Cold Mountain Review

My grandmother recently gave me a few books she wanted to remove from her limited shelfspace. This mini-trove has provided some interesting reading and this  is a write-up of one of the books.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier was published in 1997 by Atlantic Monthly Press, and subsequently won the National Book Award.

The novel is historical fiction set in North Carolina in the midst of the Civil War, and is considered by some to be a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey. The tale follows Inman, a wounded soldier convalescing in a Confederate hospital, who fled the war in search of home, and Ada Monroe, the woman Inman hoped to find waiting for him. 

Inman’s journey began when the man in the bed next to him died. Rather than wait to follow his comrade or to be returned to the battlefront, Inman bought supplies in town, waited until dark, and left. Before long, the Home Guard (lawmen tasked with finding Confederate deserters) spotted him and pursued him into unknown paths.

In the time Inman was away, Ada lost her father, and their homestead—named Black Cove by the people who sold it to Mr. Monroe—fell into disrepair because of Ada’s inexperience. Thus appeared Ruby—a local urchin who, because of her neglectful father, taught herself to survive—who persuaded Ada to let her manage the farm.

And so their paths back to each other—physical, for Inman, and metaphorical for both—began under trying circumstances, and their sojourn occupied the remainder of the book.

I enjoyed a number of aspects of the tale. First, the use of language, especially period- and setting-specific language was excellent. The cadence of the dialogue was interesting and engaging, though at times I was forced to reread a sentence to understand the intent. Here’s an small example: 

—That’s how the pistoleer idea came to me, he continued. These things give you notions unsought.

And another:

—This is a time that carves the heart down to a bitter nub, the third woman said. You are luckier than you know, hid in this cove.

And another:

—Every day. What I soon learned was that a body can mainly live off goats, their milk and cheese. And their meat in times of year when they start increasing to more than I need. I pull whatever wild green is in season. Trap birds. There’s a world of food growing volunteer if you know where to look. And there’s a little town about a half day’s walk north. I go barter off cheese for taters, meal, lard, and the like. Brew simples from plants and sell them. Medicine, Tinctures. Salve. Conjure warts.

[Quick aside: The above are all pulled from dialogue, quoted verbatim with matching punctuation. Cold Mountain is the second book I’ve read in a month’s span that used this dialogue style—beginning with an em dash and inserting the speaking attribution, unmarked, into the quote—the first being Cry, the Beloved Country, which I’ll write up some other time]

I thoroughly enjoyed Ada and Ruby’s plotline. Following the progression of a character—noticing their changes, their evolution (or devolution), their learning—is a significant source of reading pleasure. Ada grew, and by contrast, Inman existed. She progressed in most aspects of her life, whereas Inman made trudging progress by foot, rather than heart and mind as well.

This fact, strangely, contributed to something else I enjoyed: Inman was unmoored. It wasn’t always pleasant to read, but his feelings, coupled with his harsh existence, painted an image of someone unsure how to process the personal effects of war. I haven’t served in the military, but I have friends and acquaintances who have, and the seeming randomness of who in the trench lives and who in the trench dies in an invisible weight they all carry.

The juxtaposition of Ada, who had Ruby to tether her to some kind of happiness, daily love, and positive interaction, and Inman, who had nobody to provide that spark of hope, caused me to consider times in my life when I’ve suffered alone, and compare them to times I’ve suffered with someone by my side.

Cold Mountain wasn’t a perfect novel. My chief complaint is that portions, especially Inman portions, were too slow. There are other things I could nitpick (the hurried climax, for example), but it’s possible to enjoy imperfect novels. In fact, it’s expected. As a writer and a reader, I take comfort in this quote, by Randall Jarrell: “The novel is a prose narrative of some length that has something wrong with it.” So, I plowed through the slow bits, and enjoyed the evocative descriptions, the local dialects, and the interesting characters for what they provided me intellectually and emotionally, without excessive analysis.

In the end, Cold Mountain was an enjoyable read that I would recommend to those who enjoy somber tales laced with hope for the future.