Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
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Book Reviews of Cold Mountain
Book Review: A Warm and Embracing Breeze Blows through Cold Mountain
Summary: 4 Stars
I began this story without any sort of enthusiasm. I had decided that the boredom of reading a book of a movie I had already seen would be agonizing; however, I picked the novel up, and read on the inside cover, a quote by Darwin: " It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war of organic beings, going on in the peaceful woods, & smiling fields." This must have been when I understood the story was about to transport me to a time of fear and tolerance. A time of hate and beauty. A time of horror and insight. A time of love. That world seemed so far away, and I had never envisioned making such a connection to characters from so long ago. But the truth of the story does not die. It is a universal truth. Every person, everywhere questions his or her existence. Each and every one of us is curious enough to wonder why we are what we are, why we do what we do. Frazier simply wrote the anthem for us all. No matter our location, opinions, beliefs, whatever, we are all of inquisitive nature.
Frazier's eloquent language described the internal and external conflicts of each of the character's strife. His deep and cryptic imagery incorporates symbolism as well as beauty that paint a beautiful, intricate picture for the reader. Even more, Frazier is successfully able to illustrate the sound of fiddle music. I don't believe I've ever read a passage depicting the resonance of music that made me hear the music ringing in my ears:
This was softer, more meditative, yet nevertheless grim as death. When the minor key drifted in it was like shadows under trees, and the piece called up something of dark woods, lantern light. It was awful old music in one of the ancient modalities, music that sums up a culture and is the true expression of its inner life....Pangle's use of the thumb on the fifth string and dropping to the second was an especial thing of arrogant wonder. It was like the ringing of a dinner bell, yet solemn. His other two fingers worked in a mere hard, groping style, but one honed to brutish perfection...There was a deliberation, a study, to their clamping of the strings that was wholly absent from the reckless bowing of the right hand. What lyric Stobrod sang recounted a dream--his or some fictive speaker's--said to have been dreamed on a bed of hemlocks and containing a rich vision of lost love, the passage of awful time, a girl wearing a mantle of green. The words without music would have seemed hardly fuller in detail than a telegraphic message, but together they made a complete world.
When I read that, I could not begin to comprehend the enormity of the impact the book had had on me thus far. If looking for a run-of-the-mill Civil War story full of dashing young heroes and elegant Southern Belles, this book is not for you. This book tells so much more. It explains the beauty of love intertwined with the beauty of nature and destructions of war. This novel is beautiful. Well-written, explanatory, relevant, beautiful. Everyone should read it sometime or another.
Book Review: Cold Mountain: there's no through trail
Summary: 4 Stars
Men ask the way to Cold Mountain.
Cold Mountain: there's no through trail. - Han-shan
Cold Mountain is a beautiful story of a soldier who is trying to return home to his pre-Civil war fiance, Ada.
The novel itself is based upon local folklore and stories that author Charles Frazier's ancestors passed down through generations. The soldier's name is Inman and what makes his journey so difficult is that he is wounded and he is traveling though an environment which most likely looked like the videos we see on msnbc of ravaged war struck locations.
Inman's journey home reminded me of those Homer epics that we read in school only this story did not have its genesis in ancient Greece but in America during the Civil War. There is a Cold Mountain and it is located in North Carolina within the Pigsah National Forest. There also was a real Inman who was named William Pinkney and he served in the Confederate army and though Frazier wrote a book of fiction; much is related to Frazier's ancestor (William Pinkney) and what transpired in his own life.
So with the third part of Bartram's Travels in hand, a wounded Inman starts out his journey to return home not knowing what he will find when he gets there. A lot has happened and the war has changed everything. The book and the story of the wanderer named Flower Gatherer by the Cherokee gave Inman happiness with its beautiful images and these same images became indelibly bright when he continued his journey much like Flower Gatherer.
The writing is beautiful and the ending not what is expected or hoped for; but haunting nonetheless.
"When Ada reached the story's conclusion, and the old lovers after long years together in peace and harmony had turned to oak and linden, it was full dark. The night was growing cool, and Ada put the book away."
War changes everything and how we relate to each other and these changes in the landscape, ourselves and others are key themes.
A worthwhile book.
Book Review: Cold Mountain
Summary: 4 Stars
I thought the book was very good overall and I would highly recommend it to someone who likes war stories or romance novels.At first I thought the book was boring because of all the descriptions is used. It describes a lot of stuff about the characters lives in great detail. Without all the detail though I don't think the book would be complete. It gives you such a good outlook on the persons life and makes you feel like you are that person living with them at that time, at that moment.
This book is about a wounded soldier who is trying to get home to Ada the girl he loves. Along the way he encounters many obstacles. Although people say war can morph peoples minds at times to where they cannot tell good from bad, Inman does only what he has to do to survive which unfortunately means killing a few people. He goes out of his way to help people even when it means he could be caught and turned in.
I don't want to give away the rest or the story so I will just let you read it to find out if he gets home or not. I loved the book overall and I would highly recommend it to everyone. It's fantastic so try it!
Book Review: Room for forgiveness
Summary: 4 Stars
In this Civil War South so richly drawn by Charles Frazier, every creature -- man or beast -- knows many enemies.
Horses must be shot to conceal how they came to be riderless. Squirrels become food in times of scarcity. A young goat, petted in a scene of domestic tranquility, is soon drained of its blood and roasted. A flogging rooster is divested of his foul temper, and with it his head.
But the greatest foe of all is, of course, the war itself. Men and boys leave their families to die. Women and babies left behind know little comfort and cower in fear of every knock upon the door. If a Confederate soldier endures beyond a battle and moves homeward, he lives in danger of those who would call him deserter. And those who would give him haven are not much safer.
But among the ravaged landscape, there is also room for forgiveness and healing. A father prone to drink and abandonment earns his daughter's love. And the memory of a stolen moment fuels one man with the drive to go on. To return, for whatever time he can, to the land he knows and the comfort of a woman's touch.
Book Review: Once more, with feeling
Summary: 4 Stars
I wrote this review when the book was brand new, but am just now getting around to posting some of my older stuff. My take then: "It's time for GONE WITH THE WIND to move over, the Civil War has finally produced a great novel. This story of a perilous journey across North Carolina and an equally difficult journey of the heart rings far truer than other accounts of the era, and affirms ones faith in modern readers (many months a best seller) and the literary establishment (National Book Award). My enthusiasm for Frazier's first novel is doubtless reinforced by the setting, these mountains I have chosen as home, which he paints in telling detail. Frazier's war is not heroic but brutally pointless. The protagonists only wish to survive into a better time."