cold mountain

Reader response to Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

7-3-06
It's about 350 pages long, and REALLY SLOW GOING. More update later.

7-7-06

I'd like to start off by saying one thing: If you've seen the movie, you've read the book. If you like civil war novels and survival stories, you'll love this book. I was sorely disappointed with it. The movie is so romantic... it kind of set my sights on that... but this was really far from the movie portrayal.
A few qualms:
1)IT TOOK ME 8 DAYS TO READ IT! last week i read a book of equal length in 2 STINKING DAYS! GAH! It's a very slow read. That annoyed the hell out of me.
2) There are a myriad of side stories. i found them distracting and boring at certain points.

on the up side:
I liked the back and forth narration. One chapter would focus on Inman, and the next would focus on Ada and Ruby. I love the movie version of Ruby more, but she is certainly a strong character.

There are some strong differences between the book and the movie, but the ending is the same for both.

nevertheless... i found some awesome gems.... witty and very romantic.

"Inman had but the back of her head to find Ada by, yet that took only a moment since her dark hair was done up in a heavy and intricate plait of such recent fashin that it was not then known in the mountains. Below where her hair was twisted up, two faint cords of muscle ran up under the skin on either side of her white neck to hold her head on. Between them a scoop, a shaded hollow of skin. Curls too fine to be worked up into the plait. All through the hymn, Inman's eyes rested there, so that after a while, even before he saw her face, all he wanted was to press two fingertips against that mystery place" (60).

oh to be loved like that... just to be admired from across the room.... to have a man fall in love with the shape of your neck.

"--That's just pain, she said. It goes eventually. And when it's gone, there's no lasting memory. Not the worst of it, anyway. It fades. Our minds aren't made to hold on to the particulars of pain the way we do bliss. It's a gift God gives us, a sign of His care for us" (219).

"To Ada, though, it seemed akin to miracle that Stobrod, of all people, should offer himself up as proof positive that no matter what a waste one has made of one's life, it is ever possible to find some path to redemption, however partial" (234).

"As he looked about the room, Inman was suddenly aware of his filth. In this clean, closed space he found that his clothes threw a powerful reek from the gathered sweat of his long walking. his boots and pant legs were caked muddy to the shins, and he left tracks as he stepped. He considereded taking the boots off but feared that his socks would stink like rotted meat. It had been some time since he had last gone unshod. The cabin was not an old one and still held a faint crisp smell of dressed timbers, chestnut and hickory, and Inman felt marked and at odds with their bouquet" (239).

"The man had a big round head which sat unbalanced on him like God was being witty about making the insides of it so small" (262). LMAO

"When Stobrod struck bow to fiddle strings, the Pangle boy sometimes tried to sing along, but he had a voice like blowing a duck call" (263).

"They did not talk much while they ate, other than for Ada to say that the Georgia boy did not seem like much of a one as far as men went. Ruby said she found him not particularly worse than the general order of men, which is to say that he would greatly benefit from having someone's foot in his back every waking minute" (300). HEH

"To live fully in a place all your life, you kept aiming smaller and smaller in attention to detail" (307).

"--I've been trying to know what you're thinking. But I can't come to it. So I'll just say out plain what's on my mind. It's that we can do without him. You might think we can't, but we can. We're just starting. I've got a cision in my mind of how that cove needs to be. And I know what needs doing to get there. The crops and animals. Land and buildings. It will take a long time. But I know how to get there. War or peace, there's not a thing we can't do ourselves. You don't need him" (325). i love Ruby.

"--What I'm certain I don't want, she finally said aloud, is to find myself someday in a new century, and old bitter woman looking back, wishing right now I'd had more nerve" (325).

"He took his hands from where he held them to warm at the fire and touched his fingertips to his face to see if they were still cold as the nub ends of icicles. He found them unexpectedly warm. They felt not at all like the parts of a weapon. He reched to Ada's dark hair, which lay loose on her back, and he gathered it into a thick bunch in his hand. He lifted it with one hand, and with the fingertips of the other he brushed the hollow of her neck. He let the hair fall back into place and he kissed her on the crown of her head and took in the remembered smell of her hair. He leaned back and pulled her against him, her waist into his stomach, her shoulders into his chest.
She fit her head under his chin, and he could feel her weight settle onto him. He held her tight and words spilled out of him without prior composition. And this time he made no effort to clamp his jaw and pinch them off. He told her abou tthe first time he had looked on the back of her neck as she sat in the church pew. Of the feeling that had never let go of him since. He talked to her of the great waste of years between then and now. A long time gone[...] Nevertheless, over all those wasted years, he had held in his mind the wish to kiss her there at the back of her neck, and now he had done it. There was a redemption of some kind, he believed in such complete fulfillment of a desire so long deferred" (334).

goosebumps. waiting to touch the back of someone's neck for 4 years. that's dedication. and a little psychotic. but where would romance be without both?

Sadly, this one does not receive the Word Nerd Seal of Approval. It's a grown up version of hatchet and how i live now.... only much much much longer..... it takes a lot of patience to read this book... patience that i really don't have time for. but hey, i'd recommend it for history buffs who love the civil war.

there are some very inappropriate spots concerning sexual activity and some swearing... but nothing too graphic.

overall a nice read... but exhausting!