Jessica Au's "Cold Enough for Snow" teachers' review for NSW HSC 2027-2028

Brief description and distinctive features

Teaching this novel cannot commence until Term 4 2026 and will be first examined in 2027.

Cold Enough for Snow is set for study in 2027-2028 in Year 12 for Advanced and Standard in Texts and human experiences.

Jessica Au is an Australian writer, currently based in Melbourne. Cold Enough for Snow is her second novel; her debut, Cargo, was published by Picador in 2011 when Au was twenty-five years old.

Brief description of Cold Enough for Snow

A young woman has organised a holiday to take her mother to Japan. It is October and the weather is colder and wetter than they had expected; indeed, the mother reflects on whether the temperature will “be cold enough for snow.”

In their travels they visit art galleries, churches, cafes and restaurants. The mother and daughter are sometimes distant from each other but there is a determined attempt by the daughter to get to know her mother. The narrative takes several digressions back to the mother’s homeland, Hong Kong and also to the narrator’s other family and their experiences.

It is as if this particular trip becomes partly a journey of self-discovery and the digressions become an important impetus for reflection on the memories, moments and musings that make up the broader human experience.

It is also an affirmation of the experience of travel to sharpen our senses and to more closely observe the small details around us. It is a celebration of the ordinary and how we can find the extraordinary.

Awards 
In 2020 Cold Enough for Snow won the inaugural Novel Prize, a new biennial award offered by three international publishing houses for “any novel written in English that explores and expands the possibilities of the form.” The prize rewards works which are innovative and imaginative in style. The competition had 1500 submissions and Cold Enough for Snow won unanimously. The novel has been translated into fifteen languages.

Other awards included winning the Prime Minister’s Literary Award – Fiction 2023, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award – Fiction 2023 as well as the Victorian Prize for Literature 2023 and the Readings Prize – New Australian Fiction 2022.

Distinctive qualities of Cold Enough for Snow

• The narrator takes the reader directly to the time and place which establishes Au’s detail and restrained tone: “When we left the hotel it was raining, a light, fine rain, as can sometime happen in Tokyo in October.”
• Without any chapter breaks, Au uses a narrative style similar to stream of consciousness to explore different experiences from her own past or that of friends and family who have contributed to her own identity and growth.
• The daughter narrates the entire novel so other characters and their experiences are focalised but through the narrator’s perspective. For example, conversations and the mother’s remarks are recounted solely by the daughter, who speaks directly to the reader. 
• At times the digressions are to the recent past or further back in time and in different places which takes the reader away from the present trip to Japan. This gives the novel a montage effect where an observation or reflection becomes the impetus for memories, recollections of other people, other places and other times.
• The attention to detail not only enables a quiet calm but it affirms the importance of humanity’s capacity for reflection, observing the details of life and taking in special moments.
• There are several recurring motifs which add to the novel’s unity and aesthetic appeal; these include food, photography, literature, paintings, families.
• Sometimes Au’s writing is like an Impressionist painting and the references to Monet resonate with Au’s style. 
• The title is explicitly referenced on p. 87 when, in reflecting on the mother’s experience on this trip, that “the only question she’d asked once was whether, in winter, it was cold enough for snow, which she had never seen.” 

Ways to use Cold Enough for Snow in the classroom

Teaching this novel cannot commence until Term 4 2026 and will be first examined in 2027.

• There is an audio version available as CD from Bolinda or electronic access as an audio book via a range of different platforms including Audible, Amazon and Google. This will be valuable for students who need some initial help with reading a book which is not propelled by action and events. Encourage students to be absorbed by the moments that Au creates and be part of her meditative journey.
• Cold Enough for Snow is a key text for exploring how texts represent human experiences.
• The syllabus content should also be explored through a range of short texts to build student capacity for Section I
• Key syllabus content areas for consideration where students develop their own understanding of this content specific to Cold Enough for Snow
  
  • individual and collective human experiences
  • emotions and qualities related to these experiences
  • identity, culture, acceptance and growth
  • emotional, intellectual, physical, cultural and lived experiences
  • tension between agency and conformity in our human experience
  • paradoxes of motivation and behaviour.

For each of these content areas students need to understand in what ways/how are these experiences are represented in Cold Enough for Snow.

In their reading and responding students:

• consider the ways that texts encourage them to reflect personally 
• challenge their assumptions about the nature of human experience.
• invite the reader to see the world differently

Initial responding 

It is very important to encourage students to start writing early in the novel’s exploration. The sooner students start to write, their confidence, skills and capacity are increased. If this occurs early, it becomes normalised especially in low risk/no risk writing environments. Building competence and confidence is critical to student success. 

Task

Re-read the first five pages.

You can listen to the first two pages on the Bolinda site: https://shop.bolinda.com/audioexcerpts/9781867597810.mp3

Consider the specific experiences and the narrative and language choices made by Au in her opening.  

To build student confidence ask them if they noticed:

• The first-person narrative not only focalises the narrator but gives voice to other characters and their experiences – this will become a key feature of Au’s style
• The tone and mood is quiet, gentle, calm
• The narrator wants to absorb the details of her world and experiences and in so doing, so do we, the reader. 

What else have they noticed: build a class list and students use this list for students to respond in class in about twenty minutes to this task:

In what ways are we drawn into Au’s representation of human experiences?  

Exploring further:

In small groups students to make a list of the different experiences and emotions that are explored in this novel: build a table for students to contribute through either a share electronic folder or printed documents. 

Au’s Style 

Structure and narrative 

Ask your students: in your reading did you notice how Au plays with the chronology? This echoes with how our own thoughts often wanders from one topic to another in a seemingly random way. Life and human experiences are invariably not sequential, ordered, predictable and instead, our thoughts, conversations, actions are often similarly truncated, isolated like a series of snapshots from our memories or life experiences. 
Once students become used to this non-linear style the novel enables authentic exploration of the unpredictability and randomness that life can be. We can often digress to the past and different associations of people and places or we might sharpen our focus on something in front of us that takes us in another direction. 

Take note of where the narrative digresses to memories, the narrator’s own past, different experiences of her sister, her uncle, her partner Laurie. 

For example, on p 53-55 the narrative point of view focalises the sister- indeed, the detail is as if the sister is now telling the story.

This digression is a deliberate narrative construct by Au.

Access this review in The Guardian and specifically consider this insight:

‘Using tense as a fluid frame, Au’s words evoke imaginings and memories, speaking of how human lives are lived in minds that move fluidly through moments in time. She constructs layers of imagery using echoes and projections; her characters distort reality in subconscious efforts to see life as they imagine it to be. Increasingly thin membranes between memory and moment reflect the fragility of solid chronology within the book itself, while the interior world of the narrator brings personality and texture to this unusual story’. 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/feb/04/cold-enough-for-snow-by-jessica-au-review-a-graceful-novella-about-how-we-pay-attention

Hold a class discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of this stylistic choice: how effective is it?  Divide the class into two groups: one to represent the strengths of this style and the other its weaknesses. Each group to present examples from the novel which affirm their group’s assigned point of view. Use the groups’ evidence to write a persuasive piece on the point of view you most align with.

This task is to encourage a personal response and to build student confidence in their own judgment. 

Other structural features

Recurring motifs:

• The Camera and photographs e.g. pp 5,15,45
• Monet’s paintings p. 24, 68
• Memories p. 61, 62, 91

On p. 1 Au reinforces the importance for contemplation and close focus on our world: if you care enough to notice. p 1. This is like a plea to notice and absorb the world we are in and this is one of Au’s impressive skills: the power of contemplation.

Notice her detail and imagery:

• Museum p.7, 9
• University lecturer’s house p 30-33
• Two gazes: p.68-69
• Sensory imagery p. 72, 78, 80, 93.

Using reviews 

Share with students that Cold Enough for Snow unanimously won the 2022 Novel Prize competition where the judging criteria includes: ‘any novel written in English that explores and expands the possibilities of the form. The prize rewards works which are innovative and imaginative in style’. 

To orient students to this style and mood share some reviews:

• “Rarely have I been so moved, reading a book: I love the quiet beauty of Cold Enough for Snow and how, within its calm simplicity, Jessica Au camouflages incredible power”.  Édouard Louis
• “A beautifully observed book, written in precise, elegant prose that contains a wealth of deep feeling.” Kirkus Reviews
• “The soft, patient warmth of Au’s prose…sometimes feels attuned to truths just out of the narrator’s reach.” The New Yorker
• “One of the most sublime novels I’ve ever read…Its themes are familiar, but the way Jessica handles those themes made me rethink assumptions I had about the rules of fiction. A delicate and beautifully written novel, I’ll be going back to it even after the year ends, time and time again”.
  Camonghne Felix
• “So calm and clear and deep, I wished it would flow on forever”. Helen Garner

Task: highlight two comments which most resonate with your own response to Cold Enough for Snow and include in a future analytic task. 

Integrating Craft of Writing

With a change from the previous syllabus of prescribing specific texts for Craft of Writing, the opportunities have broadened to enable authentic connections with texts from the other focus areas including Texts and Human Experiences. Cold Enough for Snow is a rich source of Au’s craft to inspire and shape our students’ craft.

“I read all the plays, and then the books on the plays…I watched films and read about artists and directors and poets. Each time, it was like I was travelling at the speed of light, as I had spent all my life living in one dimension…” p.27

Continue this extract as a piece of imaginative, discursive or persuasive writing that evokes a particular emotional response in the reader.

HSC style-like questions

Teaching this novel cannot commence until Term 4 2026 and will be first examined in 2027.

The more opportunities students are given to write about Cold Enough for Snow, the more confident they will be for the big stakes of their Trial and HSC. Consider workshopping some of these questions, writing introductions, essay plans and choosing quotes to best suit the question.

• How effectively does your prescribed text tell stories to reveal both the personal and shared nature of human experiences?
• How does Jessica Au represent the emotions arising from human experiences through the features of prose fiction?
• How do composers draw us into the world of the text by inviting us to share a representation of human experiences?
• Meaningful connections, whether they be to people, places or beliefs, define the quality of human experience.  To what extent do you agree with this statement? In your response make detailed reference to your prescribed text.

Relevant details in relation to the new NSW English Stage 6 HSC syllabus

Teaching this novel cannot commence until Term 4 2026 and will be first examined in 2027.

There are requirements for particular types of texts to be selected from the prescribed texts list for different courses. Great care must be taken in selecting a pathway of texts that meets all the requirements.

For the Advanced course 

Four prescribed texts to be studied with at least ONE from each of the following categories (prose fiction, poetry, and drama OR nonfiction OR film OR media) and ONE authored by Shakespeare

For the Standard course 

Students are required to closely study three prescribed texts with ONE drawn from each of the following categories: prose fiction, poetry, drama OR film OR media OR nonfiction.

Possible pathways for HSC Advanced and Standard courses