Cold Mountain: A Novel
by Charles Frazier
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Book Summary Information
Author: Charles FrazierEdition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2006-08-31
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: Grove Press
Book Reviews of Cold Mountain: A Novel
Book Review: "A critic is to an author as a fungus to an oak." - Edward Abbey, Vox Clamantis in Deserto
Summary: 5 Stars
Keats wrote "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer." I might write "On Finishing Frazier's Cold Mountain." I am stating upfront & at the onset that I loved this book.
Cold Mountain is essentially a war novel. Observation is its major theme. Then survival & what it means. For some reason, the publisher decided to market it as a romantic love-against-all-odds novel. It is not. Romance, as a theme, is probably tertiary at best. Even food, & the getting of it, take on much larger importance than Love.
Cold Mountain takes place during the American Civil War, and so describes scenes of brutality and horror. A writer, given war as his subject, could epically sound the bugle and rally the troops. Frazier does not do this. His war is a grey one, confused by its own momentum and purpose. His Spartan imagery conveys the apocalyptic backdrop of war, and he uses his minimalist language to the advantage of the reader's imagination. "The glance reveals what the gaze obscures," said Emerson. It is elegantly rich in its sparsity.
This is Frazier's first book. Its contents must have been simmering for years, reducing & reducing, becoming rich & stocky. Salted with wonderfully archaic cadence & vocabulary, his hard-nosed language drives like a plow, a rich long furrow sprouting prose-poems. Pommes de Terre. Earth apples. Brown & rich.
An example of his antediluvian tongue is his use of the word `sputcheon'. I have a habit of looking-up any new word I come across in my reading, & call me old fashioned, but I like to use an actual dictionary (Google doesn't do it for me). I looked in the many dictionaries I have on my "reference shelf", & none contained it. I went to the library, & even the multi-volume tombstone-sized dictionaries were silent on the meaning of this elusive word. I finally did what I should have done in the first place: I consulted the mighty Oxford English Dictionary. For those who don't know, the OED (as it is affectionately referred to by almost everyone who is familiar with it) is the world's largest dictionary, containing every English word to ever exist. The Second Edition is a 20-volume work weighing over 137 lbs & contains more than 2.4 million quotations. The OED had this to say: "Sputcheon- [of obscure origin] Mouth-piece of a sword-scabbard." The first appearance of this word in print is from an 1842 Naval & Military technical dictionary in an entry on the Battle de la cuvette.
The prevailing feeling of the novel is listlessness, the sense of being unmoored- the hawsers thrown off & the tide & current captain. The reader is in the role of Observer, & Life's dramatic events play out.
The book's detractors will say it could be edited down to 200 pages instead of the 400+ it is, but I say those critics have no idea of the Soul of the book. Like one of the many long twisted dusty brown roads Frazier writes about, the novel is seemingly endless in parts. The overall narrative ceases to matter, & the microcosm of the scene takes over. The prose-poetry is its own justification, a pleasure to read. That it rambles is not a bad thing: like taking the scenic route on a drive, you do not want to get from A to B in a straight line.
Cold Mountain is not cerebral but visceral. It is a work of bravura, lusty & evocative along the lines of Whitman or Wolfe, but stunted & plebeian. It drips with hog lard & wood smoke & blood & flame & stove ash. It is blood & mud pooled `til they become indistinguishable, one ferrous liquid screaming "death!"
Though the book deals with division & fratricide, Frazier's message is that under the thumb of war, hunger, thirst, & cold, we are all American brethren.
I recommend this book to anyone willing to trudge through swamps & deep dank mossy forests. In fact, if ever wondering how to spend that next beautiful summer day, my advice is to stick Cold Mountain in a back-pack & head out to the nearest neck of woods, find a nice lonely spot & plop down.
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