Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson

 

Characters
San Piedro Island – Residents	Court and Law Officials
Kabuo Miyamoto Hatsue – wife   Carl Heine Susan Marie – wife Carl Sr. – father, deceased Etta – mother   Ishmael Chambers – reporter, owned newspaper Arthur – father, started newspaper   Ole Jurgensen – bought land from Etta	Judge Llewellyn Fielding Alvin Hooks – prosecutor Nels Gudmundsson – defense attorney   Art Moran – sheriff Abel Martinson – deputy   Horace Whaley - coroner
March 29, 1942 – Japanese Internment, Kabuo and Hatsue’s families went to Manzanar Internment Camp

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from paperback edition.

1. Why did the author name the reporter Ishmael? Given that the name is so well known from Moby Dick, the author must have had a specific reason for choosing that name.
2. Was it possible for Ishmael and Hatsue to be together?
3. Did you understand the San Piedro Island citizens’ point of view regarding their Japanese neighbors after Pearl Harbor?
4. Discuss how Kabuo appeared to the jurors.  On page 155 the author described his face as having “been arranged by its wearer to suggest his war and the strength he’d mustered to face its consequences but which instead communicated haughtiness…”    Would it be possible for the jurors to separate his appearance from their verdict?
5. Kabuo “knew himself to be guilty of murder” (page 155) because of the four soldiers he killed in the war. He felt the judge and jurors should appreciate the fact that he “had forever sacrificed his tranquility in order that they might have theirs” (page 155).   Was this possible for the judge and jury to understand this? 
6. Was Etta fair to the Miyamotos?  When she sold the land, she gave them back the original amount they had paid her husband but not the profit she made.  Legally she could have kept the payments they made because they defaulted at the end.  
7. Kabuo helped Carl when his boat battery died and talked with him about buying the land.   What do you think Carl would have done if he had not died?
8. Kabuo’s training in kendo started when he was seven.  His father told him that if he studied this craft “more would be expected of him than the average person” (page 165).  Did this turn out to be true?
9. Arthur Chambers defended Japanese citizens in his newspaper and lost business because of it. He told Ishmael that “not every fact is just a fact…it’s all a kind of…balancing act.”  When Ishmael objected, Arthur replied “But which facts?  Which facts to we print, Ishmael?”  (page 188).  What did you think when you read this?
10. Why did Kubuo refuse to tell his lawyer what really happened on Carl’s boat?  Do you think he could have gotten a fair trial?  What do you think the verdict would have been if Ishmael had not come forth with the information about the storm?
11. Was it possible for Ishmael to be happy?  When he talked to his mother about his unhappiness she replied, “I can’t really understand you…you went numb, Ishmael.  And you stayed numb all these years” (page 347).  What advice would you have given him? 
12. What do you think happened to Ishmael after the story ended?