Book Review: Snow Hunters

Paul Yoon's novel Snow Hunters: A Novelis a gem—perfectly cut and exquisite. Employing minimalistic writing it nonetheless conveys an entire rich and nuanced world. It lies somewhere between the realm of prose and poetry, each sentence is a distillation of language, and as such it is powerfully evocative.

The book has the feeling of a fable, images and events evoke universal experiences, yet it manages to tell a complete and coherent story. As I read I felt like I was immersed in an impressionistic piece, but in recounting the story to someone else, I realized that by the end of the narrative every detail had been filled in. Names, dates, events...it is a story of war, displacement, loss, and love and at times was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.

This is not a cheap read, but nor is it overly intellectual. Utterly approachable and every member of my book club seems to have loved and appreciated it equally - so much so that we are reading Paul Yoon's short story collection for next month.

It is great to live in a world where there are so many forms of genius to astound and delight!