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Summary: Snow Falling On Cedars *REVIEW*
Review: Snow Falling On Cedars is a type of book that has everything. From love, friendships, racism, war, to murder. The story is taking place on a small island, San Piedro, off the coast of Washington during the 1950's. The author described the island in rich details that you can feel and picture out what it looks like. The book begins on the trial of Kabuo Miyamoto. Kabuo is a Japanese man that has been accused of the killing of a fisherman named Carl Heine. Many investigations have brought up that make a very great confusing on deciding whether Kabuo is the murder or not. Only one person can help him. It was Ishmael Chamber. Ishmael, a local newspaper owner, in his past, he felt in love with a Japanese woman named Hatsue Imada, who is Kabuo's wife. They played with each other since child. A war between the American and the Japanese has break up their relationship. At about the end of the story, Ishmael has a very difficult time on deciding whether he should help Kabuo or not by reporting his findings. This book seems to be very confused in the beginning, but everything seems to tie together and make sense at the end. You will not drop the book once you begin reading it. The murder trial will grab your attention, because of your curiosity to find out who is the killer in this case. The author puts the murder trial in the beginning of the story and ends it at the end of the story, because he wants the reader to read the whole book. However, this book is a very interesting and attention grabbing. I think this book should recommend for a more mature readers, because of the sexuality and foul languages that contain in some parts of this book.
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Summary: One To Remember
Review: This book was well written. It was very vivid and intense. It showed the part of World War II that many of us would like to forget. The Japanese being forced in to camps and how they dealt with that. The small town was torn apart between feeling of the Japanese-Americans. It shows how a small town slowly recovers and begins to heal from the horrors of war. It was a hard book to read but stretched my vocabulary and imagination. It was a book that I enjoyed reading.
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Summary: Snow falling on Cedars - Predictable
Review: A mystery I think not! Well written, but the story was too predictable. I knew what was going to happen after the first seventy-five pages. Guterson wrote as if he were a poet, great adjectives and verbs, but he forgot to add mystery to the tale. The book read slow because of this, it took me a lot longer than it should have to read four hundred some pages. The only mystery was; what happened to the mystery in the novel? In first chapters, Guterson pulls you in with exquisite vocabulary, then you are dropped like a bad habit by lack of story. Disappointing to read such a great and yet not so great book in one. I did not suggest this book any of my friends, as I will not suggest it to you. Find a better book.
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Summary: Something For Everyone
Review: Intriguing, vivid, well written - three terms I would use to describe the mystery-romance novel, Snow falling On Cedars by David Guterson. Although the story moves slowly at times, the twists in the plot keep your attention and cause you to read on wondering what will happen next. Suspense builds up gradually as the plot moves on making the novel interesting. The characters have complex lives and personalities and truly come to life as Guterson describes them. They struggle with moral dilemmas as well as social and physical tribulations. Snow Falling On Cedars contains love triangles, war, and a murder trial which will keep any reader interested. On a deeper level, the book deals with Japanese Internment Camps and the issue of racism. I enjoyed reading this story.
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Summary: Snow Falling on Cedars
Review: A well written novel, Snow Falling on Cedars captures the essence of being Japanese in America during World War II. It contains many complex characters and pries deep into their hearts and lives. The plot has interesting twists as it all comes together like a puzzle, each piece selectively placed and formed to fit perfectly.
Each character plays a significant role in tying each event into the lives of everyone on San Piedro Island. Discrimination, murder and an undying love torn by race, all make you want to jump in and keep reading. While depicting a murder case, the death of Carl Heine, the novel also tells a story of love, compassion and heartache. Each chapter focuses primarily on the life of one character, giving an in-depth look at the struggles and life trials they are faced with. I found myself picturing each scene and character as if I were there, becoming a part of each life.
The twists and turns make it confusing but compelling. Jumping back from the past to the present courtroom and back again, gives the plot flavor and thoroughly explains each piece of evidence, every event and each character.
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Summary: Guterson has Invented a New Meaning for "Novel"
Review: As a book I could not find myself to set down, "Snow Falling on Cedars" stands as the most in-depth book I have ever read. With no pieces missing in the plot, the puzzle fits together in a way most books do not. "Snow Falling on Cedars" illustrates every human emotion possible and shows every depth of a human heart. Impeccably written, this book stays close to my heart as a book that taught me countless lessons. Perhaps the most effective part of the book is the characters and their stories. The author David Guterson develops each character entirely; every character seems as a main character and each of their histories are told throughout the book. In the beginning it seems as if they have no relation to each other, like they live in completely opposite worlds. Then as the book further develops, it becomes lucid they all weave together, their stories and lives intertwined as one. The conclusion ties everything together and writes the whole meaning of the book flat out. This book digs into the depths of love with a tear-jerking love story, the humiliation and pain of racism with a story about the Japanese in America during World War II, and an endless and inexplicable murder mystery thought to tie into both of them. As I read into this book, I felt myself falling into their world in the Island of San Piedro. I felt involved in their past, then as the book jumped into the present I could not wait to read the truth about the murder trial of Carl Heine. I felt emotional when a man's heart broke, when an American spoke cruelly toward a man of Japanese decent, and when a woman lost her husband whom she loved far more than anything. Affecting me in so many ways, the lessons this book taught me seemed unending. I discovered the hurt resulting from selfishness and the anguish caused by racism. I learned about accidents and forgiveness, and putting the past behind oneself. This book opened my eyes to the delicacy of a human heart and how easily one can shatter. This captivating novel will forever hold a special place in my heart. I appreciated the book for everything it stood for and for every lesson I learned. I love the book for the characters presented and for the immaculate plot and conclusion. As a novel I will read many times over, "Snow Falling on Cedars" stays close to me as my own map to my very own heart.
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Summary: Almost as good as its reputation...
Review: Guterson deftly weaves his story of a fisherman's drowning death and the man who is accused of his murder from flashbacks, incorporating a murder trial, a love triangle and the experience of Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during World War II into a portrait of island life in the Pacific Northwest. Despite some overlong descriptive passages, this is a beautiful, slow-moving read. The climax does fall a little flat, but that doesn't completely negate the enjoyment of getting there.
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Summary: Boring Beyond Belief
Review: I just finished reading Snow Falling on Cedars after reading it on and off for months. I couldn't read it for than an hour at a time, except the last few chapters because the author just goes on and on, describing the same old snowy setting, and the same old excruciating details. The whole book could have been written in fifty pages without any loss of information. The ending is completely predictable and disappointing. I really felt that I wasted my time on this, and wonder what the readers who gave it positive reviews (which made me buy it in the first place) were thinking. I am of Japanese descent, so I thought it would interest me, but I was terribly disappointed.
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Summary: Weathers the Storm
Review: Melancholy, I think, would be the one-word description of this novel, with its doomed love affair; its satisfactory but not necessarily happy ending; and its plot, which concerns itself with the lives of Americans and Americans of Japanese descent during the tumultuous years before, during, and after World War II. Melancholy would also describe the feeling one gets when reading about the internment of Japanese-Americans in American camps, a subject one only rarely sees fictionalized. The constant snowy weather may have something to do with it, too. The framework of the novel is a murder trial in a post-World War II island community off the coast of Washington State. A Japanese-American fisherman has been accused of the murder of a fellow fisherman--a white male. The novel flows from the stories of the witnesses at this trial: as each takes the stand, the author slips into their tale. There is the accused, whose parents were cheated out of a land deal they were unable to consummate because they were sent, at the oubreak of the war, hundreds of miles away. There is the fisherman's mother, responsible for this chicanery, but only capable of doing so after the death of her husband. There is the fisherman himself, seen through the eyes of his wife, conflicted by his horrid war experiences and his genuine views of fairness. The centerpiece of the novel is the youthful love affair between the island's only newspaperman, the white Ishmael, and the accused's wife, the Japanese Hatsue. Prior to the war, they feared to reveal their inter-racial relationship. After the war started, it was shattered completely: Ishmael was sent to the Pacific with the Marines, Hatsue was sent to the camp. Ishmael returns a bitter man. His arm was blown off at Tarawa, and Hatsue has married another. The novel is very rich in its examination of human nature. It is remarkable that the reactions of the white islanders in the fearful days following Pearl Harbor almost exactly mirror the reactions of our citizens following the recent disaster in New York. Some drive around threatening the Japanese-Americans, some rant about spy threats, some advocate restraint, and some attack those who advocate restraint. Many are afraid, and all are confused and uncertain. It is also rich in historical detail. One of the more harrowing descriptions in the book is an FBI search of a Japanese home. Strangers come in, at night, and root around through their most personal possessions. "Don't worry, nothing to be concerned about," they say, until they find something--and haul away the father. The descriptions of the camps are no less compelling, and more importantly, ring true. Nobody was killed there, or even treated cruelly, but conditions there were far less than desirable: cramped, overcrowded, and with little privacy. The description of the events at Tarawa must also be mentioned for their searing, vivid originality. Great fiction, though, is not created by the simple recitation of events, it is created through characters who seem real to us, and with whom we can empathize. The events described above don't mean anything unless we see them through the eyes of those we come to know and care about. In this, the novel succeeds as well. There are no black and white, good-guy/bad-guy characterizations. All are treated sympathetically, and all are appropriately complex, as they react as best they can in the way they know how to the earth-shattering events occuring in their lives. There is an awful lot of scenery-setting though. Too often we hear lengthy descriptions of the smell of cedar and the brooding clouds and of the gray sea and the snow. Oh yes, the snow. Especially the snow. The plot occasionally gets bogged down by this, and at the exciting end, while the main characters are involved in a mad scramble to obtain crucial new trial evidence, we get to see the "snow-dazzled roads," and, "the fallen branches," and, "the children with their sleds," while they pass, "the Masuis' strawberry fields," and, "the Thorsen's milk cow barn," and, "Patsy Larsen's chicken houses," and--for God's sake, GET ON WITH IT! Apologies for that, but really, one gets the feeling that the author was trying just a little too hard to create Art, like Faulkner, or Steinbeck, or some other Great American Artist. Well, he didn't have to. With his fair-minded treatment of both the characters and the controversial subject matter, and with his moving, carefully thought-out prose, he has created an interesting and important piece of literature. He would have done so even without the pretension.
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Summary: Great Writing But Dirty Story
Review: This engaging story has some terrific writing and spendid characterization. But it also has several pages of explicit sexual content and several pages of incredibly strong language. This isn't what I expected. If you want a nice, clean romantic story with some suspense thrown in, this isn't it. Be warned. There is some gritty content here.
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