In 1995, an obscure American middle school teacher, David Gaterson, spent a decade fictionalizing an island and the story that took place on that island. Near Seattle, there is an island full of fragrant fir trees and strawberries, which is a paradise where people live backward and comfortable.
It is on this small island embedded in nature that a story of love, war, racial discrimination and suspected murder is intertwined. Time Magazine commented:
"Beautifully spoken and well structured, Gatsen's meticulous examination of the themes of justice and forgiveness yielded an unforgettable and realistic effect."
The story begins with a trial in which the defendant Miyamoto sits proudly, rigidly but gracefully. He was charged with "killing" fisherman Karl Hine. As the narrative unfolds, both the facts and the mystery of the case seem to work against him. Also as fishermen, their lives are not very rich, but they have wives and children in the family, which is also a relatively happy family.
A sudden catastrophe dealt a great blow to the Miyamoto family. Miyamoto's wife Hatsue, in the process of running for her husband's justice, re-encountered her first love Ishmael, and was re-placed in front of her after years of sealing.
Hatsue, a Japanese-American girl, meets the white teenager Ishmel in San Pezzo, and the two fall in love, relying on each other day in the fragrant fir forest. What lies before them, however, is the issue of unpeaceful race. Japanese americans, who were foreigners, were bullied and despised by whites.
The love of young girls is beautiful and firm under the foil of the fragrant fir forest, they are devoted to each other, and they dare not think about the countless changes in the future. They are the interdependence of two lonely souls, the medicine and salvation for each other's grief and youth.
However, in the pearl harbor incident, the war between two countries and two camps spread to the love of two foreign men and women. The Japanese girl was forced to follow her clan to a concentration camp and wrote a parting letter to her lover. Disheartened, Ishmael went to war.
Hatsue in the concentration camp married Miyamoto Tendo in a humble environment, and Miyamoto Tendo soon set foot on the battlefield as an American.
Once love is disturbed by external objects, it will be extremely difficult. Hatsue and Ishmel, despite their spiritual fit, were unable to withstand the barriers of the environment. Romeo and Juliet, even if they love each other enough to die for each other, cannot clear the obstacles between them. Tess and Claire are desperate to be together, but they can't sweep away worldly prejudices. Onegin and Dagiana, though still in love years later, could not break free from the shackles of morality...
These unsatisfactory loves may be the most beautiful appearance of love.
Both Hatsue and Ishmael, as well as Hatsue and Miyamoto Tendo, were devastated by war. Ishmael went to war, lost an arm, and after returning from the army, became a reporter for this small place. The war did not let him forget the love he had once loved, and after many years, when he saw Hatsue again, he still remembered the feeling of his heart at the beginning, and even could not bear that she was half wronged.
After pearl harbor, the Japanese in the United States were affected, but hatsue, a japanese girl, questioned: "Those who bombed Pearl Harbor, they are also pursuing a spiritual realm beyond life?" And confessed that "she and them are not in the same category, she belongs to San Pezzo.". But reality did not allow her to avoid the effects of the war, and her Japanese blood made her have to face the "evil" imposed on her.
The racial discrimination imposed on individuals seems to have not stopped for hundreds of years. Asians seem to be forever inferior in the United States and Europe, and it is difficult to compete with white people. In Zhang Ling's "Golden Mountain", the Chinese Fang Defa struggled for decades and finally had his own plantation, but he seemed to have successfully rooted in Jinshan, but he could be destroyed by white people overnight and return to the starting point.
Race can be part of the persecution of war, even an important one. It fueled the development of the war and expanded the trauma of the war.
Miyamoto, as a Japanese beauty, was forced to go to the battlefield to kill his own clan members. The entanglement, torture, betrayal, and powerlessness that were engraved in his heart devoured him little by little, and until the end of the war, returning to this island with infinite scenery could not heal the suppressed guilt in his heart.
The psychological trauma of war is obvious, and Ishmael's experience on the battlefield has turned him into a sensitive and emotionally unstable person, and he often dreams of his amputations being thrown like garbage on blood-stained clothes. He hated people's sympathy, became indifferent to people and things, and even thought that man was "a living skin bag filled with flesh and blood, chakras, and juice." "After becoming a journalist, he has also been languishing and getting by.
Instead of blaming the cruelty of the war and the devastating psychological trauma of the war, Gaterson eliminated the suffering caused by the war by portraying the beautiful island scenery and using the aesthetic sense of the fragrant cedar forest, strawberry field, lighthouse and sea.
Another important theme of the novel is prejudice and justice. Carl Hine and Miyamoto Tendo, who also went out to sea late at night to fish, the former was buried in the sea for no reason, but the ship found evidence against tendo. Above the court, most of the islanders, including the prosecutor, believed that Tiandao was the murderer, and the prosecutor's statement was full of disdain and discrimination, and he was critical and deliberately guided in the questioning of witnesses.
ETA, the mother of the deceased Carl Hein, also appeared as a witness, and she has a huge prejudice against Asians. At first, the Miyamoto family bought land from her, but it was not able to defeat old Carl, but after the Pearl Harbor incident, the Miyamoto family was thrown into a concentration camp and could not pay the final payment on time, and ETA sold the land again. So the two families entangled for more than ten years because of the seven acres of land, and Eta firmly believed that it was Tiandao who wantonly took revenge and killed his son. ETA's prejudices are deeply ingrained, and all judgments are based on vendettas.
The islanders' hatred of Japan spread from the wartime to this case, and they wanted to vent their prejudices and hatred with the death penalty of Heavenly Dao. The confrontation between good and evil is not so complicated, and people who are surrounded by evil often make unfair evaluations.
The original course of events was that Tendo had exchanged his spare battery for Carl's ship to help Carl Hine, who was running out of power in the depths of the sea, but was used as important evidence to accuse himself of killing people. Tendo did not ignore Carl at sea for help because of the feud between the two families, but was eventually detained as a murderer. The aliens who were regarded by the whites as fierce gods and evil spirits were even kinder than they were themselves.
Toward the end of the trial, Ishmel found key evidence that would dissuade Heaven from murder. In the face of love and justice, he chose the latter. In his heart, hatsue will always be the lover who hides in the depths of the fragrant cedar forest and pours out his heartfelt heart, the eternal white moonlight. For the Tiandao family, even if one of the white people was willing to fight for them, even if they were lucky, they would not extinguish their hopes for this place.
It is difficult to obtain absolute justice in this world, but there are always people who are running for justice, and that person may not be a lawyer, not a person who is treated unfairly, but a person with a righteous heart.
"The heart of any other man, because it has its own will, is always mysterious." We can't see the hearts of others, but we have to see where our own hearts go. No matter how many topics are described in the novel, in the final analysis, it is all about the word "human nature". The human heart cannot look directly, and human nature cannot be cut open and looked closely. The beauty of the snow falling on the fragrant fir tree is a symbol of the revival of human nature, just like the end of the story, what can wash people's hearts is always beautiful.
Text/Angelica
Picture/Movie
2020/8/28
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