This is an amazing book that is truly rich in language and imagery.

I simply couldn't put it down, and even to this day, which is perhaps 10 or more years later, I remember it vividly.

I absolutely loved it. The book delves into the history of real people during the civil war, such as the Cherokee who were forced from their lands.

It also描绘s the deep and penetrating wilderness of the mountains and the characters who struggled to survive there.

There's the woman with the goats, and the way she, with a tender loving hold on one of her kits while scratching its ears, killed it so quickly that it was probably never remotely aware of its coming end.

There's the girl in the cabin with the frail baby who hid Iman, and how he saw that the baby was probably not long for the world.

It tells of his journey through the forests and the young woman's journey from privilege to mere survival, and the unlikely friendship she made with the other young woman.

This is a great book. Really, it's an outstanding book. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who is fascinated by history and loves really good writing.

I'm a tad bit conflicted.

I truly loved the story that "Cold Mountain" presented. However, the writing itself frustrated me to some extent. I had the impression that it lacked a cohesive narrative flow. It's not a particularly long book, yet it took me an extended amount of time to finish, a full 10 days!

Despite these flaws, the real gem of this book was Inman's arduous journey back home and the unforgettable characters he encountered along the way. Most specifically, Veasey the pastor and Odell the peddler left a lasting impression. Charles Frazier did a superb job of incorporating the rich history and captivating legends of the Cherokee nation in and around Cold Mountain. He also vividly described the Home Guards' search for Outliers.

I really appreciated how the love story between Ada and Inman was not portrayed in a sappy manner but was rather poignant and tender. It's truly extraordinary that this tale was based on Frazier's own family history. Overall, "Cold Mountain" is a fine piece of Southern Lit and Civil War fiction that is worthy of all the praise it has received. I'm extremely glad that I dug this one out from the bottom of my TBR pile.

Reading Road Trip 2020

Current location: North Carolina

He firmly adhered to the concept of another world, a superior place, and he supposed that Cold Mountain could be its location as much as anywhere else. Just like Inman, I have been striving to reach Cold Mountain for numerous years. My initial inspiration stemmed from a dear Tar Heel next-door neighbor family who acquainted me with sweet tea, red velvet cake, and unhurried speech. They made homemade ice cream in the summers while standing on the patio barefoot and grew vegetables from soil the color of coffee grounds, while the rest of us gazed down at the Florida sand, aware that nothing would grow there.
The Tar Heel husband of this family would alternately shower his wife with affection in a demonstrative manner I had never seen before, and then occasionally brandish a gun after consuming too much moonshine and wave it menacingly in the air, terrifying his wife and all three daughters. Somehow, order would always be restored the next day. I have always known that these were my people.
I have toyed with the idea of moving to North Carolina at several different points in my adult life, but the closest I have come to making that move is now. Now, or more precisely, this summer. And now... well, you know. The damned pandemic. The thing that is disrupting the natural flow of our daily lives, our dreams, our plans, and our equilibrium as well.
However, although it is true that every age deems the world to be in a precarious state, on the very verge of darkness, we are being menaced by something that so many others who have come before us have faced: pandemics, wars, depressions, recessions, tyrannical leaders, and natural disasters. So, my plans are on hold. Just like Inman's, Ada's, Ruby's, and Stobrod's. But we continue to plan and dream, even if we do look up, as Inman does, and sometimes think, God, if I could sprout wings and fly... I would be gone from this place, my great wings carrying me up and out, long feathers hissing in the wind.
One foot after another, after another, after another. It hurts. So much of it hurts, and it would be difficult to say which hurts more, the physical or emotional pain, but pain eventually subsides, and when it's gone, there is no lasting memory. At least not the worst of it. It fades. Our minds are not designed to hold onto the details of pain the way we do bliss. And so, we keep walking, because, like Inman, most of us can see that there is little use in speculating too much on what a day will bring.
We walk and we are glad that we are readers and we know that a book can offer a kind of holiness... of such richness that one might randomly dip into it and read only one sentence and yet be certain of finding instruction and delight. And it is good, very good, to be reminded of how much others have endured here, and how much comfort holy words (wherever we find them) can provide us, and how often we can take pleasure in natural beauty. And it is so good, so very good, to have reminders to look around us at what is precious to us and evoke the poetry of our lives, the words of spells and incantations to fend off the things one fears the most. For, just as Odysseus was pushed by a great gale as soon as he was within sight of home, so too will you be pushed away from your goals, dreams, and loved ones. For, just as Inman is captured, tied, and dragged back over all the terrain he has already traversed, so too will you be waylaid, rerouted, and broken. But you have to keep walking, straight as the crow flies, regardless of what occurs to you on your journey. You have to keep crawling towards your Cold Mountain, always keeping it in front of you.