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Summary: Depressed All Night
Review: I am a Southern history and literature buff, so I looked forward to reading this book. It really held my interest from beginning to end. I even began to compare it to Odysses' journey home after the Trojan War. Some of the descriptions were down right poetic! I must say, though, that the ending devastated me. I know we can't expect "happily ever after" endings, but the author seemed to be heading in that direction, and that's what I desperately wanted for Inman and Ada, especially after all the trouble they went through. I couldn't sleep after reading the ending. I had to read that part over several times to make myself believe that was the way it ended. An excellent read!
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Summary: The best book I have read in two years
Review: This book is outstanding!
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Summary: Refreshing, unromantic treatment of Civil War period
Review: Our book group had two wonderful discussion sessions on this beautifully written book. Its a refreshing treatment of the Civil War period, away from the battle fields . Frazier described incidents that are senseless, brutal and far from glamorous. Years of fighting, being surrounded by so much death, blasted away Inman's spirit, left him numb and lonesome and ready to desert from the hospital. Frazier describes a man who had fought thru the war, had killed many Federals, been wounded but who had recently lost faith in the war. His "crime was to unvolunteer and walk home. Now he was jailed and soon they might hang him, war hero though he was." Apparently there were many deserters of this mind that kept a large, visious 'Home Guard" busy hunting them down and executing them. I had not read this sort of coverage in the common romantizing of the Civil War. At one point, Inman looks into a valley where "stood big houses with white columns. They were ringed around with scattered hovels so that the valley land seemed cut up into fiefdoms. Inman looked at the lights in the big houses at night and knew he had been fighting battles for such men as lived in them, and it made hime sick." While Inman is a hunted man, he is frequently an avenging angel during his travels. I routed for him as he killed. Frazier powerfully describes how hunger, escape, brutality and murder are intertwined in Inman's primitive life.i.e. "The next morning before he set out on the road, Inman ate the brains of the pig (that he had butchered), parboiled and scrambled up with an egg from the hen that had been eating on the raider from New York (that Inman had killed)." The second half of the book seemed more engrossing. Key characters and settings seemed warmer, more worthy of compassion. The war was indeed the villian that caused cruel behavior all around. For the readers' relief from gore and suffering, there are many lyric descriptions, i.e.: of the mountains he loves; har! vesting apples; fiddle and banjo played together with such strength and rhythm to musical themes so direful and elegiac.
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Summary: The best book I've read in years.
Review: I'm not big on Civil-War era books, but this is the best book I've read in a long time. I have suggested this book to my friends and family and everyone has enjoyed it.
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Summary: A book worth reading for the summer!
Review: Mr. Frazier has put together a fine book with some marvelous description and flowing language. The plot, characterization, reader-interest, setting, etc. are all done very well and certainly kept this reader turning pages until it was finished. I was initially interested in reading the book because of the hype it received in our local paper book review section after publication and after watching an interview I saw on one of the morning talk shows with Mr. Frazier as a guest. The hype was so strong in print and on TV I couldn't resist getting the book (I rarely buy a newly published book). Well, it wasn't a disappointment, but it wasn't all it should have been either based on the publication hype. It is a fine novel, but not a classic as some reviwers noted. It is well worth reading. Mr. Frazier is obviously a very talented writer, but has a few more things to work out in his style. For example, the ending was predictable. No surprises at all there. Because he is such a fine writer though, I will give him another shot at the publication of his next work. The book is worth reading; a great summer book. I enjoyed it.
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Summary: Golden fodder...
Review: I'd be willing to bet the farm that above old Charles Frazier's fireplace down in North Carolina there lies nestled together on his bookshelf the damnedest fine collection of Faulkner, Hemingway, Twain and Warren a body has ever seen... Judging from the style of Cold Mountain's prose I'd say Frazier's studied them considerable... And I'd bet too, there's a Spencer carbine leaning against the fireplace stones and a Le Mat and a couple of battered cap and ball Colts up on the mantel along with his Greatgranddaddy's smoky tinypes; and here's my version of what happened: One day the whole mass got talking to Frazier - Faulkner's voice got all tangled with his ancestors' and melted into one strange and delicious soup and then the whole structure suddenly got real clear and real fine and it came out on the page and the rest is history... The result is classic stuff. And let no man deny it... Charles Frazier is one calculated guy - he's got it all in Cold Mountain - Huck's raft trip, the vernacular of Warren's South, Snopey characters, Hemingway's way of looking at land and force, Twain's southern humor, etc. It's a fest, folks. Must reading. I don't believe for a minute that Frazier worked in isolation at this horse farm with straw bales around the foundation to keep out the drafts, no siree: he was a college professor in a couple of places and he must have paid attention to great literature. And study he did, for he's churned out a sensual novel where we can touch the land, taste the wild food, feel the lust, pull a bloody peach pit from our neck, and whip ass when we're bone tired; and folks, that's what enduring literature is all about. Frazier knows his guns, his battles, and his women - and if you don't see what I'm talking about - that it doesn't look like Faulkner, Papa, Twain and Warren had a bastard son with Flannery O'Connor (godfathered by Cormac McCarthy), and he's not out writing like a demon possessed, well, you best get another read on Cold Mountain and pay better attention. Bec! ause any writer who can use the word "shit" in 1500 different ways and make a man laugh each time is golden fodder in my book! There's more: Along the way you might learn something about the South and War and Wanting-Something-Real-Bad-But-Doomed-To-Getting-It- because this book is HUGE and is going up in the Big Hall. Amen.
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Summary: Outstanding images evoked in an average storyline
Review: Charles Frazier has an amazing ability to paint a beautiful "picture" in the mind's eye of the reader. But, Frazier's "Inman" does not evoke the power or "life's blood" of Howard Bahr's "Bushrod Carter" in the somewhat similar, but more disturbing and thought provoking novel, "The Black Flower". Read "Cold Mountain" on the recommendation of book loving friends and colleagues who share your tastes in the written word, but don't overlook Bahr's "The Black Flower" for a gem without the hype.
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Summary: Beautifully written!
Review: I am 13 years old and did not expect to enjoy this book, but I found it to be very poignant and realistic. It was a little slow at the beginning but still a wonderful story that I have reread and cried over many times. I can not wait for Charles Frazier to write another novel!
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Summary: Probably the best book I've ever read
Review: A book that transforms its readers so that they are a different person for reading it is in my opinion the epitomy of good literature and good art , I feel very grateful to the author for his insights.
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Summary: It will spark a fire!
Review: Simply, this is a book that will change people. Cold Mountain is the first book I have read since my college literature class 5 years ago. It is wonderful and a true work of creativity and detail. Cold Mountain motivates me to read other books. Let the high school kids read it! It will spark a fire!
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