Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Cold Mountain
Book Review: A Dark Look on Humanity
Summary: 5 Stars
The juxtaposition of the two tales of Ada's development of her farm and Inman's journey back to her, bring out the cruelty of humanity. Ada can sit on her porch reading literature and eating warm meals while Inman walks miles through cold mountains, days without food and being subjected to unspeakable cruelties. Eventually, the cruelty of man will reach Ada and this is an important point. I found myself thinking how trivial my life is as a civilian, complaining about the stupid war in Iraq and completely ignorant of the suffering of our service men and women serving there. The message for me is how futile war in general is and how hard it is for civilians to appreciate the sacrifices made. A telling point of the story is when Inman walks by the large plantation houses and thinks how he has suffered so the slave owners can keep their way of life. The story is powerful and dark. At times I thought I could not continue reading the book, but I'm glad I fought through it.Book Review: A Journey Worth Taking
Summary: 5 Stars
Simply put, Charles Frazier's debut novel is about 'going home'. Written with a pace and tone that evokes images of gray bleakness and stark countryside, Cold Mountain resonates with hope in the ugliest of arenas--the Civil War. But this is not a war novel. It's a story of human triumph against the fiercest of odds. That being said, Cold Mountain is not a page-turner. It's a book that at times feels as difficult and cumbersome to get through as the journey of the main character. But it's more than worth the effort. Frazier's prose makes you feel the bitter North Carolina winter down to your bones, the fear & anxiety of being hunted, the steadfast desire to be with your lover and the gut-wrenching resolve to fight your way home. A 'must' for any serious reader. Salmon RunBook Review: A Long Way to Walk to Get Laid
Summary: 1 Stars
Inman, the protagonist, part Jeremiah Johnson, part the Outlaw Josey Wales, part John Muir, is one of the most ridiculously unbelievable characters in the history of modern fiction. He has no flaws. Temptations on the road?; he eschews them. Wrongs being exacted on the dispossessed?; he rectifies them, usually chivalrously or gallantly. Starving?; he finds food. Shot and buried alive?; he rises from his interment and staggers off. To the woman he loves, this preposterous beacon he's focused on. Frazier is what I call a flora and fauna novelist. He's one of those writers who has assiduously researched the time down to the tiniest fern, or snail. We admire his research. We admire his prose rendering of all this flora and fauna. But when you strip that away you're left with a story so absurd -- see the movie if you don't believe me -- that it defies credulity. Incontrovertibly, one of the most overrated novels of the past ten years. Don't believe me? Read his second book. This one-trick pony did a major face plant. He's finished now, of course. But he's got enough money for three lifetimes so he can drink himself into a stupor and never again have to write about all those plants and animals and cerulean skies. A great southern literary con.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: A beautiful novel
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a book that I didn't want to finish, not because it wasn't good, but because I loved reading it so much. A great narrative. It is beautifully written: eloquent, expressive, powerful, moving. This is a book to own, to keep on your shelf and re-read year after year.