in American society. As a young man, he admired Hatsue, but it was not until they were at Manzanar that he had the opportunity to pursue her romantically. There, he proved himself to be a reliable, thoughtful, and capable young man, and Hat-sue's family was delighted at the union. Against Hatsue's wishes, he enlisted to fight in the war for the Americans as a matter of loyalty. The guilt he continues to feel for having killed three men in Europe haunts him, and his belief in karma leads him to understand his current persecution as a consequence for committing murder during the war. When he returned from the war, he discovered that the land he expected to own on San Piedro had been sold to someone else. He was furious but remained in control of his emotions. He was eventually forced to find another way to support his wife and children, so he learned fishing.

Zenhichi Miyamoto

Zenhichi is Kabuo's father, who is no longer living at the time of the trial. He made an ill-fated land arrangement with Carl Heine Sr. to purchase seven acres of strawberry fields so that when Kabuo was old enough to own land, he would have it. Zen-hichi was a hard-working man of honor who sought to treat people fairly and stand by his word. Despite Etta Heine's rudeness, Zenhichi was always polite and respectful to her.

Art Moran

Art is the county sheriff, who is described as "by nature an uneasy person." Despite never having planned on becoming a sheriff, Art believes in the American system of justice. He is thin, over fifty, balding, and chews Juicy Fruit gum con-stantly. He and his deputy discover the body of Carl Heine Jr. in his nets, and Art launches a murder investigation. Art is a longtime resident of the island, and he takes his job seriously. He is sensitive to those around him, including his inexperienced deputy, whom he knows has never seen a dead body. Although he dreads doing so, he insists on driving to Heine's house to tell Susan Marie about the death of her husband. Art is also able to get the close-knit fishermen to talk to him in a way they do not normally talk to non-fishermen.

Horace Whaley

Horace is one of three doctors on San Piedro and the only one willing to act as coroner. He is almost fifty years old, wears wire-rimmed glasses, and has bulging eyes and a port wine stain birthmark on the left side of his forehead. At the time of the novel, he has been the coroner for a number of years and is experienced at the job; he has recently applied this expertise to the case of Carl Heine Jr.'s death. He is one of many World War II veterans on the island, and when he saw the skull fracture on Carl's head, he told the sheriff to look for a Japanese man with a flat narrow object (like a gun butt) with blood on it. During the war, Horace was a medical officer for almost two years during which the extreme conditions and sleep deprivation had compromised his ability to care for the wounded. As a result, he blames himself for the men who died in his care.

Themes

Interracial Love

The love affair between Ishmael and Hatsue grew out of innocence and familiarity because they had known each other since they were very young. In fact, their first kiss was when they were ten years old. Romance bloomed when they were teenagers. They met secretly in a large hollow cedar tree where they talked and ventured slowly into a physical relationship. Because of the community (and larger society) in which they lived, they knew they must keep their relationship secret from everyone else, including their families. At school, they barely acknowledged each other. When Hatsue was sent to Manzanar, Ishmael devised a plan so that they could write to each other, but it required using false names and ruses. Because of the limits on their relationship, they never experienced the fullness of being young and in love.

Both Ishmael and Hatsue felt badly for keeping such a secret from their families, but Hatsue is bothered by this secret more than is Ishmael. She feels a deep sense of trust and loyalty to her family, so to hide her romance from them is distressing. Her choice to continue the relationship was selfish because she was involved in something she knew her parents would forbid her to see. Ishmael did not fully understand the cultural influences on Hatsue or how they affected her emotional unavailability to him, and so he never really grasped why she remained somewhat distant. He believed they could run away together and everything would be fine, while Hatsue knew that she could never leave her family responsibilities. Ishmael was a young dreamer, as the narrator explains in chapter twelve:

Sometimes at night he would squeeze his eyes shut and imagine how it might be to marry her. It did not seem so farfetched to him that they might move to some other place in the world where this would be possible. He liked to think about being with Hatsue in some place like Switzerland or Italy or France. He gave his whole soul to love; he allowed himself to believe that his feelings for Hatsue had been somehow preordained. He had been meant to meet her on the beach as a child and then to pass his life with her.

Where Ishmael was a romantic, however, Hat-sue was bound to the traditions of her culture. Not only did Ishmael and Hatsue face external social barriers to their romance, they also faced fundamental internalized cultural barriers that they were too young to handle.

Guilt

The theme of guilt runs throughout the novel, touching individual characters at various levels. Kabuo is on trial in court, the forum of determining guilt and innocence, although the reader comes to understand that what Kabuo is ultimately guilty of in this forum is being Japanese during a time when prejudice against the Japanese is common. Guterson shows that guilt is not always what it appears to be and that social institutions can be misused in the name of assigning guilt.

The true guilt in the novel occurs on a personal level as characters struggle to absolve themselves of what they see as their own guilt. Although Kabuo fought in Europe (and therefore did not fight the Japanese), he feels deep guilt for having killed other men. In fact, he believes that his current trial is the result of his having gone unpunished for committing murder during the war, as explained in chapter eleven: "He was a Buddhist and believed in the laws of karma, so it made sense to him that he might pay for his war murders: everything comes back to you, nothing is accidental." He recalls the time he killed a young German man, and muses, "And still there had been more murders after this, three more, less difficult than the first had been but murders nonetheless."

Hatsue feels guilty as an adolescent because she is involved with a hakujin, a white person. She knows that her family would disapprove, yet she continues to see him. This act of rebellion disturbs her at a fundamental level and only when she breaks off her relationship with Ishmael and marries Kabuo does she feel that everything is right.

Etta Heine is guilty of prejudice, yet she never acknowledges it to herself. She scoffs at her husband for making the deal with Zenhichi, Kabuo's father, which would allow him to purchase seven acres of strawberry fields. After her husband's death, Etta takes advantage of Zenhichi's absence (while he is at an internment camp) to renege on her husband's agreement. Her language makes it very clear that her motivation is racial; she wants to sell to a white man, not to a Japanese man.

Prejudice

Throughout Snow Falling on Cedars the harsh realities of prejudice are portrayed. It is seen not only in the present during the trial, but also in the community's past. The treatment the Japanese received at the hands of both the American government and the white members of their community reflects distrust bred by the war. Because of prejudice, many people did not judge Japanese Americans as individuals; instead, they were all treated as threats to the United States. The stripping of their belongings and rights and their forced internment were outward signs of the prevailing attitude of the time.

Topics For Further Study

Read about Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II. Write a one-week diary from the point of view of a teenager whose family is interned in one of these camps. As you write from this perspective, keep in mind such factors as the life you left behind, how other members of your family are affected, and how this experience may affect your future.
Guterson uses highly descriptive imagery in portraying the settings of Snow Falling on Cedars. Choose three locations that are familiar to you and write about them, using sensory details (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings) to give a reader a true sense of each place.
Not surprisingly, some Japanese Americans sought to right the injustices of their internment through the court system. The first case to reach the Supreme Court was as early as 1943 when Gordon Hirabayashi, a student at the University of Washington, disobeyed the curfew and refused to report for evacuation. Study this case and see if you are surprised by the Court's decision. Then pretend you are a member of the Court during this case and write an opinion (an official Court statement explaining a decision) in which you explain why you voted the way you did.
One of the novel's themes is that of interracial love. This is a theme that has been explored throughout America's history in a variety of media. Look for examples of this theme in film, literature, art, and drama. Try to find examples that portray different types of interracial romance, not only African American and Caucasian. Take what you learn and prepare a presentation for a class on cultural history in the United States. Why is this theme important in American history, and what do you see as the future of this source of controversy?

On an interpersonal level, prejudice is at work when Zenhichi loses his land and Kabuo is unable to right this wrong. In both cases, the men are at a disadvantage because of prejudice toward Japanese Americans. When Kabuo is charged with the murder of Carl, the community's lingering distrust of the Japanese becomes a heavy burden for Nels, Kabuo's attorney, to bear. He knows that the evidence is only part of what the jury will use to determine Kabuo's innocence or guilt. The legal tradition that a person is innocent until proven guilty is turned upside-down because of prejudice.

In the romantic relationship between Hatsue and Ishmael, prejudice ultimately tears them apart. She knows that her family will never accept a non-Japanese man as her husband, and at a deeper level she knows that their differences are too great to allow a lifelong relationship. Knowing that the rest of the world will not accept them as a couple, Hat-sue and Ishmael treat each other as casual acquaintances at school, and when Hatsue is sent to the internment camp, they must communicate by sneaking letters to each other. At every turn, the Japanese-American characters in the novel are forced to deal with prejudice.

Style

Setting

Guterson's descriptive passages about the settings of the novel have drawn a great deal of comment from critics and readers. Having lived in Washington for all but a year of his life, it is no wonder his descriptions of the landscapes are so rich and sensory. In chapter fourteen, Hatsue seeks solitude in the cedar woods:

In spring great shafts of sun would split the canopy of trees and the litter fall of the forest would come floating down—twigs, seeds, needles, dust bark, all suspended in the hazy air—but now, in February, the woods felt black and the trees looked sodden and smelled pungently of rot. Hatsue went inland to where the cedars gave way to firs hung with lichen and moss. Everything was familiar and known to her here—the dead and dying cedars full of punky heart-wood, the fallen, defeated trees as high as a house, the upturned root wads hung with vine maple, the toadstools, the ivy, the salal, the vanilla leaf, the low wet places full of devil's club.

Besides providing lush descriptive passages, Guterson often puts the features of his settings in motion to give them life and realism. In chapter eight, a peaceful scene is interrupted by the arrival of Ishmael and Hatsue:

Where the path met the beach the madrona trees leaned out over the tidal water. Slender and sinuous, olive green, mahogany red, scarlet, and ash, they were weighted with broad, gleaming leaves and velvet berries and shaded the beach stones and mud flats. Hatsue and Ishmael flushed a roosting blue heron with feathers the hue of beach mud; it squawked once and, elongated wing tips wide, graceful even in sudden flight, crossed Miller Bay at a soaring angle to perch in the dead top of a far tree.

At times, Guterson gives his settings a history, which gives them a feeling of continuity. Rather than appearing as nice portraits, they seem more permanent, meaningful, and connected to the cycles of life and the town. In chapter one, he writes, "A few wind-whipped and decrepit Victorian mansions, remnants of a lost era of seagoing optimism, loomed out of the snowfall on the town's sporadic hills. Beyond them, cedars wove a steep mat of still green." Describing Carl Heine's house in chapter six, Art thinks,

It was precisely the sort of home Carl would build, he thought—blunt, tidy, gruffly respectable, and offering no affront to the world, though at the same time inviting nobody…. He had meant—or so word at church had been—to build an elaborate bungalow of the sort his father had built years before on the family farm at Island Center.

This description of the house not only tells something about the character of Carl, but also gives the house a history because it represents Carl's disappointment of not having built a home like his father's.

Omniscient Narrator

Snow Falling on Cedars provides an excellent example of an omniscient narrator. The narrator moves easily in and out of each character's thoughts, memories, and feelings, and then back to objective reporting of events. Guterson applies his imagination to a great deal of research to write with authority about the experience and expertise of each character. As a result, the narrator talks about fishing, farming, adolescent love, Ishmael's father's publishing ventures, wartime horrors, Japanese culture, the history of Amity Harbor, and autopsies. Within the courtroom alone, the narrator can reveal what the doddering Nels Gudmundsson is feeling in his arthritic bones in the same chapter as he follows a witness' testimony, complete with detailed memories.

An omniscient narrator is not confined to talking about the characters in the third person. In Snow Falling on Cedars, the narrator takes the reader into the minds of the characters, and these shifts in perspective are noted by the different voices of the characters. Hatsue's thoughts are expressed differently from Ishmael's, for example, and in these subtle differences the reader gets to know the characters. When Horace Whaley is thinking, he is doing so as a doctor and an experienced coroner, which is a different perspective from that of Nels Gud-mundsson, who is an experienced attorney trying to achieve justice against the odds. To provide some separation, the narrator often refers to the characters by their entire names, rather than using familiar first names or nicknames. This subtle technique demonstrates that the narrator is not connected to any of the characters but is merely telling their stories from an objective distance.

When the narrator drifts into one of the character's minds, the story actually goes back in time to the event rather than relating the event as a memory. This allows the reader to know exactly what a character was thinking at a specific moment in the past. For example, in chapter two, Art and Abel are preparing to bring up Carl's nets from his boat. Art knows that Carl's body may be in the net, and he is concerned about his deputy. The narrator comments that Art knew that fishermen sometimes die out on their boats: "It was a part of things, part of the fabric of the place, and as sheriff he knew this well. He knew what bringing up the net really meant, and he knew Abel Martinson didn't."

Historical Context

The Internment of Japanese Americans

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. This attack on an American military base sent waves of panic across the country and political pressure led President Franklin Roosevelt to sign Executive Order 9006 on February 19, 1942, forcing citizens of Japanese descent to report to internment camps. On March 31, Japanese Americans along the West Coast were given their instructions to report for registration. The time allowed for preparation ranged from two days to two weeks. During this time, people had to make arrangements for their belongings, which usually meant selling it all at a fraction of its value. Many people took advantage of the Japanese Americans in this situation, including the government. Almost 2,000 internees were told that their cars would be stored safely, but the army soon offered to buy them for less than they were worth. Those who refused to sell were later informed that their cars had been requisitioned for the war effort. A study in 1983 estimated that the total value of lost property and income to the Japanese Americans during this period totaled more than six billion dollars.

In all, there were ten internment camps (sometimes referred to as "concentration camps" although they were not designed for extermination as they were in Germany). The first was southern California's Manzanar. Over the course of the war, the ten camps held approximately 120,000 people. Living conditions were harsh; the camps were surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed military personnel, and the internees lived in tiny apartments. Bathrooms and dining rooms were communal. When the internees were released, they were given twenty-five dollars and train fare home.

The cultural ramifications of the Japanese internment camps were significant. The traditional head of the household, the father, was undermined and disempowered. While some American-born Japanese citizens chose to prove their loyalty by enlisting to fight, others renounced their citizenship altogether. The difficult transition from a Japanese identity to a Japanese-American identity was muddied by the American government's treatment of its own citizens.

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan issued a formal apology to the wronged Japanese Americans, offering surviving internees $20,000 as a gesture of recompense.

Life in Puget Sound

The two main occupations in Puget Sound during the time period of the novel were farming and fishing. In both cases, the occupations were lifestyles as well as jobs. Farmers understood each other and fishermen understood each other, but the groups interacted mainly among themselves. As Guterson notes in the novel, fishermen are somewhat solitary men who share a quiet fraternity with each other and are satisfied with only occasional interaction.

During the mid-twentieth century, fishermen in the Pacific Northwest often used gill nets to maximize their daily catches. These nets hung like curtains from the ships and trapped a multitude of fish by their gills. As the industry became more competitive, gill nets became so large that they caught turtles, dolphins, and birds in addition to fish. Environmentalist groups succeeded in getting such nets outlawed, so their use today is limited to those who use them illegally.

The farmers' lifestyle differed from fishermen's in a few important ways. Farmers were more social, occasionally organizing community events, such as the Strawberry Festival. Another difference was that the wives of fishermen had little to do with their husbands' work while farmers' wives often helped with the heavy demands of working the land. The hours worked by men in the two occu-pations were also very different. Although farmers got up early to begin the long day's duties, fishermen were often finishing around the time the farmers were beginning. Because of the swim patterns of the fish, fishermen had to get out on their boats very early in the morning, finishing around sunrise, while farmers began their day when the animals awoke and daylight made work possible.

Critical Overview

Critical reception of Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars has been overwhelmingly positive. The novel's evocative setting, courtroom drama, tender love story, language, believable characters, and portrayal of fear and prejudice have all earned critical acclaim. Los Angeles Times critic Michael Harris notes,

David Guterson's haunting first novel works on at least two levels. It gives us a puzzle to solve—a whodunit complete with courtroom maneuvering and surprising turns of evidence—and at the same time it offers us a mystery, something altogether richer and deeper.

The unusual structure of the novel could easily be mishandled, but critics often note that Guterson intertwines the past with the present, the personal with the collective, and the various individual stories with control and grace. In a review of Guterson's short story collection and first novel, Philip Graham of the Chicago Tribune writes, "Guterson displays a fine eye for the mysteries of the human soul, creating dramatic moments that are often layered with social and historical complexities." Similarly, Susan Kenney of the New York Times Book Review praises the novel's "meticulously drawn legal drama" that provides only the outermost layer of this complex narrative. Only a few critics find that the novel lacks a compelling protagonist and loses momentum in all the detail. Malcolm Jones, Jr., of Newsweek, for example, writes that Guterson "loads—and sometimes overloads—his novel with lyrical touches, starting with that haiku-y title."

Compare & Contrast

1954: Wartime experiences figure largely into the lives of veterans who have returned home. Areas in which there is a sizeable Japanese-American population still feel the tension of reintegrating these citizens back into society after they return from internment camps.

Today: While wartime experiences continue to be important to veterans of World War II, the general population is most aware of them only around Veteran's Day and anniversaries of significant events in the war.
1954: Because of World War II, there is a lingering distrust of the Japanese by many people. As Japanese Americans return from internment camps, they face prejudices that were not present prior to the war.

Today: While most minority and ethnic groups face a degree of prejudice, the after-effects of World War II are rarely to blame for prejudice against Japanese Americans.
1954: Many Japanese Americans retain a link to their past in their spiritual lives by practicing meditation. This practice enables a person to achieve a heightened state of relaxation and focus, which often results in greater insight and the ability to be calm in difficult situations.

Today: Many Americans from a wide variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds have discovered meditation and incorporate it into their daily lives. While methods of meditation vary widely, the goals remain the same: relaxation, concentration, insight, and a sense of calm, or inner peace.

Perhaps because the novel is set in Guterson's native Washington, his ability to describe the setting is frequently praised by critics. Nancy Pate of the Chicago Tribune notes that Guterson "is particularly good at evoking a sense of place," noting that the details "give his story weight." Kim Hubbard of People Weekly comments that "the book's rhapsodic descriptions of the island's beauty came from the heart." In Publishers Weekly a critic refers to the book as "luxurious" for its small-town details and presentation of important themes within that context.

That Guterson took five years to complete this novel is not surprising given the level of detail he provides on the many aspects of life portrayed in his complex novel. His time seems to have been well spent because critics frequently comment on how realistic and accurate his descriptions are. These comments refer not only to the novel's setting, but also to fishing, farming, and other important processes and cultural forces present in the book. Kenney remarks on Guterson's ability to expertly balance so many details, warning the reader not to lose sight of what is at stake during the trial. She writes:

Guterson has done his homework on everything from autopsies to Zen Buddhism, taking on the enormous risk of crossing boundaries not just of time, but of sex and culture as well. The result is a densely packed, multifaceted work that sometimes hovers on the verge of digressiveness, but in Mr. Guterson's skilled hands never succumbs to the fragmentation that might well have marred such an ambitious undertaking. In fact, so compelling is the narrative that we almost lose sight of the central issue, which is, as the defense attorney Nels Gudmundsson reminds us in his summation, whether Kabuo Miyomoto is on trial for murder-even worse, will be found guilty-simply because he is Japanese.

The book's tone and ability to draw on the reader's emotions are also recognized among its strengths. Hubbard observes that the novel "manages to combine issues of prejudice and personal accountability with a crackling courtroom drama." In Booklist Dennis Dodge remarks, "Guterson's first novel is compellingly suspenseful on each of its several levels." Describing the novel as "poetic," the Publishers Weekly reviewer writes that it "beautifully captures the painful legacy of war and a community's struggle to deal with that pain."

Criticism

Jennifer Bussey

Bussey holds a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies and a bachelor's degree in English literature. She is an independent writer specializ-ing in literature. In the following essay, she demonstrates how Ishmael Chambers would have experienced a different fate had he been more like Moby Dick's narrator, Ishmael.

In many ways, Ishmael Chambers, the World War II veteran and small-town reporter in David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars is similar to his literary namesake in Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick. In fact, the two characters have enough in common to warrant a comparison in an effort to understand Ishmael Chambers better. Fundamentally, however, there are significant differences in the two characters' ways of understanding the world. If Ishmael Chambers had been more like Ishmael at this deeper level, he could have saved himself years of anger, resentment, and cynicism. It is likely that he would have married, had a family, and enjoyed the years he wasted on bitterness.

First, it is important to establish that there are enough substantial similarities between the two characters to justify a meaningful comparison. The first signal to the reader is the name itself. Ishmael is an unusual name, and most American readers immediately think of what is perhaps the most famous opening sentence in American literature: "Call me Ishmael." Briefly, the character of Ishmael in Moby Dick is a man who heads for the seas in search of adventure. Along the way, he befriends a cannibal, meets the crazed Captain Ahab (whose sole purpose in life is to kill the whale that took his leg), and survives a disastrous boat wreck. Moby Dick is such a cornerstone of American literature and the narrator's name is so memorable, Guterson (an English teacher) was certainly aware that readers would make a connection. Guterson's inclusion of a passage referring to Moby Dick's Ishmael further assures the reader that the allusion is intentional. Melville's use of the name is a biblical allusion. The name means "God hears," which refers to both characters' eventual triumphs over seemingly insurmountable odds. Ishmael was the only survivor of Captain Ahab's ship that was lost at sea during Ahab's final pursuit of the whale. Ishmael Chambers fought in the South Pacific during World War II, seeing the rest of his group killed. Although he survived, he came close enough to death that he lost his left arm.

Beyond sharing a name and the meaning associated with it, these two characters have other similarities. They are both participants in a passionate pursuit that is not their own. Ishmael finds himself aboard Captain Ahab's ship, and Ahab is single-minded in his pursuit of the whale. Ishmael Chambers fights in World War II, a conflict so passionately pursued by world leaders that it ended with unparalleled atomic devastation. In both cases, the stakes are life and death. They are both then reporters (Ishmael Chambers being formally occupied as one), only witnesses to the events around them.

Both men are essentially alone in the world. Ishmael Chambers has no wife, no co-workers, and no close friends. He is able to talk to his mother, but is guarded even with her. Ishmael is unencumbered enough to set off for adventure, and his only friend is made on the trip—the cannibal Queequeg. While Ishmael and Queequeg are friends, they are too dissimilar to bond at a deep level, and they do not have a history together. Just as Ishmael comes to see the very frightening and strange Queequeg as not so different that they cannot be friends, Ishmael Chambers sees Hatsue as more like him than unlike him. That she is Japanese and he is American is of little consequence to him because he prefers to focus on the person behind the ethnicity.

For all of these similarities, however, they differ dramatically in the ways in which they see the world and themselves in it. Ishmael seeks adventure, which indicates his impulse to be part of the world and to experience what the world has to offer him. He expects to venture into the unknown and be changed by it. In Moby Dick, he explains that he sees himself as an eagle that dives down, grasps what is needed, and returns to the sky. He sees himself as part of the pattern of the world and, therefore, as someone who is connected to the universe. Ishmael Chambers, on the other hand, would have been content never to have left the island of San Piedro. His plans after graduation are not to enlist for service, and the only reason he considers leaving San Piedro is to take Hatsue with him to a place where they can be together. The things that matter to him are in the small community of San Piedro. His adventure (the war) is a decision made for him and forced upon him, not an effort on his part to find adventure. When he returns, his bitterness is heightened by the changes that have taken place in his absence. Hatsue has married and had children, and he feels that everyone stares at him because of his rolled-up sleeve where his left arm once was. Although he never says so, it is clear that he would have been happier if he could have returned to a San Piedro in which nothing had changed since he left it.

Another fundamental difference between the two characters is that Ishmael is open to what the world offers, but Ishmael Chambers keeps himself closed off from the world. Ishmael is willing to see the world in new ways and to learn how other people and cultures think about life. Ishmael Chambers, on the other hand, is unable even to understand the deep cultural divide that keeps Hatsue distant from him. He imagines that the force of their love alone is sufficient to keep them together because he does not open himself up to learning about the culture of the woman he loves. When he goes to war, he is already bitter and cynical, so he avoids learning anything from his experiences or the other men.

What Do I Read Next?

Guterson's The Country Ahead of Us, the Country Behind (1989) is a collection of ten short stories about middle-class suburbia. This collection was Guterson's first published book, and it received accolades from critics.
Joy Kowaga's award-winning Obasan (1994) is based on the author's personal experiences as a Japanese-Canadian girl during World War II. The story is about a young girl named Naomi who is relocated with her family during the war. As an adult, Naomi struggles to make peace with the injustices endured in her past.
Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) is the story of a trial held in a small town in the South. Told from the point of view of a young girl named Scout, this novel explores themes of prejudice, justice, and small-town dynamics.
E. Annie Proulx's 1994 novel The Shipping News is the story of Quoyle, a Newfoundland fisherman who seems unimpressive to others, though not to the reader who witnesses his psychological and spiritual rebirth. Besides being an intriguing character study, this novel gives insight into the lifestyle and culture of fishermen.
In 1999, John Tateishi compiled the oral histories of thirty Japanese Americans who experienced the indignities of relocation camps during World War II. His book, And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps, preserves the individual accounts of the people who were forced to live in such camps.

Comparing Ishmael and Ishmael Chambers is important because it shows the reader how Ishmael Chambers' life could have been different. If he had been more like Ishmael, he would have seen himself not as a victim of the world but as a part of it. He would have understood that there are highs and lows in life, and that it was sometimes up to him to determine which direction he would take. Rather than stewing in cynicism and hate, he would have had the opportunity to see himself as a man with the power to climb back up to the sky, like the eagle. Instead, his perspective made him feel trapped and powerless. And if he had shared Ishmael's quality of being open to the world, he would have taken the initiative to understand Hatsue's situation better. While it is unlikely that this would have enabled them to stay together, it would have shown him why they were fated to part. His heart would have been broken, but the break may have been mutual and an act of love for each other's best interests. Instead, he perceived the break-up as an act of violence committed against him by Hatsue, and he could not forgive her. Because he felt wronged by it, he was paralyzed by it. The hate that Ishmael Chambers felt after the war, both because of the break-up and because of the loss of his arm, incapacitated him for almost ten years. He wasted a decade of his youth in resentment rather than enjoying being back home from the war and pursuing a life for himself.

The irony of Ishmael Chambers' unnecessarily wasted years is that he was given an opportunity to change his course when he returned from the war. After the war, he attended a university, where he began taking literature classes. He took a course in American literature and read Moby Dick. He was even struck by the fact that he and the narrator shared the same name. The reader is told in chapter four:

The next fall Ishmael took up American literature. Melville, Hawthorne, Twain. He was prepared, in his cynicism, to find Moby Dick unreadable—five hundred pages about chasing a whale?—but, as it turned out, it was entertaining. He read the whole thing in ten sittings in his booth at Day's and began pondering the whale's nature at an early juncture. The narrator, he found upon reading the first sentence, bore his own name—Ishmael. Ishmael was all right, but Ahab he could not respect and this ultimately undermined the book for him.

Apparently, Ishmael Chambers could not be taught a better way by his literary namesake, but had to learn his lessons by taking a painful and wasteful road for ten years. He met Ishmael in the pages of Moby Dick, and he liked him, but he was too distracted by what he found distasteful to see that an invaluable lesson lurked in the pages. The reader can perhaps find comfort in knowing that Ishmael Chambers did eventually find a better way to live by making peace with his past and taking responsibility for his future. Very often, this is the purpose of great literature, and if Ishmael Chambers missed it in reading Moby Dick, maybe modern readers will not miss it by reading Snow Falling on Cedars.

Source: Jennifer Bussey, Critical Essay on Snow Falling on Cedars, in Novels for Students, The Gale Group, 2002.

Ellen Kanner

In the following interview-essay, Guterson discusses influences, inspirations, and sense of place in his works.

David Guterson peers out at Miami's lapis Biscayne Bay as though straining to see something else—an island off Washington's dark Puget Sound, his home and the place of his haunting novel, Snow Falling on Cedars. "I'm not an urban person," he confesses in a crowded outdoor restaurant. "And I've been in cities endlessly for the past five or six weeks on this book tour. Cities produce in me melancholy or a tension I don't need."

Guterson, 39, received the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award for Snow Falling on Cedars. "It is such an incredible honor," he says, but what coaxes forth his first smile is the thought of returning home to his wife and four children. "What sustains me is to be with my family and to write."

Amid laughing people in tropical colors, the author wears an olive jacket. It brings out his pale green eyes which still search the water. This quiet passion extant in Guterson shines through in Cedars. Set in 1954 on Washington's remote San Piedro Island, the novel begins with the mysterious death of a local fisherman. It rouses the community's postwar distrust of their Japanese-American neighbors, and the island's Kabuo Miyamoto is accused of the fisherman's murder. The incident also awakens feelings within Ishmael Chambers, the town's newspaperman who has long loved Kabuo's wife, Hatsue. What results is a taut, many-angled story, both rich and satisfying.

Guterson looks to Anton Chekhov and Jane Austen as models of style and structure, and though he has set his story in the past, it is not old fashioned. "My book is traditional. It runs counter to the post-modern spirit. A lot of writers are concerned with life in the '90s," he says, "I'm not. Post-modernism is dead because it didn't address human needs. The conventional story endures because it does. I'm interested in themes that endure from generation to generation. Fiction is socially meaningful. Every culture is sustained by certain central myths. At its heart, fiction's role is to see these roles and myths are sustained."

The author has also written the nonfiction book Family Matters: Why Home-Schooling Makes Sense and the short story collection The Country Ahead of Us, The Country Behind, being released in paper this spring. Guterson wrote the stories before his novel, and now when he looks at them, he feels "removed from them to the degree I feel removed from who I was in my twenties when I wrote them. The stories reflect my concerns at that time. Snow Falling on Cedars is the work of someone in his thirties."

It's true. Whereas Guterson's stories possess an emotional edge, his novel has a certain maturity, sweeping the reader away with its lush physical description. "The tide and the wind were pushing in hard now, and the current funneled through the mouth of the harbor; the green boughs and branches of the fallen trees lay scattered across the clean snow. It occurred to Ishmael for the first time in his life that such destruction could be beautiful."

Guterson's gift of evoking a sense of place comes from his love of it. The islands off Puget Sound bear an almost mythic weight for him. "Hemingway said the only way to write about a place is to leave it. There's a certain nostalgia and romance in a place you left. But I don't need to leave to write about it. I don't think anyone but a native could have written this book."

One could argue, then, that with its graceful, restrained images of Japanese-American life, no one but a Nissei could have written it. A former teacher, Guterson conducted extensive research and interviews with the area's Japanese-Americans and so writes with authority about the Miyamotos and the other Japanese-Americans who were herded into internment camps. "It was made real to me. It's part of the history of where I live."

But Snow Falling on Cedars goes beyond ethnicity. Guterson explores humanity, penetrating the core of the human heart. "My work comes from inner disturbances, from seeing injustices and accidents and how they affect people's lives in a tragic way."

Guterson agrees one can make almost anything political, including his book, but he hopes it transcends both politics and history. With its evocatively Japanese title and its elegant, restrained prose, Snow Falling on Cedars reveals Guterson's affinity for Asian philosophy. "The sense that this world is an illusion, that desire is the root of suffering, the awareness of cause and effect—I have a great respect for all that," he says.

He endows his character Hatsue with this sense of tranquillity. "Hatsue explained her emotional reserve … didn't mean her heart was shallow. Her silence, she said, would express something if he would learn to listen to it." The same might be said for the author himself. "I think of myself as a really happy person," says Guterson, allowing him-self his second fleeting smile of the afternoon. "What some people interpret as brooding melancholy is serenity. I don't feel required to grasp all the time."

What he does feel, what he works toward, is a sort of stillness, the stillness he creates for Hatsue, the stillness he needs to write. Guterson would rise at five a.m. to work on his novel, facing the blank page when it was still dark and the day's intrusions were distant.

While he has enjoyed writing nonfiction and short stories, Guterson is at work on another novel—the medium he feels best suited to in terms of temperament. He will still rise at five o'clock, but otherwise wants this new book to be nothing like his last one. "It must succeed in its own terms," he insists in the fading glow of afternoon. "It has to be just as powerful, though. It must have an impact on people."

It should resonate for readers the way the landscape of his home resonates for the author. "I grew up in Seattle, but I always knew I wanted to leave," says Guterson. "The greenness of the world, the play of light and living things, stretching endlessly and regenerating season after season—to have that in daily life is so much more satisfying than buildings and people."

Source: Ellen Kanner, "A Wonderful Irony: The Quietest of Books Makes the Splashiest Debut," in http://www.bookpage.com/9601bp/fiction/snowfallingoncedars.html, January 25, 2001.

Stan Yogi

In the following review, Yogi praises Guterson for his research but criticizes Snow Falling on Cedars for its uneven pace and the underdevelopment of its main character.

David Guterson's well-written first novel is at various moments a courtroom drama, an interracial love story and a war chronicle. Guterson melds these components into a novel that explores how individuals and communities abuse, retreat from or use their histories as motivating forces.

Set in 1954 on the fictional island of San Piedro near the San Juan Islands in Washington, Snow Falling on Cedars focuses on the trial of Kabuo Miyomoto, a Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) charged with the murder of a fellow fisherman and childhood friend, Carl Heine.

The novel unfolds to reveal complex relationships among the book's main characters: Kabuo; his wife, Hatsue; Carl Heine; and Ishmael Chambers, the local newspaper owner who is covering the trial.

Before the war, Miyomoto's father purchased land from Heine's father, and young Kabuo and Carl were friends. Hatsue and Ishmael were also childhood friends and adolescent sweethearts. The war, however, forever alters these relationships.

Hatsue and Kabuo are interned in Manzanar, where they fall in love and marry. Heine and Chambers see battle in the Pacific, and Kabuo joins the heroic 442nd all-Japanese American combat team to fight in Europe.

The characters return to San Piedro after the war and try to resume their lives. Kabuo discovers, however, that during the war, Heine's mother, motivated in part by racial prejudice, sold the Miyomotos' land to another farmer. Haunted by this injustice, Kabuo seeks to regain his family's land, creating a strain between him and Carl.

Chambers finds it difficult to readjust to life in San Piedro, in part due to the loss of an arm in the war. He takes over his father's newspaper but finds little meaning in his work. His reintegration is compounded by his lingering love for Hatsue.

The novel is well-researched and, for the most part, emotionally realistic. Guterson has a good eye for telling details and writes vividly about the verdant landscape of San Piedro, the profound distress of combat and the solitariness of fishermen at work.

But because the novel mixes genres, it moves at an uneven pace. Not surprisingly, the courtroom scenes move briskly and suspensefully. Other scenes, especially those focusing on Chambers' existential search for meaning, are more ponderous.

Most of the book is written from the various perspectives of the characters, a tricky and difficult narrative technique that Guterson generally employs with success. But in places it means uneven character development, with some characters more convincingly drawn than others.

The novel's main flaw is the underdevelopment of Kabuo, ostensibly the story's main character. Guterson balances between exploding ethnic stereotypes and reinforcing them.

Kabuo is portrayed as stoic, strong and angry. Although he reveals emotional vulnerability in brief moments, his character could have benefited from more shading.

There are minor points in the novel that seem slightly inconsistent with Japanese American history. It seems unlikely, for example, that so many Issei (first-generation Japanese immigrants) would speak English as fluently as they do in the novel. The disintegration of family life in the Manzanar internment camp occurs a bit too quickly. Important distinctions between the Nisei-dominated Japanese American Citizens League and Issei organizations are not made.

Overall, though, this is an intriguing novel that explores the burdens of history and how random circumstances combined with ethnic stereotypes contribute to resulting troubles and tragedies.

Source: Stan Yogi, "A Friendship Shattered by War," in San Francisco Chronicle, January 1, 1995, p. 2.

Sources

"David Guterson," in Contemporary Authors Online, The Gale Group, 2000.

"David Guterson," in Contemporary Literary Criticism, The Gale Group, 2001.

"David Guterson," in People Weekly, Vol. 45, No. 18, May 6, 1996, p. 132.

Dodge, David, "Snow Falling on Cedars," in Booklist, Vol. 90, No. 22, August 1994, p. 2022.

Graham, Philip, "In the Country of David Guterson," in Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1996.

Harris, Michael, "Sometimes, Even Good People Must Coexist with Evil," in Los Angeles Times, September 19, 1994, p. E4.

Hubbard, Kim, "Out of the Woods: A Surprise Bestseller, Snow Falling on Cedars, Puts Novelist David Guterson on the Map," in People Weekly, Vol. 45, No. 9, March 4, 1996, pp. 89-90.

"The Internment of Japanese Americans (1940s)," in American Decades CD-ROM, Gale Research, 1998.

Jones, Malcom, Jr., "Snow on Top, a Literary First Novel Is This Season's Sleeper Success Story," in Newsweek, Vol. 126, No. 25, December 18, 1995, p. 72.

Kenney, Susan, "Their Fellow Americans," in New York Times Book Review, October 16, 1994, pp. 12-13.

"Manzanar Relocation Center," in DISCovering Multicultural America, Gale Research, 1996.

Nathan, Paul, "It Can Still Happen," in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 243, No. 50, December 9, 1996, p. 18.

Pate, Nancy, "Murder Unveils an Island's Secrets," in Chicago Tribune, January 12, 1995.

"Roosevelt Approves Internment of Japanese Americans, February 19, 1942," in DISCovering World History, Gale Research, 1997.

"Snow Falling on Cedars," in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 241, No. 31, August 1, 1994, p. 70.

Wasowski, Richard, Cliffs Notes: "Snow Falling on Cedars," Cliffs Notes, Inc., 2000.