Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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89 of 96 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A writer with enormous talent for prose and storytelling, August 6, 2002
I received "Cold Mountain" as a gift (Thanks, MOM!) and didn't really know anything about the book. So I decided to try a sort of test I do on fiction--I opened the book at random and read a sample of the prose to get a feel for the style. Here's what I read:>>One of the things Inman marked as a comfort was that he could put a name to the brightest star in Orion. He had shared that fact with a Tennessee boy on the night after Fredricksburg.... Before them was the battlefield falling away to the town and the river. The land lay bleak as nightmare and seemed to have been recast to fit a new and horrible model, all littered with bodies and churned up by artillery. Hell's newground, one man had called it. To turn his mind from such a place that night, Inman had looked toward Orion and said the name he know. The Tennessee boy had peered up at the star so indicated and said, How do you know its name is Rigel?
--I read it in a book, Inman said.
--Then that's just a name we give it, the boy said. It ain't God's name.
Inman had though on the issue a minute and then said, How would you ever come to know God's name for that star?
--You wouldn't, He holds it close, the boy said. It's a thing you'll never know. It's a lesson that sometimes we're meant to settle for ignorance. << Within seconds I was totally drawn in to the interaction of the characters and at the same time my jaw was dropping open because the prose style was so wonderful. This debut novel of Charles Frazier is amazing. HOWEVER...if you expect this to be a Civil War novel, complete with battles, or the machinations of frothy Southern Belles, you will be sadly disappointed. So don't read "Cold Mountain" for what it is not. It is really about journeys through trials, both external and internal. The main character Inman is wounded in a Civil War battle. His wound should have been mortal, but wasn't. He begins a long walk back to his home in the mountains of North Carolina, not only to avoid being drawn back into the horrors of the war but also to find his soul again, wounded as deeply by what he saw as by the ball that gashed his neck. He's also coming back to Ada, who is traveling her own journey from a life of gentility and refusal to face reality, to scraping a survival living on her amateurishly managed farm. Her savior is Ruby, a woman whose raw drive and will to survive floats the hopeless Ada along in her inexorable wake. The story of the three characters (Ada, Ruby and Inman) is woven so skillfully that I found it almost impossible to put the book down. But I forced myself to read it in segments because I didn't want to miss savoring the exquisite prose. This is the best novel I've read in years. Don't miss it.
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42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Smoky Mountain Odyssey, January 25, 2000
The story is simple. A wounded confederate soldier decides he has had enough of war and slowly makes his way home, hoping the woman he loves, Ada, is waiting for him. The book chronicles this journey and reminds me a little of The Odyssey as well as Don Quixote.Based on the author's first hand knowledge of the smoky mountains and his family legends, the book transports the reader to a Civil War scenario that has little resemblance to Gone With the Wind. Details of death and destruction are described in gruesome clarity and the long road home is rife with them. Inman, the lead character encounters cruelty and kindness, starvation and capture, rogues and victims. The author uses words well, and some of the images will haunt my mind for a long time. The heroine, Ada, has been gently raised in Charleston and is not prepared for running a farm when her father dies and the hired help run off. She almost starves until another young woman of about her age, Ruby, moves in with her and teaches her how to survive. Ada's growth into competency and self-sufficiency is rendered with the same detailed descriptions as Inman's journey and I was left with a new appreciation of what farm life is all about. The book is good and I understand why publishers were thrilled with it. It has a big theme, is well written, and gives its readers a fresh new way to look at the Civil War. Many of the scenes made me flinch, but it also deepened my understanding of this very important period in history and what it is to be an American.
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52 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best 356 pages I've read in a long time!, February 23, 1998
I bought Cold Mountain a couple of months ago and, thinking I wouldn't be able to put it down once I started it, have been saving it for a time when I'd be able to read without interruption. A four-day February beach trip provided the perfect opportunity. This is a wonderful book! From the very first line - "At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring.", I was hooked, and stayed with Inman, Ada, Monroe, the Swangers, Sara, Ruby, Stobrod, the Preacher, and the Goat Woman, right to the end. No, it's not a "pretty" story - war and what it does to people isn't pretty. Sure, I'd have preferred an ending that brought tears of joy, rather than tears of pain; but there really wasn't any other way for the book to end. I'm neither an historian, nor a Civil War buff, but I loved this book! The word imagery made me "see" the trail that Inman followed, and "feel" what he and Ada felt. Surprisingly, this former English teacher loved the way Frazier punctuated the dialogue - understated, but effective, and just the way a storyteller would write. So why do I give it a "9", instead of a "10"? I was a little confused by some lack of detail, like Monroe's church affiliation - just what was an "assembly" in 1864? A map covering the land Inman walked would have been helpful for the geography enthusiasts (I had to get out a map of North Carolina to find Salisbury); and a glossary for Frazier's mountain terms would have been a real bonus for those of us not from North Carolina. Did these minor complaints keep me from enjoying the book? Heck no, and I can't wait for Frazier's next novel - I may even reread Cold Mountain, or one of his travel books - and I'll surely read his next book before reading any of its reviews. I am so glad I read these reviews AFTER I read the book!
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