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Cold Mountain: A Novel

Cold Mountain: A Novel
By Charles Frazier

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Product Description

In 1997, Charles Frazier’s debut novel Cold Mountain made publishing history when it sailed to the top of The New York Times best-seller list for sixty-one weeks, won numerous literary awards, including the National Book Award, and went on to sell over three million copies. Now, the beloved American epic returns, reissued by Grove Press to coincide with the publication of Frazier’s eagerly-anticipated second novel, Thirteen Moons. Sorely wounded and fatally disillusioned in the fighting at Petersburg, a Confederate soldier named Inman decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge mountains to Ada, the woman he loves. His trek across the disintegrating South brings him into intimate and sometimes lethal converse with slaves and marauders, bounty hunters and witches, both helpful and malign. At the same time, the intrepid Ada is trying to revive her father’s derelict farm and learning to survive in a world where the old certainties have been swept away. As it interweaves their stories, Cold Mountain asserts itself as an authentic odyssey, hugely powerful, majestically lovely, and keenly moving.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #270929 in Books
  • Published on: 2006-08-31
  • Format: Bargain Price
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 464 pages

Customer Reviews

The Civil War as Seen Through the Eyes of Two Lovers5
This is a beautifully written book. The language is rich and flows in a narrative of different
voices juxtaposed throughout the novel. The writing reminded me of Mark Helprin's.

The story takes place during the Civil War in the United States. A Confederate soldier, Inman,
deserts the army after he has a serious injury. He treks across the southern states in order to
get back to the love of his life, Ada. The chapters rotate between Ada's and Inman's stories.

Inman meets interesting, barbaric, vicious and victimized people, all who have been ravaged
by the Civil War. His journey is physically and emotionally exhausting and he is traumatized
by the violence he sees around him.

Ada is becoming a mature woman as she learns to work her farm with the help of a female
hired hand who becomes her friend. Ada's journey through the years is primarily one of
personal growth.

While this novel is rich and metaphorical, I wish I had a clearer sense of who these people
were without the spectre of war. All that they are becomes defined through the eyes of
violence of seemingly eternal duration. Perhaps that is what Frazier sought to accomplish
in his characterization.

I highly recommend this novel.

Archaic in it's rawest natural form.5
Wow. What a fantastic book. The language was archaic, the characters and story evidence of a civilization long ago lost, but still remembered and voiced by Frazier. The love story is absolutely fantastic, I think the sacrifices Inman and Ada make shows the human being is still capable of godlike proportions. The way Frazier describes history in this book is like none other, keeps to its roots and pays homage to the true pioneers of our past. Overall, the language is beautiful! And the way the author describes nature!!!! Holy CRAP!!!! The part when Ruby asks Ada to describe what she sees and hears, with Ada responding "trees" is absolutely amazing.
One of the best books ever. I loved it.

If you are seeking a Great American Novel, look no further4
Cold Mountain is about as 'Great American Novel' as you can get. The Civil War is a spectacular backdrop, and is as fully a character as any individual. The land of Western North Carolina, rendered with great detail, is equally so. The characters themselves are well drawn and will linger in your mind like the tinged daguerreotypes of the period--which is to say, these aren't 'psychological' contemporary characters, but rather they emerge in bits and pieces and outline, like reading letters from Ken Burns' Civil War. They become semi-legendary over the long swathes of time between us and them. Indeed, one of the singular achievements of Cold Mountain is that it is written in style that would not likely have been alien to the denizens of that century, without being forced to today's reader. The author's mastery of concrete detail grounds the legendary quality of the characters, the recurring symbolism especially of crows, and the philosophical ideas--these sometimes become a little too heavy-handed and explicit, occasionally lapsing into telling rather than just showing.

Many people characterize Cold Mountain as a 'love story', but I don't think it is essentially so--one could as easily characterize it as a 'war novel.' I suggest it is best situated in the tradition of the Odyssey-- the journey is the thing, a man trying to find his way home and a woman trying to make a home, and the striving to create and find meaning, truth, and stability in an often harsh and uncertain world.

My one reservation about the book are the three or so odd pages of epilogue. The epilogue mars the book's overall achievement, and is clearly a sentimental sop to a (perhaps editorial?) demand for some kind of Hollywood happy ending. It is a lapse.

If you have a choice, it's better to spend a couple hours reading this book partially, than watching the entirety of the movie, with the wildly miscast Jude Law and Nicole Kidman.

'Cold Mountain', except for the epilogue, should be on every American's 'lifetime to do' reading book list.