Rating: 
Summary: utterly pointless -- and anti-male
Review: It's difficult to imagine a more-pointless novel -- except perhaps Mishima's "Sea of Fertility" tetralogy. When we reach the end of those works, we learn that all that went before never "really" happened -- and doesn't matter, anyway.What's the point of putting characters through situations that force them to find their own courage, and grow in the process -- and then deny them a meaningful consummation? And not because they decide they don't really want or need each other, but because (plot spoiler) the author arbitrarily kills off the male character? This is one of those stories that has you muttering "Stupid, stupid, stupid" as you read. Inman's adventures as he attempts to return home are preposterous. A mother bear attacks Inman and falls over a convenient cliff as he steps aside. Nor does he have any trouble defending himself against hordes of Confederate militia trying to capture him -- but he lets a beaten-up teenager lying against a tree pull a gun and kill him. As he's facing the kid. And holding his own gun. Duh. Can you say "implausible"? Sure you can. Ada winds up without her man -- but it makes no difference. She's become prosperous, confident and self-sufficient -- and has the (presumably non-sexual -- but who knows?) love of a good woman (Ruby). It's difficult not to interpret "Cold Mountain" as anti-male -- and it was written by a man. I agree with the reviewer who suggested that if you were a man, you should tear out the last chapter and write your own. I can't believe the MS wasn't returned with a request that the author come up with a plausible way to motivate Ada and Inman's separation. Perhaps another reviewer's remark that you have to understand oriental philosophy to understand "Cold Mountain" is true.
Rating:
Summary: Agreed - agonizing and tedious
Review: Not too mention endless. This book went on and on and on and on until it climaxed, if you could call it that, with a disappointing ending. Don't waste your time - there are too many other good books out there waiting to be read.
Rating:
Summary: A struggle to read
Review: I agree with one other reader who posted a review here. It was very tedious and without a payoff. I struggled all the way through this book and was disappointed with the story. Hope the movie is better!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Read this book during the Hurricane
Review: I read this book with a flashlight during Hurricane Isabel. I could NOT put it down. I found the characters fascinating, complex and yet very easy to know. Frazier is able to bring life to his characters and you becoming sincerely invested in their emotions and their trials. I love that the women in this book are strong and yet feminine and conversely, the men are manly without being macho. There is a real yin and yang to this story. I especially enjoyed the alternating chapters going from Ada's point of view during the war to Inman's. Although there are some dry moments in the book, so as in real life, the overall story is gripping, emotionally charged and very realistic.
I recently went to see the film and was not at all disappointed by the conversion from book to movie. It was a delight although the subject matter is very grim at times and hard to watch. I think this book will become a classic. It has all of the ingredients of such- strong characters, a gripping tale, wonderful descriptions and the timeless, human need to return home. Touching, beautifully written- a real joy to experience. I have bought this book as a gift for a few friends because I feel it is more than a story. It is an experience.
Rating:
Summary: Agonizingly Tedious.
Review: Individuals are obviously polarized regarding Cold Mountain. Reading it was as boring a chore as I've encountered in a long while with no redemption at this novel's end. Perhaps the movie is better; one can only hope.
Rating:
Summary: Superb Writing Style
Review: A terrific read. This is to the tragedy of the civil war what Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" was to the dust bowl and the depression years.
Rating:
Summary: Loved this book
Review: David Kusumoto has given such a wonderful and helpful review here. I have little to add except that I loved this book. I have read it once and listened to the audio tapes 3 times. Just saw the movie. It is a book to be savored. I wish I could have read David's review first.
Rating: 
Summary: PLEASE Read...Tips to Conquering "Cold Mountain"
Review: I consider myself a pretty sophisticated reader. But I share many of the same sentiments others have about the titanic struggle to conquer "Cold Mountain." "Cold Mountain" has two primary stories. The first is about a wounded Civil War deserter named Inman who spends much of his time wandering home, facing obstacles to return to a beloved woman he hasn't seen in years. The second is about this beloved Ada and her friend Ruby, who transform the land upon which they live into a self-sufficient farm. Flashbacks recall things as they were between Inman and Ada before the war. These memories drive Inman home. Will he make it? If he does, will Ada remember? If she remembers, will she return his love? If these parallel stories intersect, will there be a good payoff? I wish what I've described was as simple as the book. "Cold Mountain" reads like a reflective diary with microscopic details that do little to drive this plot quickly forward. Worse, UNLIKE a diary, it's told in the third person. It's not, "I thought this" or "I did that." It's "Inman thought this" and "Ada felt that." Yet this isn't a dumb book. Ambitious, yes, but trash this isn't. But who wants to read something that feels like work? I wondered, "why am I torturing myself?" Just to prove I can do it because it won a big-time award? Just to be a pseudo-intellectual hot-shot? Of course I don't want an easy, dumbed-down read, but I don't want a biology, geology or botany lesson on every page. Yet I finished "Cold Mountain." So why am I still giving it four stars? First, some tips about how I got through it. Just like a mountain that can only be conquered in little steps, "Cold Mountain" requires, even for sophisticated readers, a level of concentration I haven't devoted to any book since college. Do NOT be distracted by noise, lest you be sent backward a few sentences or worse, a few paragraphs or pages. Savor the meaning of one sentence at a time. Go slow and read no more than one chapter per sitting. But keep at it. Don't stop in the middle of a chapter. You don't want to go back because you forgot where you left off. But if you start daydreaming about your job or a trip to the food court, stop. Using this "disciplined" method of tackling "Cold Mountain" - by the time I got about a quarter of the way through - I started discovering TWO reasons why this book achieves excellence, albeit the kind that will forever polarize readers, and rightly so. FIRST, "Cold Mountain" is a purposely challenging and romantic (yes it is), novel with many bloody, grimy and depressing details. It's difficult because it has none of the sentence structure with which we're accustomed. But my negative attitude began to shift when I realized the novel is written like an old museum relic, the only surviving account of thoughts from a random dead narrator from the 1860s. Author Charles Frazier has accomplished the near impossible, recreating a style of historic writing that feels as Greek as reading Jane Austen or Shakespeare for the first time. Everything animal, mineral and vegetable is given character. The mood is beyond melancholy, and there's danger around every corner. Nothing feels certain. SECOND, I began noticing, and not in any pretentious way, that every page in "Cold Mountain" had at least one or two nuggets of information made more beautiful through the eyes of a 19th century narrator ignorant of the 21st century. Stuff like: "All that night the aurora flamed - and (the men) vied to see - who could most convincingly render its meaning down into plain speech." "(Describing a mentally challenged young man): Everything he saw was (newly) minted, and thus every day was a parade of wonders." "(Inman as he inspects a freshly covered grave): If (there's) a world beyond the grave as (the) hymns claim, such a hole (seems) a grim and lonesome portal to it." I think most who dislike "Cold Mountain" are rightfully reacting to its tedious historical style and unconventional structure rather than the admittedly conventional story that lurks within its pages. But I also think, because I had the same negative reaction initially, that approaching this novel with more discipline, you might come away with greater respect for Frazier's ambitious effort to take a conventional romantic story and have it "re-told" - 19th century style - hence feeling unconventional compared to what's found in most present day bestsellers. It just stands out. I'm glad I gave it another shot.
Rating: 
Summary: Go See The Movie
Review: I started this book 3 times before I (FINALLY!) made it all the way through. With all due respect to Charles Frazier (writing anything is difficult), I did not like the book. Inman can't seem to make it home no matter what he does - in fact, he travels in reverse! Will he NEVER get there? Have you ever heard of quotation marks when someone speaks in a book?!? Of course the ending is depressing, can't have anything but that in "modern" fiction.
I heard the movie was "great!" Go see it and save your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Bloody but bloodless
Review: Frazier's prose immediately engaged me in his setting, but never in his two main characters. As others have noted, Inman and Ada seemed oddly detatched from that richly evoked time and place - and from each other - a flaw that detracted from my enjoyment of this otherwise worthy read. I am a tolerant, forgiving reader, but the overly-literary ambigous ending irritated me, particularly since I never had the chance to be convinced of the great transcendent love Inman and Ada supposedly shared. I can imagine that Law and Kidman, two brilliant but bloodless actors, do nothing to improve this flaw in the film. That being said, it is an engaging, textured read, with some marvelously drawn secondary characters (particularly Ruby and her father).
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