Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel Book

"Accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart."
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:
"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..."
But those had been indeed hard times:
"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."
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.