Egy kis háború, egy kis tiltott szerelem, egy kis sós tengerszag, belecsomagolva egy tárgyalótermi drámába - igazi sikerrecept.

Megfigyeltem amúgy, a tárgyalótermi drámákat alapvetően két csoportra oszthatjuk - az egyikben az ügyész genyó, a másikban a védő. No most itt az ügyész, aki azon van, hogy Kabuót, ezt a jóravaló japán halászembert elítéljék Carl Heine, a másik jóravaló halászember meggyilkolásáért. No most ha a regényben Kabuót is citálják az esküdtszék elé, valójában az író nem mást akar a vádlottak padjára ültetni, mint az előítéleteket. Ahogy Guterson kibontja San Piedro szigetének történetét, úgy válik egyre világosabbá, miért jogos a japán bevándorlók (köztük Kabuo) bizalmatlansága az "őshonos" amerikai lakosság (köztük az esküdtszék vagy épp az igazságszolgáltatás képviselői) iránt. A mélyben bujkáló, rendszerszintű rasszizmus, amely arra a feltételezésre épül, hogy a japánok kiismerhetetlenek és potenciális gyilkosok, már a második világháború idején is oda vezetett, hogy az egész közösségre alkalmazták a kollektív bűnösség elvét - most pedig fegyvert ad az ügyész kezébe, aki igazi aljadékként az előítéleteket meglovagolva kísérli meg akasztófára juttatni Kabuót. Nagyon sok mindenkinek kell felülemelkednie a vélt vagy valós sérelmein ahhoz, hogy az igazság ilyen körülmények között is diadalmaskodjon*.

Szerteágazó, de jól kézben tartott cselekmény és masszív atmoszféra fémjelzi a kötetet, különösen erős a helyszín, a zsebkendőnyi zord sziget, San Piedro ábrázolása, ahol magányos halászok és a földbe tíz körömmel kapaszkodó eperkertészek tengetik napjaikat. Guterson magabiztosan használja az angolszász epikus próza nyelvét, tanmeséjén nem is látszik, hogy tanmese - csak annyit érzékelünk, hogy jó regény.

* Spoiler alatt: Guterson nem naiv, meg sem próbál úgy csinálni, mintha esély lenne arra, hogy a többségi társadalom tagjai kollektíve megvilágosodjanak, és kimásszanak az idegenellenesség nevű mentális gödörből. Ennek köszönhető a keserédes zárás: Kabuót ugyan felmentik, de nem azért, mert az esküdtszék egy drámai jelenet után szembenézett saját előítéleteivel. Nem - ami azt illeti, ők (egyikük kivételével) nyugodt lelkiismerettel vesztőhelyre küldték volna szerencsétlen felebarátjukat, annak ellenére, hogy a védő, sőt még a bíró is igazi szemfelnyitogató beszédekkel próbálta jobb belátásra bírni őket. Csak bizonyos külső események (egy tépelődő, szintúgy sebeket hordozó újságíró magánnyomozása) vetettek véget a méltatlan pernek, ilyen értelemben pedig az egész egyáltalán nem tekinthető az értelem diadalának rossz beidegződéseinken, inkább csak oltári nagy mázlinak.

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:

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.

This is a beautifully written story about a particularly ugly time in our history. The characters are vividly drawn along with the geography of the setting. Extraordinary effort.

Have you ever watched an episode of a TV show that was made up almost entirely of flashbacks? At the end of the episode, you find that the flashbacks were not only distracting from the story and annoying, but were evidence that the writers just didn't have enough material to write one full, good episode. That's how I feel about Snow Falling on Cedars.

Rather than using the flashbacks as a clever device to fill in some back story, you find the story really is the back story. Wha??? Exactly. It was as if the author couldn't decide if the story would be the trial and its outcome or the backstory that led up to the trial, so he opted for both, but he did it in such a clunky and distracting fashion that it took away from the story...or stories...I'm not sure.

And everything is spelled out for the reader. Everything. For example, in the chapter in which the autopsy is performed on the victim (Carl Heine), we read this:
"But the sheriff was a man of inherited anxieties. It was not really in him to go over there and see what was under Carl Heine's face.
Horace Whaley (the coroner) knew this: that the sheriff did not want to see what was inside of Carl Heine's head."

Why did the author have to tell me that twice? In fact, why did he have to tell me at all? Could he not have described some action to communicate the sheriff's feelings to me? Everything is just spelled out. If you're not reading one of the courtroom scenes (which are few and far between) in which dialog is taking place, the chapters are just loooooonnnnng narratives of everything that happened. Absolutely everything, whether or not it seems relevant to the story. And with every detail painstakingly spelled out for the reader.

And, the characters are so stereotypical and flat. Two of the main characters supposedly fell in love at the age of fourteen and can't let it go as adults. (Do you know how I know they were fourteen? BECAUSE THE AUTHOR TOLD ME THREE TIMES IN THE SPAN OF TWO PAGES THAT THEY WERE FOURTEEN. Truly, I wanted to say out loud, "Okay, they're fourteen. I get it. Sheesh.") These characters hardly have any depth. They're like robots on paper and I'm supposed to feel sympathy for them. I can't. I honestly don't care what happens to any of these people.

While there were times the descriptions of the setting were decent, the author seemed to go on far too long with far more information than was needed. At times, it seemed he must have sat with his thesaurus next to him, using as many fancy words as he could find in one passage. It was as if he was hoping to impress or felt the need to establish himself as a writer, but took it too far. Way, too far.

This book is definitely not for me. At times it even had a "soap opera" feel to it, something I detest. It was well received and celebrated by many when it was first published. I'm glad they all enjoyed it, but I've learned my lesson...trust my instincts and stop reading a lot sooner when I my gut says, "This book is not for you."

At once a courtroom drama, a love story, a war story and a coming-of-age story, Guterson’s debut novel is a marvelous work depicting one man’s struggle against his baser instincts.

Kabuo Miyamoto grew up on his family’s strawberry farm, land that his parents, born in Japan, were prohibited by law from owning. They leased the land from Carl Heine Sr, with an agreement that when their son turned 21, he (an American born citizen) would own the land. Natsue Imada also grew up on a strawberry farm, at the opposite end of San Piedro Island from the Miyamoto’s farm. Her near neighbor and childhood friend was Ishmael Chambers, son of the local newspaper owner/editor. Natsue and Ishmael form an attachment as children and teenagers, but their plans are interrupted by World War II, and the internment of all Japanese. Twelve years later, Hatsue is married to Kabuo, who is on trial for murdering Carl Heine, Jr, a local fisherman, and son of the woman who “stole his family’s land” while they were in the internment camps.

Guterson uses the trial as the framework for telling the story of these three people, whose lives are intertwined and bound by local history, prejudice, regret and grudges. The men, in particular, harbor resentments from past injuries, and seem trapped in holding on to their feelings of having been wronged and/or done wrong.

Island life is unique in that the residents have few opportunities to truly isolate themselves from one another. Separated from the rest of world by an expanse of water, they must form a community to help one another. There is one hardware store, one post office, one grocer, one mechanic, one school. They may have squabbles, but if you make an enemy you will not be able to avoid that person. So, in general, they set aside their differences and get along – at least on the surface. But all that is unsaid is kept inside one’s soul, festering and shaping thoughts and behaviors.

This is the quandry for Ishmael and Kabuo, and to some extent Carl Jr. The attack on Pearl Harbor unites the American citizens against “the Japs” and results in tensions between families that have peacefully coexisted for years. Guterson masterfully pits a German family against a Japanese family – at one point even having a character comment on the irony of the Japanese being viewed as the enemy, while the Germans are NOT automatically labeled as Nazis.

Ishmael’s quandry is more complex. He loses his heart to Hatsue, only to have it broken, and then loses an arm in the Pacific theater – “blown off by a Jap.” Covering the trial, he cannot bear to look at her, he cannot bear to look away. He longs for her and yet blames her for his current state. His moral dilemma is made more difficult by the latent prejudice rife among island residents, to which he is also falling prey.

I love this paragraph near the end of the book (no spoiler):
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. And this was excellent and poor at the same time – excellent because it meant most people took care, poor because it meant an inbreeding of the spirit, too much held in, regret and silent brooding, a world whose inhabitants walked in trepidation, in fear of opening up. Considered and considerate, formal at every turn, they were shut out and shut off from the deep interplay of their minds. They could not speak freely because they were cornered: everywhere they turned there was water and more water, a limitless expanse of it in which to drown. They held their breath and walked with care, and this made them who there were inside, constricted and small, good neighbors.

"Ich sage es, weil ich als alter Mann dazu neige, die Dinge im Licht des Todes zu sehen, also ganz anders als Sie. Ich bin wie ein Reisender vom Mars, der mit Erstaunen sieht, was hier vorgeht. Und was ich sehe, das ist die immer gleiche menschliche Schwäche, die von einer Generation an die nächste weitergegeben wird. Immer und immer die gleiche traurige menschliche Schwäche. Wir hassen einander; wir sind das Opfer unvernünftiger Ängste. Und nichts im Strom der Menschheitsgeschichte lässt hoffen, dass wir daran etwas ändern werden. [...] Werden Sie nun Teil jener gleichgültigen Mächte sein, die sich verschworen haben, unablässig auf das Unrecht hinzuarbeiten? Oder werden Sie sich gegen diese endlose Strömung stemmen, ihr trotzen und wahrhaft menschlich sein?"

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."

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.

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?

n  

"Accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart."

n
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:

n  "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..."n

But those had been indeed hard times:

n  "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."n

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.

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson is a gripping, tragic, masterpiece of suspense set on San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, 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. Having watched the movie based on this book many years ago, I decided to read the book but surprisingly I did not recognize the story. Now I need to watch the movie again.

I really loved this one back in the day, but have been disappointed with his offerings since.