Cold Mountain
2 journalers for this copy...
One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain is a masterpiece that is at once an enthralling adventure, a stirring love story, and a luminous evocation of a vanished American in all its savagery, solitude, and spelndor.
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 woman 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 father's derelict farm and learn 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 American Odyssey -- hugely powerful, majestically lovely, and keenly moving.
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 woman 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 father's derelict farm and learn 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 American Odyssey -- hugely powerful, majestically lovely, and keenly moving.
I have this problem with award-winning movies - you know, the ones that are released to immediate, overwhelming acclaim; the ones that sweep the Oscars; the ones that everyone is talking about, but only a handful of your more artsy friends have seen. They always disappoint me.
Award-winning books tend to fare better than films, but neither media did it for me in the case of Cold Mountain. I really wanted to like the book - the characters were interesting and different, and I hadn't read a "period" piece in a while.
Overall, I just think I was in the wrong mood to read a book with this much suffering. Frazier really runs his characters through the ringer, and by the end of it I was exhausted and miserable for them. It was very well written, though, and the story does have some incredible high notes, so I'm hoping the next reader can enjoy the story and its beautiful descriptions more than I could. Maybe I'll revisit it another time and see if my opinion changes.
Award-winning books tend to fare better than films, but neither media did it for me in the case of Cold Mountain. I really wanted to like the book - the characters were interesting and different, and I hadn't read a "period" piece in a while.
Overall, I just think I was in the wrong mood to read a book with this much suffering. Frazier really runs his characters through the ringer, and by the end of it I was exhausted and miserable for them. It was very well written, though, and the story does have some incredible high notes, so I'm hoping the next reader can enjoy the story and its beautiful descriptions more than I could. Maybe I'll revisit it another time and see if my opinion changes.
Journal Entry 3 by wyldanthem at 2011 BookCrossing Convention in -- Mail or by hand-rings, RABCK, meetings, etc, Virginia USA on Thursday, April 14, 2011
Released 13 yrs ago (4/16/2011 UTC) at 2011 BookCrossing Convention in -- Mail or by hand-rings, RABCK, meetings, etc, Virginia USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Planned release at the main book buffet at the 2011 Convention in Washington, D.C.!
The 2011 BookCrossing Convention will be held April 15-17 in Washington, D.C.! Find out more at the official Convention Web site: http://www.bcindc.zoiks.org
The 2011 BookCrossing Convention will be held April 15-17 in Washington, D.C.! Find out more at the official Convention Web site: http://www.bcindc.zoiks.org
Picked up from the table of temptation. On to the very big pile it goes
it has made it to Australia. Sorry if it takes a while for me to get to it
Many thanks for regsitering and sharing it
Many thanks for regsitering and sharing it
