Rating: 
Summary: a tepid journey along well traveled roads
Review: I first heard of this novel on VOA, living in Lithuania. It sounded impressive. A story that had less to do with the Civil War and more about the people that lived through it. Great expectations were hardly satisfied though. His allusions to Bartram were about the only interesting passages in the book. As for his other influences, Faulkner's "The Unvanquished" came to mind. "Cold Mountain" hardly ranks in this league, let alone be a National Book Award winner. I found Bruce Catton's "Centennial" series of the Civil War vastly more illuminating and much more human.
Rating: 
Summary: Writers-Sit down with Cold Mountain
Review: Cold Mountain, dense and epic, is the novel of 1999 which I hold closest to my heart. As an aspiring writer, I let this book take my perception of nature, of American history, of romance and war to a new level. I read Cold Mountain in bed at night and on the job (!) for many weeks; for as you may find, the depth of his descriptive ability is lost in a quick skim. For the reviewers who didn't get it, I ask that they read it again, put some effort into this novel; try to visualize Inman walking down the road, feel his desire to get home and find his love. Give it a chance!
Rating:
Summary: This novel is overrated
Review: This author uses the language anyway he choses. It does not matter to him that he made up some of the words. Also, he uses a lot of negative symbolism toward African Americans being depicted as crows. Not since Walt Disney's Dumbo of the 50's have I seen this. His narrations are too long making this a boring book. Many are being caught up into what this book could have been, no wonder Frazier has failed so many times before this. He cannot write.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: I read on average 4-5 novels a month however, this book I couldn't get thru the first few chapters. It was like trying to get out of quick sand to force myself to continue on HOPING it would become interesting. I just couldn't do it!
Rating:
Summary: I was swept away.
Review: I read this book over a few nights. Each night the story became more intense, and drew me in further and further as Inman's walk continued. I wanted Inman and Ada to be together and for his walk to be over, but I never wanted the storytelling to end. After I finished the novel, I started to explain Inman's and Ada's journeys to my 10-year old daughter. As I told her the tale, my eyes filled with tears. She wanted to hear more and more about this good man, this kind man, this generous man and the tragic world in which he found himself. I told her that when she was older she must read this book about a country at war, and the good people who endure.
Rating:
Summary: This is another "Royal Nonsuch"
Review: Royal Nonsuches are like 100-year floods: they come along pretty regular. Maybe I'd better explain. Down here along the Texas Gulf Coast some engineers (assisted by politicians) defined something called the "100-year flood zone." Its boundaries enclose property that can be expected to be flooded every 100 years, on average - which implies to an ordinary mind that they aren't likely to get flooded more often than that, either. So, if you came as an infant to live in a house in that zone that had been flooded, say, 20 years ago, why you'd likely be eighty before it ought to get flooded again - that's just reasonable to any ordinary mind. But the people that live in the 100-year flood zone get flooded out every few years, time after time, so we have to figure that by the law of averages and plain common sense there's one heck of a drought coming. Already, just since that map came out, it would take a thousand-year drought, at least, to balance out the excess. You would think that scams like "The Royal Nonsuch" would be as rare as 100-year floods ought to be. The phenomenon was described in fine detail for us in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (a true story, else it couldn't have been Huck's authorized autobiography). Huck reported that "The Royal Nonsuch" was a stage play written, produced, promoted and acted out by the king and the duke. It opened to a packed house and, says Huck, got off to a fine start (sort of like the first few paragraphs of "Cold Mountain"). Live from the scene, here's Huck: "He rolled up the curtain, and the next minute the king come a-prancing out on all fours, naked; and he was painted all over, ring-streaked-and-striped, all sorts of colors, as splendid as a rainbow. . . The people most killed themselves laughing; and when the king got done capering, and capered off behind the scenes, they roared and clapped and stormed and haw-hawed till he come back and done it again; and after that they make him do it another time. Well, it would make a cow laugh to see the shines that old idiot cut. "Then the duke he lets the curtain down, and bows to the people, and says the great tragedy will be performed only two nights more . . . "Twenty people sings out: 'What, is it over? Is that all?' The duke says yes. Then there was a fine time. Everybody rose up mad and was going for the stage and them tragedians. But a big fine-looking man jumps up on a bench and shouts: 'Hold on! Just a word, gentlemen.' They stopped to listen. 'We are mighty badly sold. But we don't want to be the laughing stock of this whole town, I reckon . . . What we want, is to go out of here quiet, and talk this show up, and sell the REST of the town! Then we'll all be in the same boat. Ain't that sensible?' "'You bet it is! -- the jedge is right!' everybody sings out. 'All right, then . . . Go along home, and advise everybody to come and see the tragedy.' "Next day you couldn't hear nothing around that town but how splendid that show was. House was jammed again, that night, and we sold this crowd the same way. "The third night the house was crammed again - and they warn't new-comers, this time, but people that was at the show the other two nights. I stood by the duke at the door, and I see that every man that went in had his pockets bulging . . . and I see it warn't no perfumery neither, not by a long sight. I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages and such things . . ." News didn't travel very fast in Huck's day, so we can forgive him for marveling over the seeming originality of the king and the duke. Gosh, over half a century before Huck wrote his diary, James Fenimore Cooper had pulled off a similar hoax with "The Deerslayer," which is still playing, albeit taking its share of pummeling by rotten eggs. Among the jedges promoting Cooper's productions were professors of English literature at fancy colleges who touted them as being "pure works of art" and having "an extraordinary fullness of invention" -- translation: bad science fiction passed off as "the craft of the woodsman, the tricks of the trapper." Real woodsmen and real trappers have doubled up laughing at Cooper's inventive fullness. Legions of such scams have been pulled off before and after Cooper, and between Huck's expose of "The Royal Nonsuch" and "Cold Mountain." "Cold Mountain" is a preposterous agglomeration of nonsense to find its way between two book covers. The publicity that fueled "Cold Mountain" would have been studied closely by the king and the duke for future application, if they could have figured it out how it was created. The trouble is, how do its strategists crow about it? You can't put an ad in Advertising Age headlined: "We made a phenomenal best-seller of a book that should never have seen daylight." Jedges talking up "Cold Mountain" have suckered a lot of people, myself included. Wasn't that sensible? But out of the 752 readers contributing opinions about "Cold Mountain" on this site, 206 of us are here with our pockets bulging, and it ain't no perfumery neither, not by a long sight. But our scorn won't keep Charles Frazier and Atlantic Monthly Press from laughing all the way to the bank. If history is even half-way reliable, clones of "The Deerslayer," "The Royal Nonsuch" and "Cold Mountain" will continue to appear with the regularity of 100-year floods. Doug Briggs
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down!
Review: I picked up this book, started reading, and finished it in two days. It was both engrossing and literary, and I would recommend it to anyone. As for those who say it is outdated, I am a high school senior who found Cold Mountain wonderful.
Rating: 
Summary: EXTREMELY WELL WRITTEN BUT SLOW MOVING
Review: After hearing such good thigns about this book, I decided to read it even though it was not something I would normally pick up. I was impressed by the quality of the writing; I felt I could have been reading it for my high school English class! However, it took me a month (and finishing three other books in the meanwhile) to finish it-- not exactly what you call a page turner. In the end though, I felt I had read something worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Survival and love beautifully intertwined
Review: It's as though you are a part of the book,trying to survive, in love, in pain, hungry and cold. A must read book for all ages .Beautifully written with such vivid description you smell the smells, hurt the hurts,experinece the love,and see the stars. A book for Men and Women and teenagers....a must read. If there were a Six Star rating,COLD MOUNTAIN would certainly deserve it. Charles Frazier has given us with his first novel a book that will be read by generations to come.
Rating:
Summary: This is one of the best Civil War books I have ever read!!!!
Review: Cold Mountain should be a required book to read in high school. It gives great detail into the lives of the people that lived during the Civil War. The book talks about how war changes people's lives and personalities. Cold Mountain talks about how families and loved ones were broken up by the Civil War. It talks about how the women in the family would end up being abandoned and having to learn how to survive on their own while the men went to fight and die. I compliment Charles Frazier on bringing the reader closer to imagining what it was like in the days of the Civil War.
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