Cold Mountain
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$14.95
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$10.17
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Manufacturer: Grove Press
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780802142849
ISBN: 0802142842
Label: Grove Press
Manufacturer: Grove Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 464
Publication Date: 2006-08-31
Publisher: Grove Press
Studio: Grove Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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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.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Boring....What is all the Hype about?
Comment: THIS could have been a good book, but just could not hold my interest. It was boring for all but maybe 100 pages. If this book was edited down, maybe. A good story line and this would probably make a great movie. There was too much babble, i found it hard to concentrate and enjoy. This book has been winning awards???? I know several people who put it down after 100 pages. It is just not gripping, although it could have been.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Ultimately Left Me Cold
Comment: Wounded while fighting in the Civil War, Inman, a Confederate soldier, decides to leave the hospital and walk to his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains to find Ada Munroe, the woman he loved before heading off to war. His journey will be an epic one filled with danger, death, and destruction. As he trudges towards her, Ada is in a struggle of her own - a struggle to revive her deceased father's farm and survive in a world brutalized by war.
While it had some good moments "Cold Mountain" ultimately failed to move me. It is very slow paced and at times I wondered when something was going to happen only to realize that plenty had happened including murder but it wasn't exciting enough to keep me interested. Author Charles Frazier does do a good job of depicting how horrible the Civil War was for those who fought it and for those left behind who never knew when soldiers might come and take their homes. In the end there is plenty of violence in the book, but it is written about so matter of factly that there's no emotional involvement for the reader. Frazier does create memorable characters; although Inman is a little too good and resourceful a character and Ada left me cold. Ruby is the standout character - a strong no-nonsense woman. While the focus of the book is supposed to be the love story between Inman and Ada, I felt that it wasn't developed enough and I never felt that the two of them really loved each other. Frazier tries hard by putting in some flashbacks showing how they met and their relationship before the war, but the flashbacks felt awkwardly placed and written. Finally, the ending seemed like a cop out.
"Cold Mountain" had its moments, but ultimately left me cold.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Left me cold
Comment: I was hoping for so much more! The hype over the book and movie led me to believe this would be an incredible experience. But after trudging through mountains of adjectives describing cold weather and battle wounds, the story fell flat in the end...very unsatisfying for me.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An incredible addition to the canon of modern American literature...
Comment: This is one of the few books that I have ever read more than once. Frazier paints a realistic, engaging story of a man and a woman's journey through hell to be with each other. His vivid descriptions will keep you reading long after you should have put the book down and went to bed. I can completely identify with Inman's disillusionment with war, and his steadfastness to seek the one person that means something to him, despite the obstacles that nature, the war, and fate throw in has path. Unreservedly, this is one of the best books I have ever read. Skip the film, and read the book instead
Customer Rating:
Summary: More than just a 'heroe's quest'
Comment: I started reading this book four years ago, during winter break, and put it down fifty pages in, swearing that I would finish reading it as soon as projects, homework, and life let up. During the four years that I let the book sit, those fifty pages haunted me. I'd already seen the movie, knew how it would end up, more or less - but what I wanted to know was what Frazier said about it. What was the lesson about life, the aphorism I could pack up and take away with me at the story's end? When I finished reading it this time, I found it.
Some people say that this is just a regular old 'heroe's quest': man sets out on a journey to return to the woman he loves, and encounters a lot of obstacles and temptations (think: The Odyssey) along the way. And sure, Inman comes across as a hero; flawless, brave, repentant, ever-loving.
But the real hardships for him happen on the inside. His problem is not that he's being shot at during his journey home, his problem is that he himself has done shooting. Killed. That he himself has participated in the war machine, taken lives, broken some part of himself. The real question - for Inman at least - is how to recover his damaged soul. How can you love or be loved after you've done the unthinkable?
Dealing with that question, providing some sort of answer, consolation, hope, is what this story does best. If you've ever done something you think was irrevocably wrong, think you've ruined whatever chance at happiness you may have had, hurt your beloved, hurt yourself, wasted years: no matter what you've done, there is some sort of redemption for you. You can 'grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self,' but in the end you can overcome it,. you can find a purpose, you can become whole again. The most powerful message of the book, the one that makes this book worth reading, that might, if you're hurting, put you back on track, is this: 'People can be mended.'
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