Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Detached
It feels like the narrator of Snow Falling on Cedars has clambered up one of those cedar trees and perched there so s/he can monitor the characters and events that take place from a healthy distance. As a result, the tone is removed and non-judgy—kind of appropriate, no, given the focus on courtroom proceedings and journalism (both of which are at least supposed to be unbiased)?
The book's extensive descriptions of the snowstorm and its impact provide lots of good examples of this tone. We get a whole bunch of information about a lot of events and people with very little extra commentary. Here is just one snippet:
The citizens of San Piedro made their run on Petersen's and cleared the shelves of canned goods. They brought so much snow into the store on their boots that one of the box boys, Earl Camp, stayed busy all afternoon with a mop and a towel, cleaning up after them. Einar Petersen took a box of salt from his shelf and spread its contents outside the door, but two customers slipped despite this. Einar decided to offer free coffee to shoppers and asked one of his checkers, Jessica Porter—who was twenty-two and cheerful looking—to stand behind a folding table and serve. (17.7)
See the kind of chilly detachment the narrator has from everything s/he is describing? People are slipping on floors (yikes, bad) and offering coffee (aw, nice), but it's all just reported without editorializing (as we've been doing with these parentheticals… we'll stop now).