Book Reviews of Cold Mountain

This book is so well written and the research the author did shows in his depiction of life during the Civil War. This is a world turned upside down by war, and the male protagonist is on a journey home after seeing humanity at its worst. Meanwhile the female lead is trying to learn how to maintain a farm after the death of her father leaves her penniless. Everyone these people encounter have stories, myths, and legends to tell. It's a travel tale in the mold of The Odyssey. There is a lot of substance here, I think it deserves a second reading to pick up on some of the themes the author left half-buried in the tale for the reader to find. There are some gruesome sections (usually having to do with hunting or battles) and there is some use of "the 'n' word" (though not in an overly pejorative way), if either of those bother you a great deal be warned.

One of my favorite stories. This is truly difficult to part with but I would love it if someone else can enjoy it as much as I did. Beware, the first 100 pages or so are kind of gruesome but once you get past that the characters shine!

This is one of the few times I actually liked the movie better than the book and that's not saying much. There were only a few points in the story when I really cared about what was going on. About half way through I wished I was a person who could stop reading a book in the middle, but I have a hard time not finishing a book. I'm glad I kept reading because at least I'm not a quitter, but I don't feel like I gained much by reading this book.
Most of the chapters surrounding Inman, I could have really cared less. I was really tired of the trompsing through the woods stuff. I understand what the author was doing with this book, I just didn't find it entertaining, entralling or inspiring in any way.”

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

A Civil War Soldier deserts after the battle of Peterborough, when the Union blew up explosives in a tunnel. The story covers the harrowing events leading up to his return to his village.

This story was a good historical story, but I found it boring, dull, and depressing. It took me a whole month just to read it! I just had a hard time keeping my interest going on this story. I have the movie of this story and I have seen it, but didn't pay that much attention to it. I thought I would read the story to feel me in on confused parts of the movie, but it was too hard to keep focus on this type of wording in this book. Just not my style of wording and had trouble trying to understand it. The wording was all hick slang.

What I did get out of the story was that Ada had Inman's baby out of wedlock, a girl. I asume that Inman had died in that battle with the young boy on Cold Mountain before Ada found Inman. Ada and Inman didn't get married because he died, which I found disturbing. I think he should have survived.

You know I think the movie left that child out completely, but I am going to see that movie again and pay attention.

This is one of my favorite books and I have purposely stayed away from the movie because of it. Charles Frazier writes beautifully, and the descriptions of the region inspired me to visit that area a while back. I recommend this book to everyone.

The history of the war was fascinating for me on this one, and the endurance of the characters was touching, with all they went through.

My fiancee read this book and loved it so much he bought the hardcover edition to keep in his library.

I didn't know this way in book form unti'll now, but I've seen the movie a few times now and LOVEE it!!

"Powerful, majestic, moving. As close to a masterpiece as American writing is going to come these days."

good

Well,I can say I tried...to finish this book.If you go to Amazon's "buy this book",you can read both good and bad reviews.I agreed with the critical one.

I liked the movie but just couldn't get into this book. I read a third of it after I borrowed it from my mother-in-law but finally returned it after a year of not picking it up to finish it.

Both book & movie were good, but the charachters are grittier in the book. There were a few hunting scenes that were hard for me to read, but I overall enjoyed it.

Loved this book!!

Excellent book. If I had to choose between the book and the movie, I'd choose the book.

Great book! Read it before seeing the movie to get the most out of it!

A great love story about a man wounded in the civil war and his struggle to get back home. Was also a very good movie.

Sorely wounded and fatally disillusioned in the fighting at Petersburg, Inman, a Confederate soldier decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains and to Ada, the women he loved there years before. 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, Ada is trying to revive her fathers derelict farm and learn to survive in a world where the old certainties have been swept away.

Hailed a masterpiece by critics and made in a major motion picture, Cold Mountain takes place during the Civil War when a confederate soldier, wounded and disallusioned decides to walk home to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the woman he loved before the war. This book interweaves the stories of both Charles and Ada (his love) to show the aftermath of the war and a country forever changed. A true tale of survival.

Read the book. Watched the movie. Both were great. I loved Bette Midler in the movie. But if you haven't read the book, its a must. Great wonderful story. Spellbounding. Loved it.

This is one of the few books that I've started that I just couldn't get through. It gave me nightmares. The writing style wasn't easy to me...it seemed as if the author was being crude for the sake of being crude. Now, I know things in the setting of the story were difficult and were crude, but I thought the story could have been written better. Crudeness can be used to emphasize, rather than in everything just for the heck of it!

An enthralling adventure, a stirring love story, and a luminous evocation of a vanished America in all its savagery, solitude, and splendor. Post Civil War era set in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

As good as the movie! Puts you in the "Southern" mode

One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, it is a masterpiece that is at once an enthralling adventure, a stirring love story, and a luminous evocation of a vanished America in all its savagery, solitude and splendor.

I liked the book and the descriptions of the toils encountered by the women during the era. The ending was depressing.

***** Very good Civil War story/love story.

List $14.95
Book in very good used condtion.

A little long at times, but I really enjoyed it.

I thought it was very slow and depressing, but a lot of my friends that liked the movie liked the novel as well.

Didn't like this as much as I thought I would

hardback copy

Cold Mountain is the story of Inman, a wounded and soul-sick Confederate soldier who, like his literary fellow-traveler Odysseus, has quit the field of battle only to find the way home littered with impediments and prowled by adversaries. Inman's Penelope is Ada, a headstrong belle who has forsaken her place in Charleston society in order to accompany her father -- a tubercular southern gentleman turned missionary -- to a new home in the healthy mountain air of North Carolina. Frazier divides the narrative between Inman's homeward progress and Ada's struggle to make it on her own after her father dies, establishing an underlying tension that is at once subtle and irresistible.

I read this book twice - it was excellent!!

A great fictional Civil War story laced with details of life of the
South.

Just like the movie!

An epic love story, set against the background of Civil War-era America. Inman, a Confederate soldeir, makes his way back home to Ada while encountering numerous trials and tragedies along the way. This book is the basis for the Oscar-winning movie "Cold Mountain".

very good,out in movie now.