Rating: 
Summary: Sometimes spectacularly vivid, other times overdone
Review: A story about Inman, a southern soldier in the American civil war walking home across the southeast towards Ada, his love, among the dangers of war and desertion. The book is rife with description of the nineteenth century American landscape, sometimes spectacularly vivid and other times overdone. Using only sparse dialogue, Frazier creatures a beautiful love story of two individuals looking for survival and love amidst the turmoil of war.
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Summary: Do Yourself A Favor
Review: Do yourself a favor and read this book twice. The first two chapters may seem a bit boring and muddled the first time you read them, but when I reread them, they became two of my favorite chapters. The change in Ada and Inman is so gradual, that it's strange to examine their points of view at the beginning of the novel. Not to mention the exquisite foreshadowing in "shadow of a crow."I read this book for my Freshman English class, and I had my doubts when I first read this book. It was boring, and I had trouble getting into the language. Then came the fifth chapter, and I started tearing through it. I read through the book every week while we studied it, and I picked up new things every time. Inman's introspection is grating at first, but as he travels on his odyssey, his ideas become more and more understandable, and you truly become fascinated by him. As soon as Ada learns to exhibit strength, her weaknesses become endearing rather than angering. As soon as you care about the characters, the language becomes beautiful. The overarching themes of the book (cycles, love, healing) are universal, and not even the overanalyzing of a Freshman Honors class can make them seem any less poignant. So do yourself a favor. Push through the first four chapters, and then once you finish, read them again. You'd be amazed what a little perspective does. And what's the problem with the ending? It gives you satisfaction without copping out. It's tragic and uplifting at the same time. In a word, wonderful.
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Summary: Revisited
Review: I see there are 1370 other reviews. I'n not sure I can add anything new, except to say I just finished rereading the book after seeing the movie. And Yes, Nicole Kidman was too perfectly beautiful to be believable in that place and those times. I had first read "Cold Mountain" when it initially came out, and in reading my review I saw that I had thought the characters rather shallow, and the Frazier was more concerned with the details of everyday life at that time than he was in creating life-like people. In that opinion, I have changed my mind. Someone once said "Life is in the details" and Frazier knew it. However, in another, I have not. I thought then, and I think now, that the ending was a cheap shot. As if the author didn't know where to go or what to do. But it was truly a beautifully written novel, and many passages are memorable. In the first read, I complained that Inman's story was nothing more than a road trip. I have since been on such a journey myself, and can now appreciate such a trip more. It is composed of the people you meet, as was Inman's. Homer was the first to recognize that.
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Summary: The ending is very confusing!
Review: This is a SPOILER. Did Inman die or live? The first sentence on page 354 of the hardcover edition implies that he lived. It says "Epilogue. October of 1874. Even after all this time and three children together, Ada still found them clasping each other at the oddest moments". But on the next page (255) "Ada...spread a cloth and rowed eight plates nearly lip to lip on the small table". Let's count up these eight people, all mentioned in the text on pages 354 through 356. There is Ada (1), Ruby (2) and her husband Reid (3), and their three young boys (4)(5)(6), Stobrod (7), and the "tall slender girl of nine" (8). The tall slender girl calls Ada "Mama" on page 356. So where is Inman and two more of Ada and Inman's children? Did he die? Or is he off with two of their children on this very special family day? Or didn't these three people get a plate?
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Summary: Better than the movie
Review: Although I saw the movie, i felt that the book was far more detailed into the lives of Inman and Ada. The book is more complex dealing with emotions and struggling though war times. I have to admit the movie was good but it felt too hollywood with the visual effects of the battle scences. The first half of the book was new to me and it wasn't shown in the movie.
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Summary: Oh, my . . . I can't believe I read the whole thing!!!
Review: I happen to live about 40 miles from the actual "Cold Mountain" (on the Tennessee side of the NC/TN state line) very near the Pigeon River mentioned in the book. The descriptions of the flora and fauna, the terrain, climate, etc., was real and very well done. However, this book was the most slow and tedious, slow and tedious, slow and tedious, slow and tedious, slow and tedious, slow and tedious read imaginable. The writing style-no quote marks, no italics, no indication of rising excitement, etc., made this book flat, flat, flat. My husband (who, unlike me does not have dyslexia and can read very fast) also found it very taxing and tedious! There was a lot of useless verbiage to fill out the 360 pages of a 25 page story. Jeanne M. Daniels, Hartford, Tennessee
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Summary: Hopes of Returning to Cold Mountain
Review: Leaving home, deserting love, searching for something beyond human control while fighting with the inevitability of war. These are the central ideas in Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain, a heart-wrenching tale of one man's struggle to find reason in his life, meaning in the after-life and hope of a re-united love and the end of the great Civil War. This gripping novel takes the reader in with every page as Inman goes on a journey through the depths of hell while fighting the war to the warmest of imaginations soaring on the remembrance of love.
Cold Mountain is set in North Carolina in the 1860's amidst the bloodiest war to have ever taken place on American soil, The Civil War. Through the imaginations of both Inman and Ada, the two protagonists, an unbreakable love is formed even though the war separates them. Inman in deserting the war effort, risks his life to be with the one he loves. Though the Civil War is filled with malice and hardships, their love for each other could never be broken.
The novel begins with Inman resting in a war hospital due to a neck wound he received in battle. After a few days of watching the patients around him, Inman decides to escape through the window, desert the war and risk his life to be with Ada. Ada is at home near Cold Mountain where she begins to think about her father Monroe and the feelings that were brought upon her through his death. That same day she is introduced to Ruby, a friend of her neighbor Sally Swanger, who offers to live with, confide in and help Ada on the condition that she is treated as equal. As the novel proceeds, the story switches back between the two plots highlighting Inman's troubles of traveling to Ada and her hardships as she waits for the coming of her lover. Although Inman is alone in his search for his love, he is not in total isolation throughout his journey. He meets and travels with companions as he searches for Ada. Through these encounters, the author is showing how Inman's solitude is not just a physical state but also a quest to find meaning in what seems to be a senseless existence, a spiritual afterlife. His journey becomes one not only to find Ada but also to find healing and communion in a higher being. These thoughts are articulated in this quote, "Cold Mountain . . . soared in his mind as a place where all his scattered forces might gather. Inman did not consider himself to be a superstitious person, but he did believe that there is a world invisible to us. He no longer thought of that world as heaven, nor did he still think that we get to go there when we die. Those teachings had been burned away. But he could not abide by a universe composed only of what he could see, especially when it was so frequently foul"(17). Near the middle of the novel, Inman comes close to death, nearly escaping the Home Guard troops executing the deserters they have found. Inman is shot in the side of the head but lives to continue his long and arduous task of finding home and Ada. The following quote exemplifies the amount of death that occurred during the war. During this time, Inman has an unbelievable yearning to make it home and try and live a normal life. "He had grown so used to seeing death . . . that it seemed no longer dark and mysterious. He feared his heart had been touched by the fire so often he might never make a civilian again"(173). So Inman trudges on hanging on to old memories and hopeless dreams, while Ada and Ruby are back at home trying to live their lives as best they can while thwarting off the dangers on the home front. Inman, again, narrowly escapes being murdered by Federals as he pushes on without hope. Having denounced the words of preachers and their false hopes of salvation, Inman loses faith. The next day Inman follows to where he heard a gunshot and finally reaches what his heart has been searching for, his true love and salvation, Ada. The reader is left thinking this is the happy ending of the story while being surprised by the ending nobody could have predicted.
Charles Frazier successfully captivates the gruesomeness of war and the hope of finding love even through despair. Both Ada and Inman face death to be with each other, even though there time together is not as long as they had hoped for. The reoccurring theme of giving your all for the hope of love is very evident in the novel. Through all of the bloodshed, Inman has love and his imagination of being with Ada again to keep him moving even when there seems to be no hope at all. The author stresses that in a time where it looks like there is nothing in the world that one could hold onto for hope, it is better to have loved than to have never loved at all. For then one can hold on to the precious memories and strive to achieve them again. The imagery in Cold Mountain of the beautiful countryside surrounding Cold Mountain is contrasted with the blood and gore of the war, showcasing the themes. These literary elements are used to captivate the audience and enhance the tragic Civil War love story.
Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain is a love story separated by one of the low points of Americans, The Civil War. Like Americans had to fight within our country and among ourselves, Inman had to fight obstacles and battles within himself to get what he never wanted to leave. Ada is his true love and he is willing to give his life for her, but not until he escapes the horrors of the war and can be with her one last time.
Rating:
Summary: Mixed rating.....
Review: I give the book as a whole 5 stars...however, for once, the publishing company should have gone with a professional reader..The authors reading of this book is dry and monotone..Almost boring you to tears if you were just not so interested in the book...recommend you to READ the book and skip the audio version.
Rating:
Summary: So many
Review: So many books start out great and then sag, or worst yet, fall flat on their faces at the end. Not so with COLD MOUNTAIN. Charles Frazier has created a wonderful, colorful, and brilliant look at a bygone era. Nothing against GONE WITH THE WIND, but this book is by far more entertaining and intelligent. The movie isn't half bad either! Also recommended: McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD
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Summary: A discovered treasure
Review: With all that I knew of this book being a civil war background and a story of true love seperated by time and distance I expected a trashy romance novel, something to breeze through and then forget. Oh how wrong I was.
You must understand, if nothing else, that this book is not just about love, or hate, or even the discovery of self in the face of adversity. It is about life, in all its aspects. There is something about it that snags the attention, reeling you in further with each passing page.
The writing as a whole is amazing in the way that Frazier does not rely on big words and complex terminology to make the book seem intelligent. There are, indeed, words that I did not know, and more of them than in most books, but they are not the be all and end all of his writing style. What Frazier manages to do is to take the words we use everyday, the mundane and ordinary dredges of language, and combine them so that they sound in the ear in a fashion different from any ever read before. The cast of the book is simple, without the overdone complexities evident in some novels, but each character shows something different, yet altogether familiar. It is that sense of familiarity, that sense of belonging in that place and time, that really is the essence of the book. This is not something you read with a detached textbook view; this is a book you live.
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