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Summary: Review of effects
Review: To Charles Fraiser: Thank you. As one who believes a person not to be just the sum of their actions, but also of their thoughts and experiences, I believe I've encountered some substantial people in your writing. As a reader, I'm inclined to learn and be entertained. Cold Mountain provided me with both. The net effect is that I'll think more before I speak, and maybe even press more lightly on the gas pedal when I see the light change to green. To those who would read this book: If you exist to be constantly stimulated, do yourself a favor and skip it. If you truly enjoy watching the sun set, devour it.
Rating: 
Summary: Over hyped and underwriten
Review: This book will appeal to readers who think "The Bridges of Madison County" is literature. Cold Mountain is a plotless and pointless evocation of an historical era, a task well done, but not worth doing, like listing the best of bubblegum rock. The characters are displayed, but not developed. They are observed, but the reader is not drawn in to see their growth since none is displayed. No one would ever be tempted to re-read this empty narrative.
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Summary: darkness
Review: This book is a great story, but is dark. I couldn't put it down, as I wanted to read that something good was going to happen.
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Summary: One incredible read!
Review: For a first novel, Charles Frazier has indeed created a classic. I walked each step with Inman and learned how to bring beauty from ashes with Ada and Ruby. Thank you Mr. Frazier for the days I spent in the Civil War South.
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Summary: Cold Mountain says a lot about the strength of women.
Review: Of the reviews I have read on line, I see no reference to the relationship between Ruby and Ada. I think the strength that was brought out in Ada by her friendship with Ruby says a lot for all the women who struggled through the Civil War or any other difficult time. Most readers seem to focus on the love story of Inman and Ada, and fail to recognize that there's a lot more going on here. Definitely a book worth reading; very well written, descriptive, and a very realistic ending.
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Summary: A book for a tortoise - not a hare
Review: This is a book that must be put down from time to time to savor Charles Frazier has a greater talent for description than any author I have read in recent years. His use of archaic terms (blithen)? sent me scrambling for my Webster's more than once. But I do not doubt that they are true to the era. Those of you who saw the PBS documentary "The Civil War" know that it was an era of flowery prose. There is a considerable nobility about Inman. He takes no joy in killing - even those who richly deserve it. And early on when he observes that "Old Bob Lee seemed fond enough of war" his anti-war sentiments are clearly stated. The ending left me unsatisfied at first. On further reflection though, I think Inman understood (without becoming cynical) how rare happiness was in a time when many lives were short and brutal. My only criticism is that the Federals are depicted as so hopelessly cowardly, inept, and stupid that you wonder how the Confederacy ever lost. It is a sentiment too often voiced by those who grew up in the south.
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Summary: Excellent story told in a brilliant manner.
Review: Cold Mountain was difficul to read, but I stuck with it because I wanted to know how Ada and Inman survived, if they did. I became somewhat weary with the the exhaustive descriptions of landscape, air, earth, food, and almost everything. However, such descriptions served to expand my concept of raw nature. From now on, when I see a black crow I will think of Inman.My great-grandfather had a similar civil war experience as Inman, as family records reveal. Consequently I identified with the characters in this novel in a very personal way. I would certainly recommend this book to any person who loves romance and nature.
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Summary: Rich descriptions, little dramatic tension
Review: I found Frazier's book a noteworthy read. It is a book of dense atmospherics and rich descriptive text. Cold Mountain maintains a strolling cadence through its descriptions of a slice of life, of lovers separated by the Civil War. The plot is one of a Confederate deserter's travels home to his Ada, who sustains herself with the survival wise Ruby on a farm on Cold Mountain. Along this slim narrative plot are hung espisodes of experience and memory. Its characters are indistinctly drawn, and at times seem inseparable and defined by the land and events they travel through. A deeply impressionistic novel, much like the school of painting, its colours and characters blend into a panorama which are externally perceived, and offer no hard edges or specific high lights in presentation. The gaze is called to the whole and not to the elements of the construction. No depth of penetration into the subjects psyches is offered beyond their interplay with the methodical progress of it's theme. Frazier, however, has a talent for descriptive imagery and savor. The story is a simple one of separation and struggle for reunion. If one allows one's self to be drawn into the mists and mysterious magnetic force of Cold Mountain, which juxtaposes itself against the battlefields and landscapes of civil war America one senses cruel the ironies of war are being explored. It does not surprise me that there are such polarities in views for this novel, it must be read as it is written, its pleasures are in the meditation of it's mysteries and depths of descriptions rather than its characters or plot.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing--especially with all of the hype
Review: Last spring, I started COLD MOUNTAIN, but it could not hold my attention, so I put it down. Then, undecided what I'd like to read next, I decided to give COLD MOUNTAIN another try. Again, it was slow going--especially at the beginning of the story. As I moved on through, though, I was captured by Inman and by Ada/Ruby. They were characters I came to care about deeply--which would be the only reason I'd recommend COLD MOUNTAIN. Several things really bothered me about this story. First, I'd really like to know why Charles Frazier wrote it without an quotation marks around dialogue. It was a tremendous distraction--one that I never became used to. Second, I've always been told that when telling a story, everything should happen for a reason. That did not happen with this story. And because it did not happen, it seemed as if the events were so contrived. This, for me, was especially true with Stobrod, Ruby's father. How do we know that he grew as a character? We don't. We don't because Frazier cannot put us inside of his head--and definitely could not give him a soul or a heart worth pulling for. In fact, it would have been better told with Inman & Ada old & gray--telling their adventures to their grandchildren--with the way that Charles Frazier presented each episode. As another reader alluded to, the ending was a HUGE disappointment to me. HUGE.
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Summary: best book of fiction I've read in 20 years.
Review: Mr. Frazier hooked me when Inman started reading William Bartram's "Travels". When the preacher and Inman ran into "junior" and what eventually transpired, I knew this tome was serious. My favorite chapter (and the favorite of my surprisingly intelligent son-in-law)was where Inman found the young widow in the cove with the infant child. "Are you the kind of man who can lie down with me tonight and do nothing else?" When Inman allowed he could, I figured he may be a Southern hero for the ages. (My English major wife liked it but claims it's a man's book. Well whatever. I guess she's never been a man who desperately wanted to get home to his woman.)
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