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Summary: This is the best fiction on the civil war .
Review: COLD MOUNTAIN is a tremendous novel.It closely resembles the plight of my great grandfather after being confined in a confederate prison in Texas and traveling home to upstate New York.This is a must read for my students.Herb Swingle history teacher.
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Summary: King Of The Mountain
Review: The convergence of two journeys rushes together, like two rivers, boiling in passion and conflict. Inman and Ada's odyssey joins other American classics and it will thrive while most best sellers are mulched and recycled. While much of the prose is alive and colorful, there are too many sentences beginning with Inman this or Ada that. It lulls the reader into a monotonous daze. Next novel, please mix it up. One wouldn't want to miss a turn on Cold Mountain. Great Job!!!
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Summary: Beautifully written, but....
Review: I have to admit, giving this book a 5 is tough, because I can't deny the power of Frazier's prose. He's a truly gifted writer. But despite his skill, I just don't feel like I know or can sympathize with Inman and Ada (especially Inman). The recreation of the place and period was superb, and the descriptions at times overwhelmingly good, but in the end I felt it was much less than the sum of those parts. As a comparison, I felt genuinely attached to the main characters of Snow Falling on Cedars (a similarly acclaimed and successful, and beautifully written, novel), cared about the decisions they made, whether they lived or died, etc. Not sure why that didn't happen here, but it definitely didn't.
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Summary: "well written" but...
Review: I felt the author had worked hard on this book. I was aware as I read of his research and the care taken to use period language, simile, detail. The alternating chapters and regular insertion of asides (flashbacks, stories from other characters) made for an interesting structure. But that was the trouble, I was too much aware of the author's presence and I couldn't quite ignore him as a contemporary nor accept him as historical. The use of third person was necessary to the story, but Frazier isn't Twain writing in the nineteenth century. For example, the narrative use of the word "whore" struck me. It is a prejudicial term and I am uncertain of the narrator's position within the story. This black woman at the inn was, like the girl at the bridge, the minister, etc. too flat and ambiguous. They were not there, they felt like constructions. I heard a twentieth century writer creating an historical voice rather than having a sense of a genuine nineteenth century voice. There were the errors. Someone mentioned the apples, but I got stuck on Ada milking a cow. She is too inexperienced and lethargic after her father's death to make biscuits, scatter grain for the hens, or figure out how to weed the garden, but she's milking a cow twice a day?! Has Frazier never milked a cow? It is skilled labor and hard, hard work! I kept waiting for Ruby to chew her out for letting the cow go dry. For all his "shatted" rears and livid descriptions I never sensed there was an actual cow in the scenes with cows, real people, real gardens, battles. Nearly every chapter had things like this--events which sounded nice on the page and wouldn't fly in real life. I felt the story was constructed rather than fully realized. He told a good story but he was so busy constructing the scenes, I couldn't forget I was reading fiction. Great novels pour an entire world into the reader's head so that the author becomes invisible. While most of Cold Mountain was pretty to read, it isn't happening anywhere. However much the language, pacing, story line are handsome, the writer keeps standing between me and the view.
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Summary: Still can't decide!
Review: I finished this book about a week ago, only because I was reading it with a book club and felt I should finish it. Otherwise, I would have stopped around page 50, after becoming totally swamped by the author's incredibly detailed descriptions of everything from Civil War battles to the dirt under the main character's feet. Although I didn't exactly hate this book, it wasn't one of my favorites. There's no real pushing plot line, and I didn't find the characters very sympathetic. They are average people trying to survive the ravages of the Civil War, and their everyday struggles are the book's main plot. I got a sort of "Canterbury Tales" feeling from the supporting characters that Inman meets along his journey home from the war; they each have their own stories to tell, however sterotypical or cliche they might seem. My favorite of these was the Goat Woman with her quirky living habits and Earth Motherly advice to Inman. My least favorite was the minister-gone-awry that Inman travels with for a time; he should have killed him the first time he had a chance, as he is one of the most foolishly loathesome character I think I've ever encountered. This was not a bad first effort by Frazier, and I am still amazed at the work and research he obviously put into this book. I think at times he went too far with his descriptions, using metaphors that lost me in their antiquity. I hated the ending, mostly because I saw it coming for about 100 pages. But if you're an American history buff, this is certainly something you will enjoy, if for no other reason than for the common peoples' perspective of the Civil War that it provides. I'm still trying to decide whether I liked the book, although I'm not sorry that I stuck with it and read it all the way through.
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Summary: A very important book.
Review: Beautiful use of language. Gripping story. I was sorry to see it end. I kept rereading passages just because of the beautiful sounds.
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Summary: Excellant
Review: Yes, yes, yes, it is a wonderful and beautiful book. I only wish that I could thank him personally for such a wonderful novel. Ed
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Summary: ....Been Coming....on a Hard Road...
Review: Recently, I finished Cold Mountain and began to understand why this book resonates with so many readers. If asked to capture the essence of this book in one sentence from the text, I would choose Inman's introspection as he awoke from his dream of Ada: "I've been coming to you on a hard road and I'm not letting you go." Considered in its context, I believe many individuals who have pondered the meaning of life can sense their hopes, aspirations, achievements, disappointments, and sufferings captured succinctly in this brief sentence. In my view, Charles Frazier has created a masterpiece of mystical thought, rich descriptions of nature, human striving, adventure, violence, romance, and philosophical ideas. I rank the emotional impacts of Cold Mountain on a par with Viktor Frankl's, "Man's Search for Meaning," and the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes. Frazier has a rare gift of expression -- honed by much hard work in his research of so many aspects of the Blue Ridge mountain people and their past -- and his methodical writing and editing. We should cherish his presence in our time, his gift of Cold Mountain to American literature, and to all of us.
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Summary: This book is on Elisabeth Sherwin's List of Best Books
Review: From Elisabeth Sherwin's Printed Matter on the Web site: "What a fabulous novel. Frazier caught the cadence of speech, the mood, the technology of the Civil War era. He adds to that a love story, which plays a secondary role, and a cast of rough characters inhabiting the hills of North Carolina. Brilliantly done."
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Summary: What other books about this time and place?
Review: Having read "Killer Angels" and "Gods and Generals", I was interested to read about the Civil War from another viewpoint. Not knowing enough about the history of this area, I found myself wondering whether this book was accurate. By the way, a note to all authors --DO NOT USE A specific plant name if you have not researched whether or not it existed at that time and place. Golden Delicious apples (page 47) were named in the West Virginia area in the 1880's. It would be difficult to have an old tree with that name in the 1860's.
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