in Virginia. After sustaining grievous wounds, Inman chose to desert and make his way homeward to the North Carolina mountains. Tragically, he was shot and killed by the Home Guard as the war neared its end. Initially knowing little about his ancestor, Frazier embarked on a journey of discovery about him and that era, sparking his imagination about Inman's life and odyssey. From these foundations, the fictional Inman emerged, shaped by research and creative conjecture.

Karen C. Holt, in a piece exploring the legends underpinning the novel, observes: “By superimposing the life of his great-great-uncle on the life of the fictional Inman, Frazier has united them in a single grave, the stories inseparable from the landscape where the victims are buried.” In this manner, “the graves of North Carolina have become the graves of Cold Mountain, entombing a sense of place, and the setting, for which Frazier searched.”

Charles Frazier’s hauntingly beautiful first novel, Cold Mountain, demonstrates once again that the Civil War is a source of inexhaustible fascination for Americans. In a carefully crafted, meticulously authentic tale, Frazier recounts the epic story of W. P. Inman, a Confederate war veteran who tries to make his way home to the western North Carolina mountains in the midst of the social chaos of the Civil War. Set mainly in North Carolina, Cold Mountain recounts Inman’s numerous adventures and close scrapes with death during his three-hundred- mile trek on foot from a war hospital in Raleigh to his home in Cold Mountain, west of Asheville.

The themes of love, war, and homecoming give Frazier’s novel an epic quality reminiscent of Homer’s The Odyssey, but Inman is no favorite of the gods. An ordinary mortal, badly wounded in the battles of Petersburg and Fredericksburg, he struggles with physical hardship and despair during his long trek homeward. His sweetheart, Ada Monroe, must struggle as well to learn how to manage a mountain farm after her father’s death. Their two parallel stories and poignant reunion create an unforgettable story of mythic dimensions.

Frazier’s novel is carefully crafted in language, character, and style, with an almost palpable sense of place. Starting with the use of Cold Mountain (elevation 6,030 feet), a real place, Frazier creates an uncanny sense of time and place through close attention to physical details and a rich, archaic sense of authentic language and dialect, with many regional turns and phrases of speech. Himself a native of the North Carolina mountains, Frazier has a sense of geography and place that is unfailingly accurate, creating a sense of being in the physical world of nineteenth century America. Indeed, the novel evokes an almost an elegiac sense of loss of traditional American culture and regional distinctions. Cold Mountain gains additional authenticity from local history and family stories passed on by Frazier’s great-great-grandfather. The novel also is interlaced with white and Cherokee mountain folklore and traditional folk music motifs, which create a regional sensibility. Frazier acknowledges the influence of Appalachian “Jack Tales” on his narrative style.

Like the stories of Odysseus and Penelope in Homer’s The Odyssey, Frazier’s stories of Inman and Ada are related in parallel, alternating chapters that gradually converge with Inman’s homecoming at the end of the novel. Theirs are stories of adaptation and survival: Both must use their wits to survive in a harsh, unforgiving world of cultural change. Ada has grown up in the comfortable, sheltered world of antebellum Charleston society, shielded from economic realities by her father’s tobacco, rice, and indigo investments. Her mother died in childbirth, and Ada was raised as an only child. On his doctor’s advice, Monroe, a well-to-do Charleston minister, seeks the higher, drier climate of western North Carolina for his tuberculosis and settles in the Cold Mountain community as a minister. Despite their cultural differences, Monroe and Ada gradually are accepted by the local community. With her father’s sudden death, Ada inherits investments made worthless by the economic ravages of the war years and is left alone to manage a two-hundred-acre mountain farm. Her cultured, indolent lifestyle has not prepared her for the realities of subsistence farming. Ruby Thewes, a poor but resourceful local mountain girl, moves in with Ada and becomes her teacher in all the practical, manual skills and chores of running a farm. Ada gradually changes from a haughty, aloof Charleston-born belle to a rural Appalachian farm mistress. She overcomes her class consciousness and prejudice against the local mountain culture and learns to cope with the rigors of rural self-sufficiency and a barter economy. Ruby gradually teaches Ada the discipline of earning one’s own living, Ada having previously lived rather thoughtlessly on the labor of others and having taken that work for granted.

Inman, too, has become hardened and transformed, nearly to despair, by the savagery and brutality of the Civil War. Feeling that he has had enough of war, he suddenly decides to leave his Raleigh hospital rather than be sent back to the front. He sets out to walk home, wandering through a hostile Piedmont landscape of Home Guards, armed vigilantes and gangs who patrol the roads and highways looking for Confederate deserters, outliers, and escaped Yankee prisoners. Weakened by his wounds and having to forage off the land, Inman repeatedly is ambushed and waylaid, bushwhacked, shot at, tricked, and captured by the local posses. His episodic adventures force him to survive, like Odysseus, by his resourcefulness and wits, but without the protection of the goddess Athene. Nature, too, is his adversary, as Inman is forced to cope with extremes of weather, exposure, insects, and harsh terrain. He leaves Raleigh during the height of summer and does not reach Cold Mountain until winter. During his wandering, he turns for comfort to a battered copy of William Bartram’s Travels, purchased in Raleigh during his recuperation.

Some of the local characters he meets during his trek homeward and the stories they tell are so grotesque as to be truly unforgettable. There is the sorry minister, Solomon Veasey, who made a local girl pregnant. He has drugged her and is planning to drown her when Inman runs across the pair. Inman saves the girl and returns her home, tying Veasey to a tree with a note detailing his behavior. After Veasey is run out of town, he tags along after Inman and becomes a constant source of trouble. In a temporary idyll, Inman finds sanctuary among a group of traveling Irish gypsies, horse traders, and medicine show entertainers who show a kindness and tolerance entirely lacking in Piedmont rural society. It is hard to imagine a more benighted state of ignorance, indolence, viciousness, and vice than among the Piedmont country folk Inman encounters in his journey home. Inman realizes in disgust that this was the society he volunteered to defend as a Confederate soldier.

Perhaps Inman’s worst experience occurs in the western Piedmont, beyond Salisbury. There, under the guise of hospitality, he is made drunk and entrapped by a country slattern, Lila, whose husband, Junior, turns him over to the Home Guard for a five-dollar bounty. Inman is bound and tied to fifteen other miserable men, from grandfathers to young boys, who are marched eastward without food or shelter until the Guardsmen tire of their cruelty and decide to shoot the men and bury them in a shallow grave. Twice wounded in the scalp, Inman awakens with dirt in his face, confronting feral pigs who are feeding on the remains of the other men. The bestiality and cruelty are reminiscent of the worst of the Bosnian War. The Home Guard are the same kind of masked cowards who later became Klansmen, terrorizing freedmen and Union sympathizers after the Civil War. Inman’s spirit is almost broken by his encounters, but for his dogged determination to return home to Ada. He warns her in a terse, undated letter, sent after the Battle of Petersburg, that she will not find him the same man he was before the war. Throughout his journeys, although he is hunted down by Confederate sympathizers, men so brutalized by slaveholding that they have lost every vestige of their humanity, Inman is aided by slaves and women.

In the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, late in the fall, half starved and weakened by his wounds, Inman meets a tiny, wizened old woman, a mountain root doctor or herbalist who lives by herself in a small, goat-drawn caravan, sustained by her small goat herd, which supplies her with milk and cheese. She collects native plants to concoct herbal remedies. The goatwoman offers Inman warm food and lodging, and she nurses him back to health. They swap stories, and Inman marvels at her austere, hermitlike self- sufficiency, her journal writing and artwork, and her indifference to human society, a life that appeals to him as an alternative to warfare and cruelty.

Later that fall, he meets Sara, an attractive eighteen-year-old widow, left to fend for herself on a mountain farm after her husband was killed in action in Virginia. Inman, fed and dressed in her husband’s clothes and feeling compassion for her helplessness, is briefly tempted to stay to help with her winter hog-killing in return for lodging. He honors her request to sleep with her and listen to her story without touching her, until he is rousted early the next morning by the threat of the Home Guard. The intruders turn out to be three Federal irregulars, who threaten Sara and her baby and ransack the cabin, hoping to find something to steal. They take her hog, which Inman retrieves by ambushing the three hapless soldiers and shooting them with little remorse. Several days later, at another mountain cabin, Inman builds a coffin for a grieving woman’s unburied daughter, dead of dysentery. In a lonely mountain cove, he comes across three skeletons hung from a hemlock branch by strips of hickory bark, the bones turning and rattling in the breeze. Long before he reaches home, he seems to carry the sorrows of the world on his shoulders, his trek home like a mournful mountain ballad.

In counterpoint to Inman’s apparently endless hardship and suffering, there is the cautiously hopeful story of Stobrod, Ruby’s father, whose worthless life is partially redeemed through his mastery of the fiddle. Stobrod discovers the satisfaction of music and the pleasure he can offer others through his fiddle playing, and he gradually accumulates a sizable repertoire of fiddle tunes. He wanders about as an itinerant mountain musician, playing with a banjoist and guitarist, until he is ambushed and left for dead by the Home Guard.

Though not suffering like Inman, Ada gradually thins and hardens from the rigors of physical labor, mowing fields, plowing, splitting wood, tending livestock, and harvesting crops. She learns to be free of possessions by selling her prized piano to buy provisions. She gradually loses her former genteel tastes for reading and drawing, partially from the physical exhaustion of her daily labors.

Inman’s and Ada’s long-anticipated reunion, all too brief, occurs in an abandoned Cherokee village during a snowstorm, after they stumble on each other in the woods almost without recognition, Inman gaunt and emaciated by the war, Ada thin and hardened by work. They feast on wild turkey and enjoy a night of bliss while Ruby tends her wounded father. They must soon acknowledge that with the Home Guard searching for deserters, it is too dangerous for Inman to remain home until the war ends. He has three bleak alternatives: stay and be hunted down, return to duty, or surrender to the Federals over the mountains and sign a loyalty oath. He chooses, but not before the fates intervene one last time.

All these stories—Inman’s, Ada’s, Ruby’s, and Stobrod’s—converge toward a heartbreaking and unforgettable ending to this saga of human endurance and resiliency, an all-too-brief reunion of lovers, a slow healing from war, a hard-learned discipline of self-reliance, and the salve of forgiveness. Cold Mountain may well become the great American Civil War novel, displacing Gone with the Wind with a harder, truer, and less romantic account of the human impact of the war that divided families and changed lives forever. Drawn from Frazier’s family’s stories and his detailed knowledge of North Carolina mountain history and culture, this is a modern American classic.

Sources for Further Study

Booklist. XCIII, June 1, 1997, p. 1656.

Kirkus Reviews. LXV, April 1, 1997, p. 503.

Library Journal. CXXII, May 15, 1997, p. 100.

The New York Review of Books. XLIV, November 20, 1997, p. 18.

The New York Times Book Review. CII, July 13, 1997, p. 14.

The New Yorker. 73, June 16, 1997, p. 104.

Newsweek. CXXIX, June 23, 1997, p. 73.

People Weekly. 48, July 21, 1997, p. 29.

Publishers Weekly. CCXLIV, May 5, 1997, p. 196.

Southern Living. XXXII, October, 1997, p. 76.

The Times Literary Supplement. November 14, 1997, p. 25.

U.S. News and World Report. CXXII, June 23, 1997, p. 14.

Literary Allusions and Connections
A literary allusion offers a swift, and at times subtle, nod to a character, event, place, or work from literature, inviting readers to weave threads between different narratives, thereby enhancing their comprehension of the current tale. Numerous critics have drawn parallels between this novel and Homer’s Odyssey, especially when it comes to the intricate tapestry of plot and character: a soldier embarking on a laborious and perilous voyage back to his sanctuary, longing to reunite with his beloved. Throughout his odyssey, he must depend on his wit and intellect, continuously confronting daunting obstacles that hinder his quest. The woman awaiting his return faces her own tribulations. Both protagonists encounter battles of the heart and mind, enduring trials that challenge both their physical and spiritual fortitude. Frasier cleverly integrates two explicit nods to Homer; one in the opening hospital scene, where the man sharing Inman’s room translates Greek verses from the epic, and another when Ada immerses Ruby in the rhapsody of the Odyssey.

The structure of both the novel and the epic is episodic, amplifying the journey's significance over the destination. Inman perceives that "this journey will be the axle of [his] life." When Ruby arrives at the farm, Ada retains the cabriolet, symbolic of "the promise in its tall wheels that if things got bad enough she could just climb in and ride away." Her perspective was that "no burden couldn’t be lightened, no wreckful life couldn’t be set right by heading off down the road." The Gypsies who cross paths with Inman, offering their aid, view the road as "a place apart, a country of its own ruled by no government but natural law," and believe that "its one characteristic was freedom."

Frazier imbues his narrative with timeless motifs found in tales of travel. He paints an idyllic scene at the dawn of Inman’s journey: "all the elements that composed [the scene] suggested the legendary freedom of the open road: the dawn of day, sunlight golden . . . a tall man in a slouch hat, a knapsack on his back, walking west." Yet, Inman soon collides with the harsh realities of his era, as Frazier employs wasteland imagery that mirrors the desolate modern landscapes depicted in T. S. Eliot’s epic poem The Waste Land, written after the carnage of World War I. Inman’s "first true vision" of his trek features a fence, ominously likened to "some foul variety of brown flatland viper" slithering through the "trash trees," alongside ditches that form "smear[s] on the landscape" with streams choked by "balls of yellow scud collected in drifted foamy heaps upstream of grounded logs." Overwhelmed by this barren vista, he questions how he ever deemed this "his country and worth fighting for." The stark reality of the landscape mirrors Inman's inner desolation, as he perceives "all his life adding up to no more than catfish droppings on the bottom of this swill trough of a river." Through Frazier’s intricate weaving of literary connections, his character portrayals achieve greater depth and richness, offering readers a fresh lens through which to glean insight.

The shifting chapters between Inman and Ada intricately weave their tales as dual protagonists, heightening tension about the essence of their bond and its fate. As they converge in the eighteenth chapter, "Footsteps in the Snow," the narrative dance halts, and they share three days—and three chapters—in an abandoned Cherokee village. One chapter stands apart, the sixteenth, "Naught and Grief," where Pangle and Stobrod fall to the Home Guard's guns, emphasizing its pivotal role and setting the stage for the climactic skirmish.

Yet, the most captivating aspect of Cold Mountain is its singular language. The novel's text brims with rare nouns (harls, passway, jemson, snath, cullions, internalments, barns, spurtle, rindle), distinctive verbs (frabble, rare, frail, way, row), and peculiar adjectives (moiled, mackled, awander, malandered, misgrown, withy), many absent from conventional dictionaries. Rather than confounding the reader, these choices transport them to a bygone era, where people possessed a profound understanding of the intricacies around them. Frazier's tangible lexicon immerses readers in a world both weighty and vivid; its unfamiliarity persuades them of its authenticity. This linguistic artistry underscores the novel’s theme—the profound significance of the tangible. While some words may seem concocted, few truly are. The educated reader might not recognize them, as they refer to obsolete objects, niche expertise, or regional dialects. Some are simply rare or have slipped into obsolescence, and a few seem anachronistic, like judder, yet they perfectly capture Frazier's desired blend of exotic and mundane.

Frazier's use of the French dash for dialogue serves multiple purposes. Much like his exotic vocabulary, it creates a sense of estrangement, hinting at different life and thought patterns. It also allows him to blur direct and indirect speech, something English punctuation would typically clarify. This technique benefits a writer aiming to craft a vivid yet unfamiliar world, avoiding the need to attribute characters, some barely educated, with overly expansive vocabularies.

Employing an omniscient viewpoint, Frazier delves into various characters' minds, interpreting their innermost thoughts and feelings unencumbered by their potentially clumsy expressions. In a narrative bustling with characters, this perspective fosters a unified diction and tone, though subtle shifts occur. Ada’s language veers towards the literary and abstract, contrasting with Inman's. Yet both communicate in a manner curiously distant from late twentieth-century norms, without being quaintly archaic.

Cold Mountain masterfully employs symbols, blending them with paradoxical finesse. Its crows and ravens simultaneously evoke death and resilient life. The neck connects the spiritual and the corporeal, the mind to the body, and it is where Inman is gravely injured. It’s also where he yearns to kiss Ada, and ultimately does. This dual symbol captures the haunting fragility and captivating allure of the body, symbolizing mortality—and thus, both life and demise.

Ultimately, the novel's title encapsulates Frazier's core symbol. Cold Mountain is the actual land Inman yearns for, yet it also represents the tangible world Ada learns to cherish. It signifies Inman's inevitable death, embodying what Samuel Taylor Coleridge termed a "true symbol," reconciling contradictions: creation and destruction, love and hate, beauty and ugliness, past and future. The mountain isn't a mere Emersonian or Wordsworthian idyll nor just a colossal mass of earth. It, along with its surroundings, serves as the backdrop for unfathomable human cruelty and compassion. It stands as the emblem of Frazier's universe, encapsulating existence's mystery. Cold Mountain epitomizes not just the "physical" realm—it embodies the "natural," the spiritualized physical world.

Cold Mountain has captivated both critics and the general public, appealing to enthusiasts of Civil War history and those usually indifferent to its stories. The novel's seemingly straightforward narrative unfolds into a rich tapestry of events and details, offering ample fodder for engaging group discussions. Readers find themselves entranced, enchanted, and unsettled by Cold Mountain, often eager to dissect its characters, themes, and emotional impact.

Discussion Questions

1. Which tale captures your imagination more: Inman's arduous journey home or Ada's fight for survival? Does Cold Mountain speak more to the masculine or feminine experience?

2. Is there an intentional sequence to Inman's adventures? Could Charles Frazier have reshuffled these events without altering the essence of the novel?

3. In this story of a dashing couple torn apart by war, the man's courageous return and his noble deeds along the way lead to a joyous reunion, a perfect love, and a new life. How does the novel skillfully avoid slipping into sentimentality, or does it succumb to it?

4. Do you sense the author's attempt to align with "political correctness"? In what ways might the narrative have been more attuned to the experiences of blacks or women?

5. Are there any aspects of the novel that feel out of time, more suited to the late 20th century than the mid-19th? Do these elements enhance the story, or do they detract from it?

6. Set in an era when belief in an afterlife was common, what stance does Cold Mountain take on the concept of life beyond death? Would an expressed belief in the afterlife by the characters or author alter the novel's conclusion?

7. Does the "Epilogue" complement the novel's somber conclusion or does it contradict it entirely? What are the negative and positive aspects found within the "Epilogue" and the final chapter, "Spirit of Crows, Dancing"?

8. Is Inman driven to kill solely in self-defense, and does that distinction hold weight?

9. By the novel's end, why does Inman refrain from killing Birch? Could his reluctance hint at a deeper, perhaps fatalistic, impulse? Would his actions differ if he encountered such a youthful adversary earlier in the story?

10. Cold Mountain shares its historical Southern roots with Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. How do these narratives diverge? Are the class distinctions among the characters of any substantial importance?

11. Reflect on the scene where the protagonist gazes into the eyes of his would-be killer. How does this compare to the climactic moment in Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"? What transpires in the minds of these characters on the brink of death?

Undoubtedly, a profound current flowing through Cold Mountain is nostalgia, a deep longing for an era when humanity lived in harmony with nature. In those days, people paid close attention to the rhythm of the seasons, were familiar with the names and characteristics of plants, and keenly observed the behaviors of animals. This facet of the novel has prompted at least one critic to accuse Frazier of romanticism, suggesting he fails to craft an art that springs from his own time and experiences. Indeed, some of Frazier's remarks have seemingly bolstered such critiques.

Yet, a rebuttal to the charge of escapist nostalgia can be found within the novel's vivid details, illustrating that not every aspect of the past was superior. Take, for example, the goatwoman's grim fate—forced into marriage with an elderly man who treated his wives worse than beasts of burden—a grim reality more likely in the past than today. Meanwhile, Ada's yearning for the ability to record music, a luxury we now take for granted, highlights the deficiencies of her era compared to our own.

Nonetheless, Cold Mountain does protest against the mass culture of our time. Frazier extends an alternative vision, presenting a "lifeway," as he terms it. He celebrates a lifestyle that was already becoming obsolete in mid-nineteenth-century America. Residents of serene Black Cove, the Swanger farm, and likely the Inman homestead, belong neither to the doomed Southern slave-owning elite nor to the advancing Northern industrialists. They embody a timeless way of life, one that persists even today, tracing back through centuries. Frazier writes, in part, to depict what we've lost and to illustrate what remains possible—a life more aligned with nature's eternal cycles. The bittersweet irony of a war-weary soldier rejoicing at the sight of long-gone passenger pigeons (“at least that much remained unchanged”) should not be misconstrued: Frazier mourns not for a mythical past but warns us of nature's fleeting intricacies. In doing so, he subtly invokes modern environmental and ecological issues.

In crafting his tale amidst late-twentieth-century America's tapestry of clashing sexual, ethnic, and racial narratives, Frazier avoids the pitfalls of political correctness. Instead, he offers a narrative unlikely to offend except those who naively romanticize the antebellum South or the "Lost Cause." Cold Mountain stands as an eminently egalitarian work. Mirroring its protagonists, Inman and Ada, it champions simple virtues and spiritual parity, remaining a remarkably dignified novel that deftly sidesteps the banal.

Through the lens of Ada and Ruby, Frazier reveals a nuanced awareness of contemporary women's issues while staying faithful to the mid-nineteenth century's cultural norms. Ruby, with her unmatched competence, and Ada, transformed under Ruby's guidance, stand as empowering characters in literature. Ada exudes warmth, while Ruby embodies toughness. Throughout their journey, each woman imparts her strongest virtue to the other. Ruby's life includes beating several men, and Ada demonstrates her capability by successfully shooting a turkey on her first attempt. Ruby’s assertion to Ada, "We don't need [Inman]," affirms women's ability to thrive independently. Ada’s counter, "But I think I want him," acknowledges her emotional and physical desires, without undermining her independence.

Conversely, Frazier's depiction of male characters leans toward traditionalism. Inman epitomizes the rugged male hero, adept and insightful, yet his novel's most notable actions are defending the innocent and vanquishing wrongdoers. His encounters with visual, musical, literary, and artistic expressions reveal an open, albeit occasionally puzzled, mind. His dreams of an unconventional life with Ada, filled with books, music, and watercolor painting, ultimately dissolve, leaving him ensnared in a cycle of violence.

Ultimately, the narrative expresses greater admiration for women's resilience, empathy, and nurturing nature than for men's propensity for violence. However, to label Frazier as simplistic, sentimental, or anachronistic in his portrayal of gender virtues would be unjust. He skillfully crafts a world populated with admirable and flawed characters of all genders, showcasing not just formidable and resourceful women but also creative and sensitive men. Inman's connection to nature, Balis's translation of Greek, the "yellow slave's" cartographical artistry, and Stobrod's remarkable musical talent are just a few examples that demonstrate Cold Mountain houses men capable of creation and artistry, beyond mere destruction or exploitation.

The novel intricately weaves a tapestry where African-Americans, much like its depiction of women, are portrayed with a keen eye for historical fidelity while also aligning with modern-day ethics. Frazier crafts an epic reminiscent of the Odyssey, capturing the tumultuous slave-owning South just before the war's twilight. The narrative and the tales spun by its characters paint vivid reflections of those socially unjust upheavals. A striking tale emerges of a beautiful, powerless slave girl cherished by one white plantation master yet brutalized by another; alongside her story is that of a towering, self-assured, alluring, and ruthless black prostitute. The saga features benevolent and devoted slaves aiding their fragile masters in their escape from the encroaching Federal forces; black men counted among the deadly Home Guard; and a compassionate, intellectual slave who shelters Inman, nursing him back to strength. Echoing the majority of the Southern populace of that era, the protagonists do not own slaves, and none among the sympathetic figures are granted actions or utterances that endorse the institution of slavery.

Yet, Frazier's otherwise deft balancing act between the demands of storytelling and the sensitivities of the present falters slightly in his depiction of Native Americans, particularly the Cherokee. His portrayal drifts toward a reverence that borders on the sentimental. Near the novel's conclusion, Frazier attempts to invoke the spiritual sagacity of the Cherokee through two rather unconvincing narrative threads: Inman's peculiar bond with bears and his belief in a utopia beyond the Shining Rocks of Cold Mountain. Inman’s mystical connection with bears, his tender approach towards a menacing mother bear, and his remorse over consuming bear meat seem inconsistent with his character. This sentiment, coupled with his belief in the Shining Rocks, leads to a rather implausible fasting episode for a man so pragmatic and famished. Perhaps Frazier seeks to guide his warrior hero through a spiritual journey of purification, enlightenment, and unity; regardless, these elements feel clumsily sewn into the plot. Thankfully, Frazier swiftly abandons the Shining Rocks fantasy, allowing readers to overlook the bear subplot without detracting from the resonant and artistically fitting finale of Cold Mountain.

Cold Mountain weaves together the fabric of history, adventure, nature, love, and tragedy into an intricate tapestry that captivates the reader.

A Historical and Literary Tapestry

Set against a backdrop steeped in history, Cold Mountain might initially seem to fit snugly within the realm of historical novels—a genre first pioneered by Sir Walter Scott's 1814 masterpiece, Waverly. As with many historical narratives ranging from simple costume dramas to Tolstoy's towering War and Peace (1865-1869), it intersperses fictional and historical personas, the latter often taking a back seat. Yet, the novel transcends the bounds of mere historical recounting. While it mirrors society grappling with upheaval through its impact on fictional lives, this is not its core pursuit.

The Odyssey Reimagined

The echoes of Homer's Odyssey resonate throughout Cold Mountain, as Ada immerses Ruby in its tales during their evening reprieves. Inman emerges as an American Odysseus, yearning for his rugged homeland just as Odysseus longed for Ithaca. Their journeys are dotted with encounters fraught with peril and allure, from seductive temptations to life-threatening trials. Both protagonists find solace in the kindness of herders—Odysseus with the steadfast Eumaeus, Inman with the solitary goatwoman. As they return, disguised as beggars, both face the challenge of unrecognition from their devoted loves, culminating in a decisive confrontation with their foes. Inman's battle with the Home Guard is as dramatic as Odysseus's legendary fight against the Suitors.

Contrasts and Character Depths

While Cold Mountain draws from The Odyssey's episodic structure of marvels and hazards, the divergences between Inman and Odysseus are profound. Inman abhors warfare, embarking on his odyssey with reluctance, unlike the valiant Odysseus. Faced with a moral dilemma in the novel’s climax—choosing between killing and risking his own life—Inman grapples with a profound internal conflict alien to Odysseus. Lacking the latter's regal arrogance, Inman is no king, leader, or divine favorite; he stands apart from the likes of Odysseus's Athena or Robert E. Lee's Almighty.

The Influence of Hesiod

Echoing James Joyce's Ulysses (1922), Cold Mountain adapts Homeric narratives not just structurally, but thematically. Frazier’s protagonist emerges as an Odysseus of Hesiodic lineage. Hesiod, Homer's near-contemporary, penned the instructive Works and Days (circa 735 BC), an ethos that Cold Mountain embodies by defying Homeric ideals. Inman, like Hesiod’s virtuous sage, shuns conquest in favor of justice, diligence, and endurance. Both Inman and Ada aspire to a life of integrity and festivity amidst nature, transforming existence into a celebration.

Labor and Naturalism

The attitudes of Inman, Ruby, and Ada towards toil resonate more with Hesiod than Homer, rejecting aristocratic disdain for labor. Their profound understanding and Ada's keen observations are steeped in the tradition of naturalists like Henry David Thoreau and John Bartram, whose eighteenth-century works are quoted in Cold Mountain. The book Inman treasures like a "scroll" is Bartram's, offering him solace. Yet, the Bartram-Thoreau legacy, though precise, succumbs to Romanticism and cannot fully grasp the "dreadful but quiet war of organic beings" as posited by the Darwinian epigraph and the novel's darker tones. In contrast, Robert Penn Warren’s work, particularly Audubon (1969), acknowledges this "war" while embracing the potential for joy—a profound influence on Frazier's vision of secluded America. Inman’s experiences echo Warren’s themes, depicting a surreal escape from treachery.

The Love Story and its Lessons

Cold Mountain's love narrative draws from the iconic romance of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850). Ada Monroe’s evolution from an ornamental beauty to a formidable woman echoes Hester Prynne’s transformation. Adversity unravels her latent strength and wisdom, while her tormented lover meets a fate foretold from the novel’s onset, leaving Ada to nurture his memory with their child. Frazier, learning from Hawthorne, skillfully withholds the anticipated happy ending, crafting a narrative where the lovers' dreams of a shared future are poignantly thwarted.

In its essence, Cold Mountain unfolds as a poignant tragedy, much like the stirring narrative of King Lear. Within its pages, the forces of villainy and innocence clash with an intensity bordering on melodrama, drawing stark lines between the two. Just as Lear and Cordelia embrace after enduring unfathomable hardships, only to be cruelly separated by death, so too do Inman and Ada find a fleeting moment of joy followed by heart-wrenching sorrow. The conclusion of Cold Mountain has stirred within its readers deep feelings of dread and compassion.

The resolution of the story is almost unbearable for some, echoing the dramatic finality found in Shakespeare’s work. Here, evil meets its demise through the relentless determination of Inman, a figure who purges the malevolence at great personal cost. Yet, the weight of this triumph is so immense that it leaves both the characters and readers alike in a state of profound mourning. This sorrow is only slightly eased by the reflective tones of Frazier's "Epilogue."

Charles Frazier's literary repertoire, until now, is graced by just one other publication—a Sierra Club Travel Guide titled Adventuring in the Andes. This work, crafted in collaboration with Donald Secreast, was brought to life by Sierra Club Books in the vibrant city of San Francisco in 1985.

According to the latest reports, United Artists has acquired the rights to Cold Mountain for a staggering $1.2 million. Whispers in the industry suggest that the visionary Anthony Minghella is poised to helm this project. Minghella, renowned for breathing cinematic life into the celebrated adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's novel, The English Patient (1996), is set to bring his unique touch to this new endeavor.

The visionary Anthony Minghella orchestrated both the direction and screenplay adaptation for the widely praised and financially triumphant film rendition of the novel. This 2003 cinematic masterpiece showcased the talents of Jude Law, Renee Zellweger, and Nicole Kidman in leading roles. By 2006, audiences could enjoy the film from the comfort of their homes on DVD.