Talk:Snow Falling on Cedars

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Snow Falling On Cedars, by David Guterson, is an extraordinary piece of english literature. In the novel, Guterson demonstrates his ability to transform mere pages and words into powerful imagery and intense emotion. Moreover, Guterson creates a masterful combination of a painful love story, a suspensful who-dun-it murder trial,and a social commentary on discrimination at the time of the second world war. It is this combination that garnered this book such a whirl wind of praise. A truely amazing piece of english literature! All who read this novel are garanateed to finish it a better person.

Hi, I just removed a chunk of text from the plot section since it was out of place and unnessesarily blunt. However, if anyone is upset by this, please feel free to revert.--Jackyd101 22:16, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

(1) The "chunk of text" Jackyd101 removed from the plot is the ending of the book. How it could possibly be "out of place" I don't know.

(2) Have I linked the "AP" in "English Literature AP Exam" correctly? That's all I could gather from the AP disambiguation page.

(3) "As a result of the intensity of the violence and sexual content in this novel, it has in some places been banned." (a) Have I been reading a Bowdlerized version? What violence? What sexual content? Could anyone specify? (b) Banned in some places?? Where? The link to List of banned books is misleading rather than helpful: Snow Falling on Cedars is not even mentioned there.

(4) "David Guterson seems to have a strange obsession with the male sexual organ. Throughout the work, he makes several references to size, functionality, color, etc." That's all there is to say about themes in the novel? And again: Have I read a different book?

I'd like to wait for reactions before I make any changes. <KF> 18:48, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I live in Australia and the edition we have published here has plenty of violence and sexually graphic stuff. Maybe American publications have been censored to avoid condemnation from the largely conservative majority there? --Jaymo 14:50, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I must be living in a parallel world here. I just realise a Catholic school in Ontario has "banned" the book from its shelves [1], and Jaymo above also assures me there is "plenty of violence and sexually graphic stuff". I have read a British edition (the 2000 film tie-in published by Bloomsbury, ISBN 074754073X ), which has certainly not been censored. Go to any bookshop and blindly take a book from the fiction shelves: The odds are high it's got a lot more sex and violence in it than Snow Falling on Cedars. I'd venture the guess that, generally, Americans do not like to be reminded of how they treated their own Japanese community during the Second World War and that they are—not necessarily consciously—looking for reasons to get rid of a book which thematizes that issue. Snow Falling on Cedars is mainly a psychological drama; please refer me to the sex & violence passages. <KF> 23:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't have the book on me at the moment but the sex between Kabuo and Hatsue was rather graphic. I think it took place on page 80 or something thereabouts --Jaymo 02:03, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "ten year period from the 1960s to the 1980s"

"ten year period from the 1960s to the 1980s"... uhm, isn't that 20 years?

i edited a few minor mistakes!

--Banning of this Book-- What do you guys think about this? Should this book truly be banned, for those who have read it? Recently, in the region where I live (Peel Region, in Ontario) the Catholic District School Board recently banned this. It is not somewhat contradictory to raise your students in a world void of the notions these sorts of close-reading books offer? These books are meant to show students what the real world can be like...is it truly wise to censor these pieces of literature?

To the guy who commented about it in Ontario, the district which banned it controls schools in Mississauga, Ontario and Brampton, Ontario. It's the Dufferin Peel Roman Catholic Seperate School Board. The book contains somewhat explicit verses, and paragraphs, but they are there as a learning experience. As for the American/Canadian aspect (We did persecute them, as well) of trying to not thematize the treatment of Japanese-North Americans...I don't believe that that would be a legitimate reason. We as a continent keep these pieces of literature afloat for the reason to remember the past crimes of a country and to keep us in check. Did our ancestors do something immoral? Yes, but at the time is wasn't exactly illogical: Paranoid defense is still a type of defense, I guess. The exposure to sex and violence, however, is well reflected in both our countries as something that's more effective(?? I still don't agree, but it's true to a point.) to censor. Anyways...JoeCaron 17:24, 17 February 2007 (UTC)