Rating: 
Summary: Cold Feelings from the Mountain
Review: I was a little disapointed in this National Book Award winner. Overall the story was simple, but interesting. I was extremely put off by the grisly images of slaughter that seemed to occur every ten pages (or less). I think that Frazier could have accomplished his novel without having to go into such gory details of how a goat, pig, chicken, turkey, bear, bull, and person are killed. I know that this time period calls for this sort of relevance, but it really detracted from the novel. I found myself feeling ill and skipping whole pages to avoid having to read about "festering entrails."
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Not once could I picture the hero and heroine as having been residents of the Western Carolinas in the 1860s. Their sensibilities were mired too firmly in the late 20th century. While this which probably explains the great commercial appeal of this historical trifle, it is not what I expected from a highly rated historical novel. The hero is supposed to be a native of the area. Well, he must sprung full grown out of someone's cabbage patch, for not once in his extensive recollections while trekking back to his true love did he recall a mother, a father, siblings, aunt, uncles, cousins, his early childhood education, etc. How he came both to his letters and to a value system oddly similar to contemporary New Age spiritual claptrap remains a mystery to this reader. As for the heroine, she came across more as a neurotic yuppie commitment-phobe than the daughter of an affluent widowed preacher of the American Transcendentalist school. The descriptions of flora and fauna do shine, and some of the other characters are quite vivid, but from all the hype, I was hoping for a far better book
Rating: 
Summary: Best Read in Last 10 years
Review: An incredibly well researched odyssey of a late civil war wounded confederate soldier leaving the hospital and the war behind and walking across the Appalachians to home in Cold Mountain at the far western tip of North Carolina.
The language and terminology immerse the reader as if doing time travel... The descriptions of the world are beyond poetry even... The story is really about a young couple, the girl at home and her travails, and the ravaged veteran of too many bloodfights struggling to avoid capture and to survive in a collapsing Confederacy. We learn a lot about what went into Ada the female protagonist and how she develops and about her nature-girl friend, Ruby, and who she is, but the male protagonist, Inman, just is what he is without heroics nor pretention but with gradually emerging depth of character as he encounters real characters more frightening than those with which Ulysses was faced.
Inman, IMHO, is the ultimate Taoist... knowing much, saying little, doing what needs to be done and not apologising...
This book won the National Book Award and was deservedly on the NY Times best seller list for 45 weeks running when it was first published.
I personally rate it as the best book I have read in at least ten years and I read two or three books a week.
Rating:
Summary: Look at the old reviews first
Review: There are over 1200 reviews for this book already. I'm sure many of us read this book because of the upcoming movie starring Judd Law and Nicole Kidman. (I did). The average review for this book is only 3.5 stars. But if you look at the old reviews first you'll see that back in '97 when nobody knew about the film version most people were giving it 5 stars. I must admit this book started slow for me. I don't read a whole lot of fiction and when I do it's mostly John Grisham type stuff. But I spotted this film on a movie web site and it looked interesting so I thought I'd give it a try. This book was excellent. Like other reviewers have mentioned, the scenery is very rich and detailed. And the book really does flow like a poem. Which makes sense because one of Frazier's inspirations was The Odyssey. I'm not one for long reviews so I'll just say this. If you're at all interested in a this fine novel, read it. Or... go see the movie on XMAS. The buzz is that it's an Oscar contender :-)
Rating:
Summary: Just Read It
Review: Foremost, this book left me all the more resolved to experience life -- to take advantage of the oportunities to really live as they appear. It made me wish that Mr Frazier had already authored a body of similar work I could dip into and draw more from. This is a book about living in our world of connection to those things around us. The author excels at the parsimonious use of language to engage all senses and so bring the tale into the reader's reality. His descriptive language of scent and aroma in particular evoked memory in alternately vivid and shocking fashion. What a gift and skill! Read the book, and read it all.
Rating: 
Summary: A great read!!
Review: Even though it's about the civil war, it's not a bore. Frazier sucks you into the world of Inman, a Union soldier, and Ada, a girl trying to get by after her father dies. The book is about Inman's long, hard journey to and over Cold Mountain, where he lived before his world was changed forever. After deciding fighting in the war isn't worth it and leaving the hospital ward, he plans to go back to Ada, whom he had loved five years before. He can only hope that she feels the same way. The book switches back and forth from Inman to Ada, living on her father's farm. This book is very well written and thought out. The characters' emotions are your own, and you are living the story with them. The subject is complex, dark, and gloomy, but I couldn't stop reading. If you want a happy book with a predictable ending, don't bother even reading page one. Frazier's novel is about the pains of war, hardship, and despair. The end is definitely the best part, since it is the result of what the characters have been working hard for since the beginning of the story. A little slow at the start, but don't give up reading. The movie of this book comes out in December with Jude Law playing Inman. Personally, there's no way the movie could top the book, or even come close. "Cold Mountain" is the best book I have ever read. If you have some time, want to take on a challenge, and want something new, this book is for you. Frazier has a great talent for writing. (You can read this review and say that the book's all mushy, but until you read it, you won't know about the action or how gory it is.)
Rating:
Summary: Deeply rewarding
Review: Gorgeously written and evocative of a bygone time and place...Charles Frazier's novel of a Confederate soldier returning home to the woman he loves is filled with rich period detail and an attention to the subtle nuances of everyday human experience. Although anecdotal in its narrative structure, the sum of each part adds up to a satisfying - and quite surprising - whole. The book requires patience and, as several readers here have remarked, is best read in one or two chapter sittings. This is certainly one of the best American novels of the past ten years. Anthony Minghella's got a terrific cast and crew behind the upcoming and eagerly anticipated film version. I'll be first in line at the box office.
Rating:
Summary: Hmmm
Review: I think I was almost as glad as Inman when he finally reached the end of his journey. Especially after he shot the bear cub (motivation?). While the writing is beautiful, there is a lot of static description, so that one gets a clearer image of the landscape than of Inman himself. His relationship with Ada appears tepid and comes across as a device/excuse for Inman's odyssey; the author seems more concerned with describing the picturesque characters Inman encounters along the way. The references to the Civil War, however, are stirring in their apparent realism. As with "Doctor Zivago" and "The English Patient," perhaps the screen version will extrapolate more of a plot than was found in the novel? -- Sophie Simonet, ACT OF LOVE, romantic suspense novel (www.fictionwise.com)
Rating:
Summary: A masterful piece of work.......but for serious readers only
Review: Charles Frazier's National Book Award winning first novel "Cold Mountain" isn't an easy read. It is definitely not for the fainthearted or the casual reader expecting simply a good plot and a decent storyline. You'll have to enjoy literature (written large) to appreciate the wordy but intricately spun prose that flows from the Frazier's pen because nothing very much happens between the novel's first and last pages. Disillusioned and wounded Confederate soldier Inman escapes from the hospital he is interned in and heads for Cold Mountain to reunite with his beloved Ada and that just about sums up the plot. On route to his final destination, Inman encounters a motley crew of personalities including a disgraced preacher, a young war widow and a goatswoman and narrowly escapes death at the bloody hands of Confederates who take the law into their own hands to bring their defectors to justice. As Inman battles the elements, he endures terrible physical deprivation as well as a desperate longing for his beloved. Meanwhile, Ada, brought up as a lady by her recently deceased missionary father finds herself totally at odds with the prospect of having to run a farm by herself. She is saved from this predicament by the sudden appearance of a brusque but practical girl Ruby, who has known nothing but hardship and survival since childhood and between the two of them, they make steady progress turning the farm around. In telling his tale, Frazier dispenses largely with dialogue, choosing to paint his landscape of a new country torn by a war nobody fighting it truly understands with long passages of descriptive prose that is dense and difficult yet eloquent for the sentiments they express. You don't have to be well versed with American Civil War history to understand the references. In fact, Frazier isn't as much interested in the facts of the war as in evoking the feeling of befuddlement that must strike those caught in it. There is no attempt to demonise either side of the North South divide. Evil is evil and its perpetrators are in both Confederate and Federalist camps. But so is goodness and there are little episodes in there that must bring a lump to your throat. There is also something allegorical and beautiful about the story of a fiddler with a tune that is his and isn't his but all of America's. Just like America's multiple perspective of the war. "Cold Mountain" may be slow but it is filmable. Let's see whether Anthony Mingella does justice to it. Hopefully, he doesn't commercialise and over dramatise the love story which is a low key but poignant and bitter sweet affair. "Cold Mountain" is Frazier's stunning debut. It is a masterful piece of work even if it won't be everybody's cup of tea.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've ever read
Review: Firstly, I must say this isn't a book for everybody. It especially isn't for young people who cannot concentrate long enough nor do not have an interest in the civil war era. However, if you are looking for a novel that will require your full undivided attention, this is it. In other words, this is the one for very mature adults. The novel works because of its lush, evocative language. Frazier definitely understood the era he was writing about and he understood the period and the land of the time. This comes across perfectly in the way he wrote this novel. So what results is that it's not purely descriptive. It's a novel about the Civil war era, written in the style of that era. A rare achievement. The main character's perilous journey is one where you cannot help but feel involved in somehow. You will find yourself almost willing him on all the way through the novel. The fact that you know what is happening at home further encourages this. Finally, the ending made me cry. It didn't make cry straight away, it made cry after I thought about it days and days later. If you're looking for a novel that will make you cry many days later and in your memory for a long time, this one is it. Finally, I must reiterate, this isn't for younger readers who wants a story told quickly and efficiently. It's strictly for the mature-minded reader who has the patience and who wants to regain that "old consciousness" that we rarely find these days in novels.
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