Snow Falling on Cedars
SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS (David Guterson) - Three Stars
Against the background of a 1950s murder trial, Snow Falling on Cedars tells the story of a small Puget Sound isle, the Japanese-American relocation during WWII, and the code of the solitary salmon fisherman who comprise the majority of the island's economy. Unfortunately, the novel never quite decides what it wants to be its main focus: the central murder mystery, analysis of human prejudice, the psychological casualties of war, or the everyday casualties of love. Guterson has crafted an enjoyable novel that is not epic because it attempts to tackle too much.
The book is also, at times, cloyingly nostalgic. Much of the novel is told in flashbacks, but after establishing a nice structure of past and present in alternating chapters Guterson abandons this with almost 100 pages of backstory (roughly pages 150-250) that introduces a lot of turbulence into the flow of the novel. On the plus side, the three main characters (Ishmael, Hatsue, and Kabuo) are wonderfully fleshed out, detailed characters. There were a few instances where Snow... lapses into repetition, detailing the same aspects of a character's personality, but this doesn't happen too often.
I think my biggest problem with the book was that everything wraps up a little too neatly at the end. After a largely dark and serious novel, the damaged character grows a conscience and moves on, justice is served, etc. After a mostly bracing, no-holds-barred look at human flaws, the ending was a little too "Hollywood" to leave a good aftertaste.
Against the background of a 1950s murder trial, Snow Falling on Cedars tells the story of a small Puget Sound isle, the Japanese-American relocation during WWII, and the code of the solitary salmon fisherman who comprise the majority of the island's economy. Unfortunately, the novel never quite decides what it wants to be its main focus: the central murder mystery, analysis of human prejudice, the psychological casualties of war, or the everyday casualties of love. Guterson has crafted an enjoyable novel that is not epic because it attempts to tackle too much.
The book is also, at times, cloyingly nostalgic. Much of the novel is told in flashbacks, but after establishing a nice structure of past and present in alternating chapters Guterson abandons this with almost 100 pages of backstory (roughly pages 150-250) that introduces a lot of turbulence into the flow of the novel. On the plus side, the three main characters (Ishmael, Hatsue, and Kabuo) are wonderfully fleshed out, detailed characters. There were a few instances where Snow... lapses into repetition, detailing the same aspects of a character's personality, but this doesn't happen too often.
I think my biggest problem with the book was that everything wraps up a little too neatly at the end. After a largely dark and serious novel, the damaged character grows a conscience and moves on, justice is served, etc. After a mostly bracing, no-holds-barred look at human flaws, the ending was a little too "Hollywood" to leave a good aftertaste.
posted by Kevin at 11:18 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home