Cold Mountain                        
by Charles Frazier
Publisher:  Vintage Books
ISBN: 0-375-70075-7                              Review by pHoward

  
    The movie version was well done, but in spite of the fact that it got half a dozen Oscar
nominations, it fell short of delivering the lasting impact of this monumental, enthralling novel.
    Like another great Civil War story, Gone With The Wind, this tale is not about battles but
about people. In this case, it's about common people whose lives are usurped and forever
changed by "somebody else's fight."
    You travel with a wounded and disallusioned Confederate soldier as he walks away from
the war to his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the girl he left behind. A transplanted big
city girl, she has struggled to survive on a meager farm. Their stories are interwoven by the author
with language that is majestic, symphonic, and filled with dark beauty.
    The soldier Inman's trek is long and harrowing, interrupted by episodes involving fascinating
characters who are often dangerously threatening, but ocassionally helpful. Meanwhile, his girl
Ada takes in a young woman to help her farm--a self-sufficient girl named Ruby who is unlike
anyone Ada has ever known.
    The things that happen to these desperate people in those desperate times form an extraordinary
saga, powerful and eloquent. If you're a serious reader who likes to lose yourself in a book--in other
words, get so involved in the story that you become part of it--this is one you will add to your
"select" shelf and will re-read time and again.

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