Review: Snow Falling on Cedars

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I read this one for our book club, and I was not a fan at all. Actually, no one in the book club really liked it, which is kind of odd – usually at least one person will like a book. There were lots of pretty words and lush text, but I found the story itself and the content lacking. The plot centers around a murder trial on an island near Washington state in the 1950s. A Japanese American man is accused of killing a white fisherman, and the reporter in love with the accused’s wife tells the story of the trial and of the island’s past. World War II and internment camps have changed all of the men (and women) of the island. I did get into the trial aspect of it, but I kept waiting for some grand twist that would justify everything but it never really came. I really wanted Ishmael, the reporter, to move on with his life already!

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One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Originally uploaded by marleah

by Ken Kesey.

I first read this book years ago, I think when I was in high school. Yes, the movie is great, but the book is too – if not better, of course. I’m currently re-reading it for my book club, and I’m interested to see what everyone thinks of it. Throughout the book I really root for McMurphy and admire his tenacity. Seeing everything from “Chief Broom” Bromden’s perspective is interesting. His hallucinations serve as metaphors for what is happening in the mental hospital, which I think is a good technique for this book.

From Amazon:
Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the seminal novel of the 1960s that has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy’s heroic attempt to do battle with the awesome powers that keep them all imprisoned.

1984

1984
Originally uploaded by marleah

by George Orwell.

This is a re-re-re-read that happened to be selected for my book club. I first read this in high school, and it became one of my favorite books of all time. I re-read it once every year or two, so this was a perfect opportunity. After first reading Animal Farm and then this book, I sought out everything written by Orwell and found that I can read anything this man has written.

From the back of this copy: “The world of 1984 is one in which eternal warfare is the price of bleak prosperity, in which the Party keeps itself in power by complete control over man’s actions and his thoughts. … the Party can smash the last impulse of love, the last flicker of individuality.”

I am trying to think of ideas of foods and things to feature at our book club discussion, coming up the first week of April. I am thinking of bringing something that contains chocolate, since chocolate rations are kind of a big deal in the book, and in Winston’s history. Maybe a chocolate tart? There’s a recipe in The Vegan Table that would be tasty. I’m also thinking of bringing a chocolate bar so we can visualize exactly how much 20g and 30g of chocolate is (those were the weekly rations for each person in the book).

Everything is Illuminated: Book Club Discussion

So I finished Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, and we had our book club discussion about it this past week.  I had planned to fix something Ukrainian to eat (since that is the main setting of the book), blueberry dumplings (pyrogis) specifically, but the night before the discussion I had a bit of a bug and was just too tired to do it.  Instead, I fixed some leftover apple/potato/cranberry dumplings that had come with one of our Tofurky Holiday Feasts.  They were enjoyed by all, and thankfully our gracious host fixed a pear and apple cobbler that was absolutely delicious.  We also had decorations – a friend and I made a garland of blue butterflies, to represent the blue butterflies that flocked to the Trachimday parade floats.  I wish I would have taken a picture of it when it was hung up!

I always take notes with any book that I read, but I try to especially focus on them when the book was chosen for the book club.  This book was also a bit confusing, what with the broken English and multiple narratives, so it helped to write some things down as I went through.  One of the main themes that we discussed from the book was that of family and history.  The book seems to say that we are all connected to each other due to our histories.  In the book, Jonathan meets Alex and Alex’s grandfather as part of his search for Augustine, a woman his own grandfather knew.  Later on in the story, we discover that there are further connections between Jonathan’s ancestors and Alex’s ancestors that neither party knew about prior to that journey.

I wrote down a lot of quotations from the book that really seemed to speak to me.  I’m just going to list those here:

One day you will do things for me that you hate.  That is what it means to be a family.

***

What is being awake if not interpreting our dreams, or dreaming if not interpreting our wake?

***

If we find her.  –  We will find her. — Probably not. — Then why do we search?

***

I wouldn’t want a boy to think I was pretty unless he was the kind of boy who thought I was pretty.

***

They [Brod's art that she created] were good and fine, but not beautiful … They are only the best of what exists.  [This one hit be because I am such a perfectionist regarding the things I create.  I need to remember that it may not be perfect, but it is the only one of its kind that exists, and that is because of me.]

***

But she [the dog, Sammy Davis Jr. Jr.] would not eat your glasses.  She is not an animal.  [I loved this one because there is so much confusion on the Ukrainians' part about Jonathan's vegetarianism, and they just cannot understand why he would not eat meat.  That oblivion just seems so ironic when compared to how the dog is not seen the same way.]

***

But there are so many things I can’t give you.  –  But there are so many things you can.

***

Family are the people who must make you feel ashamed when you are deserving of shame.

***

Your wedding day is no time to be comfortable.

I think that in these quotations, and in the book as a whole, the author really conveyed what it means to be a part of a family, and how families really do have a group history of sorts.  Also, for a young writer (I believe he was 25 at the time this book was written), Foer was able to capture what it means to get older and remember your history, just as well as he was able to capture the idealism and self-centeredness of youth.

If you choose to read the book, do try to stick with it.  It is confusing at first, but about halfway through things really started becoming connected and moving along.  It is full of humor, but it is also full of sadness, and I think that the humor is maybe what makes it bearable for us to deal with the sadness.  There’s also a movie version, starring Elijah Wood, which was all right but changed some key aspects of the book.  Not bad, and it did help some of my understanding, but the book is much better.

Everything is Illuminated

Everything is Illuminated
Originally uploaded by marleah

by Jonathan Safran Foer.

“With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis.”

I picked this book for my book club to read, and while it’s a good story, I haven’t gotten very far in it. This is a book that I’ve had around for a long time, kept hearing how good it was, tried to get started, but never got into it – so I figured if I picked it for the book club, then I have to read it! Now that I’ve spent more time with it, I am really getting into the story and want to know what happens next. Some parts of it are written by Alex, a Ukrainian translator who does not speak the best English. He loves using a thesaurus to help him express himself: “I have given abnormally many thoughts to altering residences to America when I am more aged.” He is pretty entertaining.

Note: I think I did a horrible job writing this post. I wrote it during breakfast, and I don’t think I was fully awake. But do I go back and read it and edit it? Pshaw!

Music of Dolphins

Music of Dolphins
Originally uploaded by marleah

by Karen Hesse

“Mila creates headlines around the world when she is rescued from an unpopulated island off the coast of Florida. Now a teenager, she has been raised by dolphins from the age of four.”

Yes, this is a young adult book. Yes, you can probably read it in an hour. Yes, the print for the beginning and end of the book is huge, like 36 or 48 point. BUT this was a really thought-provoking read. I belong to a book club, and one of the members was looking for an interesting yet quick and easy read to follow a more research-based book, so she picked this one. I read it here and there over the course of a couple of days. It tells how Mila lived with the dolphins (the most intriguing part of the book for me) and how she was “rescued,” only to be taken in by a group of scientists who cared for her but didn’t seem to see “Mila the girl.” Throughout the entire story, Mila longs to be back with her dolphin family and knows that she can never truly be a human. She speaks using music more than words, and although she is a quick learner, she feels that a part of her is missing.