Cold Mountain

Rating:
Summary: Quite possibly the worst book I have ever read!
Review: This book was so incredibly boring and long. It went on and on. I have no idea what fool would ever give this book an award! I think you deserve an award if you finish reading it. I can't believe they made a movie about this book. Honestly, this has got to be one of the all time worst books ever written.

Rating:
Summary: I found this disappointing, after hearing all the buzz.
Review: Perhaps I had heard too much about this novel, but I found the actual reading of it to be extremely anti-climatic. I love reading, and have a master's degree in literature, but for some reason, this story did not engage me in the slightest. Inman does travel a long distance from a war, but that is the only comparison to The Odyssey that could ever be drawn, in my opinion. Both Ada and Inman read as extremely cold characters, and the whole story lacked the passion of The Odyssey. My boyfriend also felt the same way--perhaps we are the only two people who did not enjoy this book! The plot is fine, but the characters are not compelling. I would never recommend this book to anyone, but it's perfectly adequate, if boring, reading.

Rating:
Summary: Grows On You--Lovely and Lyrical
Review: I admit to skipping the first chapter of this book, as I found it difficult to become interested in the plight of Civil War participant Inman in his introductory stay in a hospital before going back to the fighting. However, as I read further, each chapter waffles back and forth between Inman and his lady, Ada, I found that Frazier's heavily detailed narrative, indeed grew on me. Trailers of the upcoming movie, piqued my interest with regard to obvious movie romance, and I read rather impatiently to find some sense of this "great love" within the pages of the book. Indeed I did find it---and along the way, enjoyed thoroughly the odyssey of Inman's journey back to his faithful, albeit not-so-competent Penelope.

Frazier brings up many themes, most memorable the utter destruction of war within the spirit of a man; but more lyrically he tells a tale of the American Appalacians---the hard working mountain dwellers and their steadfast beliefs and downright admirable perserverance. Each chapter brings to life new characters in an Uncle Remus-like simplicity that is not only effective but beautiful.

Inman's eventual reunion with his barely-known love is worth waiting for---the ending could have been happier, but is in keeping with the moving-on sense of each of the main characters.

Rating:
Summary: A Really Good Novel
Review: I hesitate to call this a great novel, but the story certainly is engaging and the language is often beautiful. However, my one reservation about the book lies with the language: at times it seems forced and perhaps "overly" artistic. I still recommend reading this book.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully crafted, difficult, but above all amazing
Review: Charles Frazier's debut 'Cold Mountain' received a deserved National Book Award in 1997. One of the best American novels of the 90s, this book is not for everyone. Part an unconventional love story, part a War story, but above all, the study of the human condition, the novel requires patience from the reader.

To experienced readers, who like literary works, it is not difficult to fall in love with this narrative. The story is slow, the writer builds his characters and situations bit by bit --that's why people who are looking for a war adventure or a conventional love story should stay away from 'Cold Mountain'.

The focus on three main characters: Inman, a soldier who deserts the battle and embarks in a journey to meet Ada, his beloved who's trying to keep going the farm left by her father, and Ruby, a mountain-girl who helps her with the farm. Throught his journey, Inman meets a different cast of characters --some people help and some not-- that more than anything exemplify the human condition, mostly in war times. Meanwhile, Ada, who can't keep in touch with him, tries to survive in the farm her father left. She will count on the help from Ruby, a simple girl who knows a lot about nature and farming and wants to help Ada, as long as she is treated like an equal, and not a maid.

After the story is set, and the characters introduced, Frazier is free to left the three main characters dominating the narrative. Although they are not the narrators, we're allowed to see their most inner thoughts, fears and joys. Every character is believable, in my opinion. Everyone has his/her life changed because of the war, and all of them are wounded souls.

The narrative is very descriptive therefore many parts are static. And although the story seems not to be going anywhere, it actually it --but it is very subtle. For some readers, this kind of device is a problem --while for others this is truly beautiful. Not many writers have the ability that Frazier does to do such device. What in many narratives could be a bore, in his is simply wonderful to take a time off and look around, to see how much the environment has changed with the war.

Inman, Ada and Ruby are unforgettable. While he has one different supporting character every chapter; the two girls become close friends, in a beautiful friendship of mutual need. While Ruby can teach the mysteries of the nature; Ada helps her friends to learn things like arts.

All in all, Frazier has written one of the best novels published in the 90s. This is the kind of book that requires a lot from the reader, but it gives back much more. It is very rewarding to follow Inman, Ada and Ruby in their journey, however long and difficult it is.

Rating:
Summary: one of the best books I've ever read
Review: Though ultimately a tale of sorrow and hardship, this is nevertheless a moving story. Frazier structures the book to tell the parallel stories of Inman, who is traveling a hard road home to Cold Mountain to escape the ravages of fighting in the Civil War, and of Ada, who is struggling to eke out an existence on her father's farm after her father's death. Frazier's writing style and language result in a somewhat sophisticated prose that transports the reader right into the story. I've read many many books and this is by far one of my favorites. After reading some of these reviews, I think that in an way, it's unfortunate that high schoolers are forced to read this book for their English classes. Even though I enjoyed English in high school, and even majored in it in college, I think I too would have disliked this book if I had read it in that context. This book was not meant to be ruined by picking it apart in high school English. This is a compelling story if you choose to read it and are not forced to do so.

Rating:
Summary: Great American Odyssey
Review: One of the better books I have read that was written in the past decade. Some parts of the book are dense and even a little boring, but it is still worth the read. Beware: reading this book may spark an unhealthy interest in the American Civil War.

Rating:
Summary: For thoughtful readers
Review: How unfortunate it is that many of the reviews listed below are by junior and senior high school students, forced to read the book as an assignment for class. This brilliant work requires a readers with the patience and imagination to sink into the pages and let the beauty of the language and the vividness of the images wash over them.

Frazier's unique style of writing (and particularly his way with dialogue) requires some getting used to, and it took me about 75 pages to become engrossed in the story. I found the rather flat, understated tone to be helful in some cases, where the fully-described violence of the image could otherwise be overwhelming. In other instances, his style gives leave to the reader to absorb the impact of the story twists and turns slowly, leaving much to think about after putting the book down and getting on with life. Other reviewers are correct to suggest reading just a chapter or two at a time; you will find your mind returning again and again to thoughts of the chapter you have just finished. It's been several days since I finished the book and I still can't get it out of my mind. Although set in the Civil War, the plot is really timeless. I thoroughly recommend this book to readers who aren't just interested in an immediate impact, but enjoy stories that leave a lasting impression and require some thought.

Rating:
Summary: Overwritten, pretentious, ponderous
Review: This much-acclaimed first novel but Charles Frazier follows two plot threads. In the one, Civil War Confederate soldier Inman (we never learn his first name) deserts his hospital bed while recovering from yet another wound, and begins the long trek back to Cold Mountain, where his lady love awaits him. The other thread involves the aforementioned lady love, Ada, who has a farm she doesn't know how to care for. She acquires an assistant, a young homeless woman named Ruby who's been wandering the hills, but knows more about farming. Together they work the farm, waiting for Inman.

Sounds like a promising premise for a novel, doesn't it? I'm a Civil War buff who enjoys historical novels, and serious fiction (though not much of the modern stuff, to be honest) and so I thought that it would be a perfect fit for me. I have even been told how good it was by people I've met at parties and so forth. So I had to read it. And boy was I disappointed.

For one thing, Frazier has decided to write the novel in a strange fashion, apparently attempting to create atmosphere. This has led to several strange choices: an overbearing, leaden tone to the prose, and the omission of quotation marks in the text. The latter leads to passages like the following:

The light soon fell too grey to read. A pair of bobwhites called their identical three-word messages back and forth from the field to the woods. Ruby rose and said, I better get on.

The last four words of that paragraph are spoken. What's the point to deleting the quotation marks and separating them from the rest of the text? It looks to me like the author is attempting to show how literary he is or something. If a paragraph begins with dialog, he starts it with a dash, but otherwise, you have to pay very careful attention. There's a passage later in the book (too long to reproduce here) where you're not sure where Inman stops speaking and the narrator starts, though Inman is I in one part of the paragraph and he in another.

Then there's the issue of "authenticity." Frazier clearly knows something about the Civil War, and he's done some research which has led him to make some interesting choices in the novel: the way characters speak, the things they carry, the opinions they express. One very interesting thing (which the author only touches on briefly a couple of times) is that Inman doesn't idolize Lee, and admires Longstreet more. That's not something you would get from most history books (though it's entirely possible, especially for a soldier not from Virginia) and it's refreshing a bit.

On the other hand, there's the issue of the guns. In the first passage of the book where we actually see the name of a firearm, it's a Whitworth sniper rifle. It turns out that the gun is (apparently) owned by a Home Guard soldier who winds up chasing Inman. Whitworths were extremely rare, delicate, expensive weapons, and the idea of one in the hands of a Home Guard part-time soldier is something of a stretch of imagination for someone who knows something about the Civil War. For one thing, the ammunition would be hard to obtain (you couldn't make your own, as you could with many other weapons of the era) and for another it would be very difficult to care for, and you certainly wouldn't lean it against a wall outside a store (where we see it first) so that someone could fiddle with it or steal it. Later, we learn that Inman himself has a LeMat, an exotic pistol known as the "grapeshot gun" because of its shotgun barrel mounted below the regular pistol barrel. The author knows enough to make Inman's one of the better ones made in Britain, and though they were rare, it's not that much of a stretch. But later, when we meet the villain, the leader of the Home Guard, he has a Spencer repeating rifle. By now I've lost all hope of this being realistic, and the Spencer finished things off for me. Again, ammunition would have been an issue (the Spencer fires copper cartridges, which the South couldn't manufacture) and those that were captured were put in the hands of sharpshooters with carefully hoarded ammunition.

The novel does have a weary, careworn air about it that suggests that the characters have been through three years of war, and that's at least authentic. As I've shown, some of the details are suspect, though, so it's safe to say this: the more one knows about the Civil War in particular, the less authentic this novel will seem.

The novel has many pretentions though, attempting to be very literary and sophisticated. I believe it mostly fails, but others here think it succeeded. The parallels to Homer are obvious, and if you don't get them yourself, the author helpfully has Ada read the Oddyssey to Ruby early in the book, to make sure you get the reference yourself. Might as well have hit me over the head with Homer himself.

I don't like writing that's self-conciously sophisticated. I've read Conrad, Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Jane Austen, Chaim Potok, Patrick O'Brian. I'm not a fan of modern literature, and since I suppose this book is aspiring to fit into that category, along with Updike and Vonnegut and so forth. I wish the author luck, but I'm not going to read anything else by the man. This was a big disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the time
Review: There is much that one could say about Cold Mountain. As a winner of the National Book Award, it certainly has something praiseworthy in it's prose. Individually, the chapters are written in a lyrical way, with stunning detail that evokes the intentionally grim mood of the book.

Of the plot, there is precious little to say, for there is precious little plot at all. Inman is on a journey home, on foot, after desserting the army during the Civil War. On the way, he encounters endless trials to the point of ridiculousness. While this is clearly an attempted to homage to The Odyssey, it doesn't come off well in this book, and simply makes Cold Mountain look worse for the comparison. Ada, Inman's sweetheart prior to the war and ultimate goal of his journey, has inherited a non-working farm from her recently deceased father. Now she struggles, ala Sally Field in Places in the Heart. Ada's story is considerably more interesting than Inman's and provides the only attempt at plot that will draw the reader in at all.

The form and pacing of Cold Mountain may be of interest to some readers. The book starts off painfully slow, actually picks up speed in the middle, and then comes to an abrupt end. While I don't typically like to give readers the ending, I will here (for those who care to read it). Near the end, Inman suddenly is home and finds Ada. They spend one passionate, snowed-in night together, and then Inman gets himself killed by soldiers looking for desserters. This ending is typical of so many modern authors who use literary devices not to effect, but because they can. In this story, it serves no purpose but to make the reader feels as if the author is saying to them "so there, hah!", like a small child.

While Cold Mountain certainly has some well written and lovely prose, it is overall not worth the time. If a reader is interested in a journey, then get the real Odyessy, and skip this sad imitation. If you do decide to give Cold Mountain a shot, be forewarned that you will have to give it at least 100 pages before you can begin to feel invested in this book (and one really isn't sure if you are invested in the story, or the 100 pages that you have already read) and it will not end happily.