Cold Mountain

Rating:
Summary: loved it/hated it
Review: Cold Mtn was completely engrossing. I became so involved in the journey of the two main characters, and the descriptions of their daily life rituals, that i could not put the book down until I knew what the outcome was to be in the end. That is the "love" part.

But the ending was so horrifyingly disappointing. I was on a reading marathon, determined one night to finish the book. I was so upset at the ending I threw the book across the room in disgust. That is the "hate" part.

was it worth it? sure. Maybe others won't be as violently upset by the ending as i was. Go ahead: read it.

Rating:
Summary: Cold Mountain
Review: This book takes you through the full range of human emotions. It is without a doubt one of the best books I have ever read. The cruelty and violence that a turn of the page springs upon the reader is both brutal and numbing. It is also funny, romantic, and heartwrenching. It describes 1/2 of an 1864 America beaten back in a defeat as seen through the eyes of a wounded confederate infantryman (Inman) walking home to the one he loves (Ada) who lives on Cold Mountain. It describes whole Southern communities depopulated of male citizenry and utterly depleted of resources. The visual imagery is astounding. It describes communities where strong women (Ruby) step into the breach to provide for their families and communities. It exposes the horrors of slavery. Cold Mountain is all about the worst in us, and it is all about the best in us. It exposed me to an entirely different view of the civil war and America. It is a love story, but it is more. Much more.

Rating:
Summary: cold "MOUNTAIN"?
Review: Endless pages wasted on descriptions of flowers, trees, rivers, orchards, roads, sun rise, sun down, sun in the middle of the day... If this is Charles' style, I think it's a lousy one!

Rating:
Summary: Left cold
Review: It is hard for me to understand what people find so compelling about this overblown, overwritten, underedited book that rambles on and on endlessly and, for the most part, pointlessly. The characters do not change or grow in any significant way, we never get even the slightest insight into their thoughts or motivations and ultimately we are left with a good deal of sound and fury signifying nothing. How or why this won the National Book Award is beyond me. Compare this with the Booker Award winning novel Disgrace by J.M. Cotzee, a well crafted, compelling book. If this is the best of American writing, we are truly at a low point in terms of American literature.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written, asks you to take your time to enjoy
Review: Cold Mountain is a beautifully told story of two people during the civil war. Inman is a soldier who deserts the Confederate army when he is injured and stops believing in the war. He slowly walks back home to Cold Mountain, where he hopes to reunite with Ada, the woman he was just falling in love with when the war began. Meanwhile, Ada, is left alone on her estate when her father dies, equipped with plenty of cultured knowledge but no practical survival skills. She pairs up with Rudy, a no-nonsense black woman who has been surviving on her own all her life, and together, they work the farm and fend for themselves. The story reads like Fielding's "Tom Jones," or Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urburvilles," elaborate stories of young people who make journeys, meeting interesting characters along the way, learning how to survive, and essentially growing up in the process. The writing style, too, is similar, in that it is well-crafted and slow paced, making detailed note of the physical surroundings, the wildlife, and general patterns of behavior.

I enjoyed this book, and despite taking a month to read it, felt that I didn't go slowly enough to really appreciate the writing. Over the years since college, I think I read more for plot and character development and take less time to appreciate writing style and detailed observations. Still, although the book's plot is fairly simple and not much "happens," there is enough of interest within each encounter or episode to keep the story moving. I found Inman and Ada fundamentally interesting characters, probably because they both bucked the standard traditions of the time, especially Ada who rejected the coy, dependent female role entirely. And I also enjoyed learning a little about the life and culture of the South during the civil war. Despite all these praises, I also didn't *love* the book, perhaps because of my own impatience more than any flaw in the book.

Rating:
Summary: the best book of the 20th century
Review: If you haven't read this magnificent novel, I envy you. It is truly one of the most fascinating, rewarding and enriching stories you will ever read. I rarely reread a book, but have read Cold Mountain three times already. I think many people miss the humor contained in this book, focusing on the journey of both Inman and Ada and their trials and tribulations. There are a few scenes that are the most hysterically funny situations ever written. Yes, you will need a box of tissues, but not just for the sad parts. A film will be made in the future of this wonderful book but there is no way any film can capture the beautiful magic with which this story will entwine you.

Rating:
Summary: TWO PEOPLE _DREAMING TOGETHER
Review: Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain is an amazing first novel. His characters are rich and real. An updated telling of Homer's Odyssey, Frazier, like his Greek forefather, reaches into mythology to show how the characters are more than their physical selves: they are points in history, the fulfillment of centuries of social and political events, religious beliefs and personal destinies and dreams. Inman, the hero, is more than a reluctant soldier and more than an avatar of Odysseus. Walking home after recovering from his war wounds instead of returning to battle, he marks the beginning of the counter-mythology of war: the soldier who is disallusioned with the cause for whom there is only guts and no glory. Interestingly, the woman he longs for, Ada, is also something new. She foreshadows the liberated women of the 20th century. By allowing herself -- the daughter of an aristocrat fallen on hard times -- to be taught by lower class Ruby, she learns the value of work and stewardship of the land. Cultured and well-educated, she allows her sensuality to come to the fore, making her truly worthy of Inman's trek home to her. Some readers have been disturbed by the use of mythology and folk music, but once they learn that old traditional songs, like "Three Ravens" in which a pregnant woman in the guise of a doe comes upon her fallen husband, are woven through the book and serve to foreshadow events within it, they become more accepting of the improbable elements. During the first broadcast of Ken Burns' "The Civil War," the point was made that if anything would have created an American epic, it would have been that conflict. At the time, I said that we are not a people who rely on epic poetry and ours is no longer an oral culture; therefore, it is not surprising that there has been no American epic. In the 20th century, we use the cinema to spread our mores and ideas and tell our stories, so that, for good or bad, the epic of the Civil War was Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind," and its cinematic adaptation. However, what Frazier has done is simultaneously look backwards -- to Homer and the beginnings of Western civilization -- and stand in the present -- by borrowing the technique of magical realism and apply this to the American Civil War. He retells an event in American history and honors 19th century American culture through the inclusion of ballads and folktales. Mitchell wrote a "rippin' good yarn," but Frazier showed how the Civil War changed America and defined this country for the 20th century and he did it by being respectful of our greater cultural heritage. He also created a wonderful love story, of two people, separated by circumstances that ultimately were not beyond their control who were able to fulfill their dreams of each other. Frazier may have redefined what an epic is and he produced a love story that is stronger and more romantic than the tale of Scarlet and Rhett. By the way, if anyone is interested in the sort of music Charles Frazier carried in his head while writing Cold Mountain, American musician extraordinaire Tim O'Brien recorded the songs of Cold Mountain.

Rating:
Summary: Raised in the Country?
Review: This story starts with the Civil War, a lot of blood and guts, and pain. If you can get through the first few pages it is an excellent book. It takes place in the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains. I soaked up the description of the land like a sponge, fog, mist, hills, valleys, green foliage, and squeaky snow. Ada the woman and Inman the man have a hard time coming together, the work is hard, surviving with no food or shelter. From Ruby- who knows how to live off the land, to Teague- the leader of the guard looking for deserters, to Pancy- the addled banjo picker, to the goat woman, the people in the story are great.

Rating:
Summary: And?
Review: Here is the formula: a cross between Huck Finn (southern epic) and The Painted Bird (collection of tragedies).

Here is how it cashed in at the register and with critics: A Civil War setting that enabled it to attach itself to the ever-popular South bashing movement and 90's revisionist perspective of the Civil War. Without the "historical basis," it is a Harlequin romance, with a sad ending.

Critically acclaimed, but unnecessarily cruel. Why should pain be celebrated simply for pain's sake? The harshness is the sand in our eyes, evoking our programmed response that anything ugly must be meaningful. What a sophomoric literary contrivance!

We are expected to believe that meaning, honesty, insight and truth are the necessary result of horrible, painful tragedy. We have the tragedy, but where is the meaning? Was it written purely to evoke an emotional response? An author can't score points with a literate audience through cliched emotional content. That is, pain does not equal literary merit. We don't buy it.

Cold Mountain just strung together a bunch of foul, albeit realistic, images and events hoping that it would slip by, mistaken for something profound. In this endeavor, it was a huge success. It was commercially successful because the critics are sheep and we read what they tell us to read.

What does the reader take from Cold Mountain? The not-so-profound message that people in that time suffered and were cruel, that times were hard. We know these things, so what is the author sharing with us? The answer is: nothing. Pulp romance/tragedy.

Total case of the emperor's new clothes. Since a guy from the South wrote a bleak account of the time and place, critics feel obligated to hold it up as poignant. Is everyone just too scared to say: "And?" The emotion was cheap and contrived-a soap opera.

The author had some interesting descriptions is about all. Some additional value in portraying the way people actually lived.

Rating:
Summary: This is the best book that I have read in a very long time!
Review: This book is totally absorbing from the first page and throughout the entire book. You begin to feel like you know these characters as you witness their struggle. This book reminds us that the American Civil War was not "Gone With The Wind" (although I love that book), it shows us the personal side to war and struggle. It is very good and everyone should read it.