Cold Mountain

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Summary: Cold Mountain is a brutal distillation of truth.
Review: Cold Mountain is a brutal distillation of truth surrounded by human frailty and courage. Inman is an everyman who rejects the killing and realizes that the only truth is one free from politics, nationalism and polemnic coercion. After 40 years of novel reading, this emerges as one of the best. This book has a Dickensian quality and flavor.

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Summary: What a read! What a walk!
Review: "Cold Mountain" is a wonderful story, wonderfully told. Ada's developing strength and Ruby's pragmatism are a perfect counter to Inman as he trudges through the mountains toward home. Goatwoman is full of wisdom and even Stobrod redeems himself. Frazier's language and descriptons are exquisite. Loved the ending and it was far from what I'd anticipated.

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Summary: A story of desolation and redemption.
Review: Charles Frazier's wonderful first novel is the story of a soldier's recovery from the devastation of war. In a parallel story, his beloved grows from sheltered innocence to independence. Along the way, the reader is treated to the natural beauty of the landscape, a picture of life on the home front, and a variety of well-drawn characters. A beautifully written, powerful tale. The best new fiction I can remember.

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Summary: interesing and well written but somewhat tedious
Review: i think i expected more-although the background research is expansive and impressive , the storyline dragged and i wanted to see inman and ada end up together. on the other hand , it was very true to life as things don't always have a happy ever after ending, and the epilogue reflected on the fact that life does go on. some of the diction at times appeared pretentious but that was the language of the day and frazier was right on for the 1860's i feel that sooo much work went into this book that it deserves a higher rating than the 7 i gave it, but i just didn't get the same high that so many others seem to have gotten. one thig for sure , it certainly made me think of the effect of war on the everyday people--what a waste of so many lives as is the case in any war--and not just the battlefield wars--so many lives are impacted even tho they may be far removed from the front.

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Summary: Storyteller in spades.
Review: I am amazed at some of the panning this book has received. With out a doubt this book ranks way up there with the likes of - well, name them all. Mr Frazier shares with us not only vivid snapshots of his 200 year old mountain legacy, he also paints word scapes. Each character is a microcosm of us all. This is the real deal. I havn't read anything as indelible for many years.

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Summary: COLD MOUNTAIN is a fresh view of the Civil War in the South
Review: There is no glory for the South in this love and Civil War story by Charles Frazier. In speaking at a recent book reading, Mr. Frazier said he didn't want to write another Civil War story. He didn't. He has given us a tale of love left behind and a soldier returning home to that love. The love he left embodies both the fauna and flora of Cold Mountain and the girl named Ada. On his long walk home Inman experiences mans inhumanity to man as well as an occasional unexpected gesture of kindness. This is a well written tale of love and war that you will enjoy.

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Summary: A true literary masterpice. Great fiction is alive in 1997.
Review: This book does for me what only one other author did. William Faulkner could slowly draw you in, wring you out, and you felt good to be alive after you finished reading. Frazier's two characters will be an indelible part of my consciousness, just as I remember Quentin Compton, whom I still think of fondly 25 years after first reading The Sound and the Fury.

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Summary: Reached the warning track
Review: Frazier is of enviable talent. The grace in his storytelling (though a bit marbled) and the visual potency in his scenes are inspiring. The story grips you; it is worth wading through a bucket's worth of details and asides, which sometimes seemed more like attempts to classify his work as "literature." I wished there had been more emphasis given to progressing the story, and perhaps a little humor to add another human dimension. But a truly touching and often-engrossing book, nonetheless.

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Summary: Writes like an angel, plots like a hack
Review: Sadly, COLD MOUNTAIN didn't meet my expectations, which were raised high by the tremendous hype surrounding the book. Frazier is unquestionably a talented wordsmith, one of the best I've read in a long time. Still, the words hang like bright festive ornaments on what is ultimately a scrawny romance-novel tree beneath. It's a pretty book, but in the end is just fluff. I'll likely read Frazier's next, however. He'll only get better.

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Summary: A tasty read with a slightly bitter aftertaste
Review: I have only one real complaint about Charles Frazier's book, Cold Mountain. For me, the language of the book is the star. Frazier gives his characters and his narrator (what I assume to be) a lexicon authentic to mid-19th century, rural North Carolina. It was entertaining to read expressions that one would not hear today, and yet to find them not totally unfamiliar. The intertwined stories were interesting enough, with Inman's being a tale of determination in the face of danger and barely-averted disasters, and Ada's and Ruby's more a journal of self-reliance and self-discovery. The violence of Inman's journey is balanced by the slower paced struggle by the women against, ultimately, the same enemy. My complaint is only about the final pages of the book. The reader spends 350+ pages wondering if Inman and Ada will ever get together and, if so, will the evil of the times, personified in the cruel Home Guard, allow their reunion to be happy and long-lived. When the smoke from this inevitable confrontation clears, the outcome is uncertain and our questions unanswered. Thank goodness for the epilogue! Frazier takes us ten years into the future presumably to tie up the loose ends of his captivating tale. However, he is deliberately slightly vague about what has happened to Inman. The reader can piece together the obvious clues and decide whether all is well or not, but the fact that the Frazier is only slightly ambiguous (Inman's name is never used) is what is troublesome to me. It left an aftertaste of false "artsy-ness," as if to use this device would turn his novel into "literature." It was unnecessary and unsatisfying. All in all, though, the book is well worth the time invested by the reader. I look forward to Charles Frazier's next offering, as long as, in the meantime, he does not take up dressing in period garb and issue an album of himself playing fiddle ballads of the Civil War.