I think this is one of the loveliest books I have ever
read. I was so fortunate last year to wander into my local Waterstones when
they had decided to display the newly released Bloomsbury Modern Classics
series. I was attracted to the aqua-blues in this beautiful cover design like something
shiny at the bottom of the sea, and, on reading the first few pages, I knew it
would need to come home with me.
I don’t know what it is about books which are set near the
sea, on the sea, by the coast, or, concern themselves with fishing, sailing,
lighthouses, pirates, and other sea creatures, but I always find them so
enjoyable; Olive Kitteridge, Jamaican Inn, In the Heart of the Sea, The Loney,
The Shipping News, are among those filling up my bookshelves devoted to
maritime literature.
I think it is the mysterious language authors use to
create their seascapes, a palette of folklore and boatspeak, mainly made up of
knots and ropes, the almost witchlike signs and signals found in the weather to
aid sea-navigation, all which holds certain foreign properties for any land-dweller.
David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars is part of this
world. In the fictional island of San Piedro Guterson creates an eco-literary
landscape which his characters spawn from. Water feeds the novel, the salmon
gill-netters, the juice of the strawberries farmed inland, the rain that forces
a young boy and girl to take shelter under a cedar tree, the snow that settles outside
the town’s courthouse during a murder case. Land is also a preoccupation and planted
in it are questions of nationality and ownership.
Keeping the literary analysis aside, (although this book
would be a dream for any budding Literature student), this book offers a romance,
a peep into Japanese heritage, a veer into crime-fiction; including forensics and
downtrodden local cops, the delights found in American Literature, including a To
Kill a Mocking Bird- type court case, the printing cogs of the island’s
newspaper, a delve into lighthouse archives, a harrowing description of the
Pacific campaign during WWII and above all a celebration of rural life.
There are passages which are so beautiful I feel
compelled to take up cross-stitching, print making or calligraphy so that I can
project them on my wall at home. Look at how Guterston takes describing snow to
another level:
It swirled like some icy fog, like the breath of ghosts, up and down Amity Harbor’s streets – powdery dust devils, frosted puffs of ivory cloud, spiraling tendrils of white smoke.
The book was written over a ten-year period, while Guterson
was working a teacher in Canada, a fact which I discovered while reading the
book. In the Acknowledgements he gives thanks to a gardening columnist,
presumably in his local circular, who he likely consulted when creating the chinaberries
and mulberry trees, and other lush foliage which grow out of the pages of Snow
Falling on Cedars.
I am not ashamed to admit this book made me sob my heart
out at one point. It really is that beautiful. And because of this and many
other reasons I have tried to relate in this rambling review, it has now a top
spot in my “to-be-reread” pile.