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    Cold Mountain
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    Cold Mountain
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    Cold Mountain
    Audiobook14 hours

    Cold Mountain

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

    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 splendor.

    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.


    From the Trade Paperback edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 3, 2004
    ISBN9780739314685
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Cold Mountain

    4/5

    3,320 ratings108 reviews

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    • 2/5
      The epitome of meh. A linear tale where the historical characters are infected with contemporary attitudes; such eases the reader's digestion, you see.

      If only for the music and Jude Law's beard, the film is well worth viewing.
    • 4/5
      Cold MountainThis is a love story that takes place during the American Civil war in South and North Carolina. Ada Monroe is the only daughter of a wealthy preacher, settled in Charleston, SC. Inman, a local young man, about to join the Confederate army. Two narratives tell Ada’s struggles to survive in Cove Creek, in the shadows of Cold Mountain and of Inman after being wounded in Fredericksburg. Ada and her father moved to this location from Charleston and then he died a few years later, leaving Ada alone to unsuccessfully manage the farm and crops. Luckily she is joined by Ruby, an extremely competent but illiterate sage, hard working, practical, knowledgeable and wise woman her own age. Ruby pulls her out of her funk and they barter what resources they have for food and materials and make plans to survive the fall and winter. Inman deserts the army from his hospital bed and begins a long journey to Cold Mountain. Along the way he meets good people and villains and he finally meets up with Ada and Ruby. The reunion with Ada is beautifully told as they plan their future together at the farm.Really well written story with fully developed characters and Innumerable descriptions of the weather, flora, fauna and wildlife.
    • 4/5
      Autographed at Books a Million, Concord on Friday Nov. 3rd 12:pm. I hiked Cold mountain after reading the book there is a nondescript restaurant near a road leading there with GREAT hamburgers made from buffalo [for the price of a Hardees meal!] I am still new to the autograph experience "please do not request [whatever it is they say to prevent you from asking the author to put something other than his signature on the book]" was announced several times while waiting in line. I stood next to an attractive 20something lady who had one of those phones screwed to her ear in order to avoid talking to someone like me but I pretended she was talking to me and struck up a conversation.She worked at NPR [National Public Radio]WFAE or some such it turns out and asked if I listened. I launched into a snide tirade about how clever it was of UNCC to take all the tax money made available to start the radio station, put themselves in charge, and prevent locals from having input into programming. That reinforced all her instincts to not talk to me but by then it was too late. I mentioned that I had heard several radio commentaries by my old english teacher [[James Reston Jr.]] and though they were well done I had wondered until recently how he got so much air time. I had heard somewhere that his wife worked for NPR as a lawyer or some type of official and that the Pulitzer Prise winner had obviously ridden his wifes' coattails into the exposure. Which is probably not true but I was uncomfortable and I think that makes me negative. By the time I got to Mr. Frazier and he was signing my book, I had mentioned [within earshot unfortunately] he looked like a guy who used to hold up the end of a bar in Asheville that I had met. He also noticed that the book was not "Thirteen Moons: A Novel" which was what the signing party was for but Cold Mountain which I had bought for like $5 in pristine condition from Book Buyers on Central Av. in Charlotte NC. By that time I had forgotten the "no requests" announcements and asked that it be personalized in some way I forget, causing him to glare at me and quickly sign only his name.A very tolerable person over all I think. The NPR girl was rescued by a guy she had called on the phone screwed to her ear and convinced to pretend to be her husband and left amidst stage like hugs and affections for the benefit of those watching.
    • 4/5
      An extremely well written novel. The 2 main characters you mostly fall in love with and want at the same point to be them and are grateful that you are not them.
    • 5/5
      Beautifully written.
    • 5/5
      Beautiful writing.
    • 3/5
      Good writing, but I thought a slow read.
    • 5/5
      A beautiful, well-written book. One of my all-time favorites
    • 5/5
      Beautifully written. Wonderful Characters.
    • 5/5
      An all time favorite for me. Beautiful writing - have read it twice and reread parts every now and then just to savor his art again.
    • 5/5
      Cold Mountain is a lyrical exploration of nature and love in the liminal space between life and death. It is a war novel that takes place far from the battlefield. As an exploration of how it felt to be among the living and the walking dead in American South during the Civil War I found it extremely convincing.

      The experience of authenticity comes not only because the author mimics 19th century cadences and vocabulary (although he does that too) but because he creates characters and situations which feel deeply plausible, persuasively true to their world. The author's characters seem to fully inhabit their era, their social stations, and their natural world.

      There are echoes of Twain here, encounters with strange people and country ways, as our protagonist moves on his journey toward home. The author devotes much of the book to lyrical description of the natural world, which seems suited to the problem of conveying the inner world of people who lived so connected to that world. The author knows horses (he raises them in reality, the book jacket informs us) and this knowledge shows, but he seems to know the whole of the Southern natural world too.

      The female character Ada, and her friend Ruby, seem to me to be well imagined and described, respectively, as a city woman who has moved to the country, and a woman so country she is half wolf child. As we read we cannot doubt that such people existed, and that they must have thought thoughts not unlike these. Even the limited intimacies, emotional and sexual, that are ultimately portrayed feel authentic to what it would be possible for people in that time and place to feel and do.

      With all this talk about authenticity and historical accuracy, you might say that I've viewed the novel through a rather limited lens. But I'd argue that this is historical fiction, and it deserves to be read and examined in the context of its claimed place and time. That in any case, is what interests me most about it.

      Read it? Yes, obviously, this must be read. It goes deep, and it keeps it real in a deep 19th century sense, or uses a special magic to convince the reader that it is doing so, which surely amounts to something similar.
    • 5/5
      Beautifully written, completely engrossing and a gut-wrencher. It took me a short while to get into but was well worth it. I could not put it down at the end and powered through 150 pages on the last day, which is a feat for this slow reader.
    • 4/5
      This is my first foray into the Civil War and I am so glad I chose this book for a start. Initially the story is told from the perspective of two lovers torn apart by the war; Inman and Ada. All along it is unclear if these two will ever be reconciled - but we do know that they will never be the same.

      Early on we meet Ruby who arrives to help Ada with her farm and captures all that is solid and grounded during this uncertain time. Ruby has her own back story with a father who unwittingly seeks and finds redemption.

      There is a good share of violence which is not for the faint of heart but is necessary to demonstrate the real damage that this war caused to so many young men and their families.
    • 5/5
      I bought this book on a very bad day. I was overwhelmed with our situation---the layoff, the uncertainty, along with the usual doubts about how I was doing as a mother---and I ran off after dinner. I left the house on foot and walked downtown to the library, my safe haven always, no matter where I live.

      On the shelves outside the library shop, I found a copy of Cold Mountain. I'd watched the movie with mixed feelings, but the "National Book Award Winner" sticker on the cover won me over. I bought the book and walked back home to my family.

      It's taken me more than a month to finally finish reading the book, what with life intervening and all. But in the end, it seems a very apt book to have picked up in that moment.

      In a way, this book is about life. It's about the quest from ease to hardship then back towards ease when you know what you've lost seeking hardship. Without the hardship, you wouldn't have known what you were missing. But the hardship itself makes it impossible to live the ease when you return. And of course, there's no ease in the end. Only death.

      Wow, that was a dreary review. But really, I found the book amazing. Frazier's style was conversational in the mountain-speak sense. He wrote eloquently about one of my favorite parts of the world, the mountains of North Carolina. I have an affinity towards this area. It's one of the few places I've been that immediately felt like home to me (and still does). I related to the draw that Inman felt towards that blue and rolling landscape.

      It's unlikely I will ever have the opportunity to live there.
    • 5/5
      This book ripped me apart. It was a beautiful, absorbing story of two lovers who hardly knew each other yet felt an immediate bond and who were seperated by war. The ending made me so angry I swore I would not see the film. Well, I did. I loved it to too. I'm so glad I had read the book first because I don't think I could have survived watching the film if I hadn't been prepared.
    • 3/5
      I was rather hesitant to begin this book as I heard that it was "slow" reading. My daughter siad she could not make it past page one, but I figured that was not even a fair chance.Suprisingly, I found a lot to like about this work although it is anything but action packed. It's the story of two individuals during the American Civil War. The action, if you can call it that, takes place in the American south where the young woman Ada's father dies and she inherits his land. The story also involves Inman, a former Confederate solider who deserts his battalion and is headed home to Ada, whom he believes he loves. What I found to like about this novel is its story-telling, description of nature, and characters. Inman has a long journey for certain, but he meets colorful and unique characters along the way. His interaction with these individuals in a background of plants and animals native to this area of the south (from Virginia to North Carolina) provides nice stepping stones on the path of this story.For sure, this story is quietly told. However, it does make for a very solid read for anyone interested in life as it existed during the Civil War years.
    • 4/5
      Enthralling read, the film fails to convey the true depth of the book. (
    • 4/5
      In the very beginning of Cold Mountain there is a line that sums up the epitome of any war, "Every vile deed he had witnessed lately had been at the hand of a human agent so he had about forgot that there was a whole other order of misfortune" (p 9). Cold Mountain is a war book but it is also a relationship book and a romance. Inman is a confederate soldier recuperating from a serious neck wound. When he is well enough to move he decides to become a deserter and make his way back to North Carolina where there is the memory of a girl he fell in love with. During his long journey home his love, Ada, is struggling to run her deceased father's farm. Helping her is Ruby, a strong mountain woman running from her father and the memory of a neglectful childhood. Towards the end of the book not one but two wounded men make their way back to Ada and Ruby. Ruby's father has murdered his relationship with his daughter but when he is shot and left for dead it is up to her to put aside their differences and nurse him back to health. Inman makes his way back to Ada with more than a broken body. His spirit has been tested. I spotted a lot of symbolism (intentional or not). The reoccurring mention of crows was ominous while the fixation of food represented an emptiness of more than just bellies. There was an absence of comfort and of hope.
    • 5/5
      SummaryThe story of Ada, Inman and Ruby takes place in the middle of the Civil War. Soldiers have been fighting long enough and violent enough to begin feeling as if they've had enough. Their dreams of fighting the good fight and destroying the Federals in a quick championed war have literally been shot to hell. Many of them simply walk away, only to be hunted by bands of horsemen who either return them to the war or shoot them for being traitors. Inman is one of these soldiers. Four years before the story begins, Inman left home and Ada. She is all he can think of as he crosses miles and miles of woods and water, hiding in caves, dodging the Federal horsemen and subsisting on only what he can scrounge up, buy or steal, and/or the goodness of strangers.Ada herself left her home in Charleston to follow her minister father to Cold Mountain so that he could preach his progressive beliefs. Her mother having died in childbirth, Ada has only her father to depend upon and to teach her how to live. When Ada's father Monroe dies, Ada with only her Charleston societal knowhow, is left to fend for herself in the unforgiving mountains. Having no one and nowhere to turn, Ada decides to somehow climb out of her grief and find a way to live.Ruby is the holder of Ada's light. Ruby has grown up in Cold Mountain without her mother as well and a drunk for a father. She learned from a very early age how to fend for herself and how to make ends meet. She approaches Ada after one of the mountain people mentions that Ada might need some help. Ruby offers Ada help in return for a fair trade and equal treatment. Ada and Ruby begin an unlikely reciprocal friendship that will stand the test of time.What I LikedRuby was my favorite character. She was so nonsensical and realistic about EVERYTHING. Almost as if she still viewed the world as a child...as intelligent as she was, she had no room nor any patience for "silly stuff." She learned to set her mind to nature and to work within the natural order of things rather than against them. She didn't see her intelligence as anything special though...it was just a part of life.I loved Frazier's detail and descriptions. While this kind of description may get in some people's way, I can see the mountains, feel the crunch of the leaves under my feet, "hear" snow falling, feel the warmth of a hot fire and also the freezing cold of a dark Winter night. The reader is a part of the character's journeys; Frazier takes you with them and you feel as if you are walking through the woods in line...how in the world they could keep up with where they were in those woods is beyond me...but Frazier has them point out markers and look to the skies and read the natural signs for times and seasonal changes. The humor...embedded among the hardships, sadness, stomach turning scenes is a natural and sometimes sarcastic humor. I say "natural" because none of the characters are trying to be funny...they are simply "calling a spade a spade" which is so ridiculous at times that it's funny. I think the humor helps the reader get through the story and all it's sadness, but also I think humor probably was how these folks actually made it through every single day of their immensely hard lives.What I Didn't Like If I say I didn't care all that much for Inman, is anybody going to get mad at me?? I found it a little unrealistic that these two people realized just how much they loved each other over the four years Inman was gone...when they really hardly knew each other when he left? I'm not saying that I don't think they belonged together; I'm just saying that it was more of a practical arrangement...one that probably would have worked well...but I didn't see them "falling in love" romantically before Inman left.Stodbrod...what father leaves his toddler behind to fend for herself??? I don't even care if he kept himself drunk to lessen the pain of losing his wife; he had a child from that wife to take care of...and he chose not to. Monroe...another weak male father character...this one chooses to grieve for his wife in a different way...by holding onto the life they would have had and not letting his daughter grow up. Even with signs of critical illness, he did nothing to prepare his daughter for the world ahead of her.Although there is a good bit of dialogue in this novel, there are no quotation marks. There were times when I had to back up and re-read to make sure what I was reading was what someone said. I'm interested to find out if there was some particular reason Frazier chose not to use quotation marks or if it is just a quirk of his.My Overall ResponseI'm so glad I read this...I had so many people tell me I wouldn't like the ending...but I did. Actually, it's a hard ending to say I "liked"....but it made sense to me. Obviously I won't say anything here to spoil it for anyone, but frankly a happily ever after ending would not have made any sense at all for this novel. The entire novel is about life during the Civil War and its hardships. As I type the word "hardships," it doesn't even seem to cover it. This ain't Cinderella, people.
    • 3/5
      It took me forever to read Cold Mountain because of all the other busy things going on in my life, and I think that made a difference in how I liked it. It was a great book, beautifully written, but it felt very drawn out just because it took me so long to finish. But it's a keeper!
    • 4/5
      Frazier provides such a rich description throughout his novel that he makes it seem like even bit characters could have spinoff novels. Cold Mountain is part love story, part war story, part travelogue and all very much worth the read.
    • 3/5
      This has ambitions to be an American Odyssey, telling the tale of a Confederate soldier, Inman, who travels to return to his love Ada at Cold Mountain. I admit there's just about no literary affectation I hate more than the fashion a la Cormac McCarthy to omit quotation marks. Frazier, when he marks off dialogue at all, does so with dashes and it jarred me out of the story every time he did it. It's a technique that screams to me, "Lookit, Harold Bloom, aren't I special?" It's to Frazier's credit that the narrative flowed well enough, with some pretty shapely prose, I continued on, instead of dropping this fast the way I did with the last book with this technique. On page 12 though I hit Strike Number Two, when in describing the battle of Fredericksburg, I hit a rather muddled point of view where it isn't clear if Inman overheard Generals Longstreet and Lee or was just told what they said. I did smile when I first met Ada, and her struggles against an obstreperous rooster. However, the style meant I could never sink into the story. Now, there's nothing more intrusive than many a style of omniscient I've loved or second person, yet I have loved novels that have used those techniques, but Frazier never clicked with me despite some lovely phrasing. I know many do love this novel though, which was a bestseller, so unless you're as allergic as I am to the technique, this might be worth a try.
    • 5/5
      The Confederates are losing the American Civil War and Inman, wounded and fed up with it, desserts the army. He walks miles and miles home to Cold Mountain and his beloved Ada, meeting interesting characters with their own stories along the way. Starving and facing death, he will do anything to get home to her. Meanwhile Ada is learning to live on her own after the recent death of her father. She knows next to nothing about farming and farm life. Ruby, a young parentless girl with a difficult past, comes to her aid. Together fix up the farm that has fallen into disrepair and survive off the land. But even with the long days of hard work taking its toll on her, Ada can't help but feel that she is waiting for something. This is the story of a desperate and disillusioned man wanting nothing but to return home after four hopeless years at war and the strong, independent woman living in a man's world who waited for him. Years ago I caught the ending of the movie version of this while flipping through channels. Though I remember little, I vividly remember the last few scenes. Even knowing it, the end was still sad but at the same time I'm glad in a way that I knew what was coming. The final scenes of the movie stuck with me and after all these years I was ecstatic to happen across this book. I got to meet the characters completely and follow the events that led up to the brief glimpse I had of the mystifying civil war world. This is one of those novels that you have to read slowly and savor. The descriptions of the untamed forests of North Carolina around the time of the civil war are incredible. As is the connection that the people have to the land. The people along Inman's journey home and those that pass by Black Cove where Ada lives are strange and interesting. Each has their own unique story. In many ways this book is a collection of tales that paint a picture of life during the civil war; it's hardships and its consequences. At the beginning of the book I found Ada to be slightly annoying because of how helpless she was but by the end, she proves herself to be a tough woman. I rooted for Inman through his entire trek home. I wanted him to make it and reunite with the woman that he loves. I am a hopeless romantic. And even though it didn't end exactly as I'd hoped it was one of the best novels I've read in a long time.
    • 3/5
      This book came highly recommended. It tells the story of Inman, badly wounded in the Civil War, deserting to walk home to Cold Mountain, and of Ada, the preacher's daughter he loves, who after the death of her father has to make a life on a derelict farmand that her education has not prepared her for. While I could easily relate to the main characters, I thought the going very slow, the descriptions very long, the flashbacks very detailed and long. I started to hurry through it and it did not feel as if I was missing much. I know the book has been turned into a movie, and I can well imagine that: the landscape must be beautiful and apart from the occasional horrific story about war and/or cruelty, the story is really romantic. Inman is sometimes a bit too good to be true, and so is the relationship between Ada and Ruby, the girl who turns up like a deus ex machina and without whom Ada would have no choice but to return to Charleston and life in the city. So: a mix of shocking violence and nice romance, perfect for a movie. Perhaps I was expecting too much of this book, but I was rather disappointed with it.
    • 3/5
      Substance: A Confederate soldier leaves hospital and travels home, to where his true love is waiting. Their separate story-lines alternate, with flash-backs to the past. Lyrically descriptive, not overly political. How people survive wars.Style: The alternating stories work well until they reconnect with an unnecessary back-stitch. The ending is abbreviated; it looks like the soldier is still alive, but he isn't mentioned again by name and doesn't appear in the narrative. I would have liked to know, at the start, just where Cold Mountain was situated. Caveat: The author admits to changing the supposedly true story, and altering geography.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book. There were short bits of it that were a bit wordy and boring to me, but most of it was wonderful. I was not expecting things to end the way that they did & was a bit let down at the end, but still enjoyed this book.
    • 5/5
      If you saw the movie, you know the story. They followed it in great detail. What you miss is the beautiful language and evocative descriptions of the text. I found this a bit slow in the beginning, but it had been a while since I had read anything so lyrical and it took me time to get back into the rhythm of description and introspection. There's action, tension, and character development, as well, but the beauty is in the language.Highly recommend this book. It deserved all its awards. If anyone hasn't read it, they should.
    • 3/5
      Good book with a nice lovestory next to the stories of the two main characters. I struggled a bit with the elaborate writing style of the author, but when I skipped through the landscape descriptions, it didn't bother me too much.
    • 4/5
      It was a little hard to read at first but got better quickly.
    • 5/5
      I was mesmerized by this superb Charles Frazier novel. Frazier is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors of modern literature. His work is original, gutsy, and absolutely compelling. I cannot wait until his next novel comes out.