Dinky's Docket

OK. I'm going to get boring on you. (I'm pretending I didn't hear your guffaws--"When haven't you been boring, Dinky?"--especially since no one's reading this anyway.) This book I'm reading, Snow Falling on Cedars is truly amazing. It's a text book for would-be novelists. Whenever I read a book or watch a movie I feel like writing a paper about it. But since I'm in the "real world" now and not compelled by professors to do it, I don't. I've kept the hundreds of thousands (ok, hundreds, ok, ok, 20) papers I've written for college and I think I can do much better. Now I've gone and set myself up for failure.

Anyway (heavy sigh), I can ramble here without bothering anybody because no one knows this blog exists. If, by chance someone is reading this, the following will spoil some of the key moments of the story if you haven't read the book or seen the movie.

Actually, this will probably be brief. I just wanted to talk about the way Guterson develops the story and keeps the reader engrossed in it. I'm at the point where Kabuo's defense attorney has just begun making his case. The night before, Ishmael Chambers had discovered some evidence that might shed doubt on whether Kabuo really committed the murder, but he's keeping it to himself. This is because he is in love with Kabuo's wife. So now there's a tension that goes beyond the whodunit factor. A character we care about is concealing information. Will he come forward? This question becomes more compelling than "Did Kabuo do it?" the answer to which is probably known to the reader from the beginning.

How does Guterson make this question so compelling? It wouldn't be that way without some careful preparation. We have to understand Ishmael, to know him. We have to see why he would do this and also why it would be wrong. We have to be goading him to do the right thing for this to create tension with us. Otherwise we'd just be glad he kept the information to himself and not worry about what he'd do with it. So there has to have been some masterful character development. And there has. I might discuss what this is in greater detail later.