Search - Cold Mountain

Some people may just adore this book. For some reason, I have never been able to get into it. I've attempted to read this book several times, and just lose interest. Perhaps this book will do better in the hands of another reader.

So many have given this book enthusiastic reviews and called it great literature. I did not like it, nor did I consider it great writing.

I know it is fiction, but I wonder how accurately it portrays the time of the Civil War. I think the author has taken a current worldview and applied it to that time. There is no authentic Christianity in it. All of the characters that Inman meets on his travels home are crude or criminals or primative. I know that is probably to set the mood of the times, but I think there was some (if not much) geniune Christianity, true religion that gave the hopeless hope during that desperate time. Look at how many in our country turned to religion (in some form or another) after the 9/11 attacks.

I read over three-fourths of the way through it, skimmed through the rest, then just decided to not finish reading it carefully. I thought the ending was unsatisfying.

I have read books that did not have happy, neatly wrapped up endings (such as Cancer Ward, The Chosen). I do not think this book in the same category as these.

This is about a man who is making is way home from the Civil War after being injured. (Through the North Carolina Mountains) His drive is behind a woman he barely knows. The story goes back and forth between his journey and what is happening in her life as he is making his way. I enjoyed the depiction of what life was like in the mountains during this time. How hard life was. How hard you had to work to survive. I enjoyed it so much, it made me wants to learn to grow and cook like they did. Just to get the feeling

This is the worst book I ever read. The characters were weak, the story line was poor and it was a depressing tale that I really had to struggle to read.

A little wordy on the descriptions of the landscapes, but that plays into Inman's long walk home. More adventures than recounted in the movie. I love Ruby and her views on men and war. It's a very good book, and works as a love story, an "odessey" and as historical fiction that shows the reader what the civil war meant to individuals - women, soldier, outlier, slaves, families. Details about the home gaurd and some of the crazy-desperate people were really enlightening about a time that we so often aggrandize and only learn about from the history book perspective.

The book was better than the movie. But, they usually are.