Rating: 
Summary: My Wife's Gift I had to read!
Review: When my wife gave me the book for Christmas I was thrilled. I had heard so much about it - and #1! But I just finished it - plodded through it - and I thanked her for it but I will donate it to the public library. Maybe someone else will enjoy it. It was depressing and didn't really follow a plot line that I could discover. The words that were written came together nicely at places, but the whole was not complete. Nice descriptions of the mountains in winter. The book was COLD!
Rating: 
Summary: I loved the ending.
Review: As soon as the "bear" incident occurred, I could see what was going to happen - the bear was Inman's "totem" & when uncontrollable incidents conspired & ended with the death of the bears - well. I was thrilled at Inman's redemption, though, & what better thing could a woman say of a man "she doesn't need" - "I think I want him though". I really liked this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful
Review: I grew up in the area where this story takes place and can see in my mind the endless rows of blue tinted mountains. I took my time with this book because the words were so beautifully strung together and sometimes it would read like prose. Why the story had to end like it did is beyond me and I'll not spoil it for any of you who haven't read it yet. Teague and his band are certainly to be avoided and I tried not to read ahead to see when they be cropping up again.
Rating:
Summary: A great, surprising, refreshing, and poignant novel
Review: The story of Inman, a deserting confederate soldier and Ada, his left-at-home girl friend is beautifully told through this fast paced, somewhat complex novel. The author uses historical factual evidence about the lives of people in the south towards the end of the civil war to give an exciting, moving, informative, and heart-tugging perspective of life in 1864. A novel with such a tremendous setting and unique construction could fall prey to a lazy cookie cutter plot format, but Frazier winds personal reflection of the characters with unique plot twists to keep the reader enthralled with every chapter. Read the book when you have some time to spend, it is truly a hard novel to put down!
Rating:
Summary: Cold Mountain: A Peak Experience
Review: Cold Mountain is a wonderfully engaging and moving novel. Although it is demanding of the reader's skill, it fully rewards his efforts. Charles Frazier focuses our senses on the details of life and renders them to great and subtle effect. He shows us the healing power of love, the consolations engrained in our earthly lives, and the spirit's resilience in the face of incomprehensible change and loss. There is a joyful sadness in Frazier's portrayal of the young widow's ragged song and the yearning dissonance of Stobrod's fiddle. It reflects our ability to find a new beginning in what seems like the end and to redeem our lives with an open hand and a caring heart. There is so much to recommend in this debut novel that I hesitate to offer any reservations. The only one I have is that occasionally Frazier imposes too many details upon our senses. When he insists that we see the world precisely as he does, he hinders the flowering of our reading imagination. However, when he refrains from such insistence, his mastery of tone, scene, and character invoke our own creative skills so fully that to partake of Frazier's world is a peak experience. Rarely have I enjoyed a book so much, and I eagerly anticipate Charles Frazier's next creation.
Rating:
Summary: A haunting and beautiful story of hope and growth
Review: I think some of the dustjacket blurbs and reviews have mislead people. I would not call this a "civil war" novel. Some compare it to the Odyssey. I agree and also suggest a comparison to the quintessential American novel, Huckleberry Finn. Mr Frazier has done for the landscape of the mountains what Twain did for the Mississippi River--he has made it come alive as both a natural and human landscape. But Inman's spirit has been much more scarred than Huck's. And Frazier does not allow us to be distracted from human folly with humor as easily as Twain does. But the hope and redemption Inman finds on his journey is much harder earned than Huck's. The Ada and Ruby story show us women encountering an internal journey to match Frazier's. These are characters with depth and great sympathy. This is NOT a "page-turner" in the usual best seller sense. But it keeps one awake at nights pondering its observations on the fragility and resilience of the human spirit. Give this a try!
Rating:
Summary: I want to thank the author for his brilliant interpretation
Review: I was glad to see the volume of response. This book is, on one reading, a classic old friend. I will re-read many times, and I seldom do that. On the theory that nothing is perfect, I rated it at 9, but it is easily one of the half dozen best books I have read, and I have read constantly since the age of four.
Rating:
Summary: I grew up with Rockbridge County VA family war stories
Review: I came lately to Cold Mountain, because I am writing another War between the States novel based on other Virginia family stories. I deliberately avoided it, till I completed my own first draft of my own book and read it to the Oregon writers workshop this fall, here in Oregon.Several members of the conference again, recommended that I read Cold Mountain. The consensus of the group, was my novel was more a young girls coming of age story, during the long hot summer of 1941, with an even scarier, larger global war looming. Her Pathe Newsreen fueled fears were remarkably mentored by a 90 year old neighbor woman who survived her girlhood war. My protagonist was Born 1850, 11 years old in 1861. the child she mentored was born 1930, by coincidence also 11 years old the summer before Pearl Harbour. The old woman is an amalgam of several people I knew as a girl and young woman. I did not read Cold Mountain till last week, as I did not want to be influenced by an author covering the same Blue Ridge mountain region place and time. I have only the higest praise for Charles Frazier's ear for the slow paced, archaic speech of the region. Ive known mountain people exactly like them. Outsiders, who are not familiar with southern family tale telling, undoubtedly will find the archaic language and pace less than 20th century jet propelled. But its accurate. so take your time, pour yourself a large hot toddy of good Kentuckey bourban--and settle in for a long, liesurely wintertime literary stroll. Its worth slowing down once in a while--to hear the rain, and obvserve the wet, chill and muddy wartorn world that todays couch potatoed world rarely sees on the videot screen in front of them. I was particularly moved by the abandoned chesnut log village. Read Sandoz classic Trail of Tears regarding the brutal removal of respected Cherokee neighbors. the characters seem slow to many reviewers, but in my opinion, those kinfolk and neighbors of my girlhood did tale tell and stroll along at just that pace.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've read in quite a while.
Review: If you like a fast, action-packed thriller, this probably isn't the book for you. But, if you enjoy a slow moving, historical fiction, filled with beautiful imagery, enchanting, seemingly historical colloquialisms and great natural details, then you've definately got a winner here. While I'm sure many people may be dissapointed with the ending, it's outcome seems to reflect a more realistic tone than the rest of the book and must be taken with the whole. I found myself not wanting to get through the book too fast because it was such a pleasant little diversion I wanted it to last as long as possible.
Rating:
Summary: A waste of valuable paper
Review: "Cold Mountain" began slow and didn't get any better. Though I enjoyed the section describing the Goat Woman, I would have to say this is the only section worth reading. I also the ending is ambiguous. It appears the author simply got tired of writing and just ended his story with no focus.
|
