Cold Mountain (novel)
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| Cold Mountain | |
 Recent edition cover |
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| Author | Charles Frazier |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Historical novel |
| Publisher | Atlantic Monthly Press |
| Publication date | 1997 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 356 (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-87113-679-1 (first edition, hardback) |
Cold Mountain is a 1997 historical fiction novel by Charles Frazier. It tells the story of W. P. Inman, a wounded deserter from the Confederate army near the end of the American Civil War who walks for months to return to Ada Monroe, the love of his life; the plot shares several similarities with Homer's The Odyssey. The novel alternates chapter-by-chapter between Inman's and Ada's stories. It was Charles Frazier's first novel and a major bestseller, selling roughly three million copies worldwide. It was also adapted into an award-winning film of the same name.
Cold Mountain is a real mountain located within the Pisgah National Forest, Haywood County, North Carolina.
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[edit] Plot summary
The novel opens in a Confederate military hospital near Raleigh, North Carolina, where the male protagonist, Inman, is recovering from a recent battle wound. Tired of fighting for a cause he never believed in and longing for his home at Cold Mountain, North Carolina, pushed by advice from a blind man, and moved by the death of the man in the bed next to him, he steals out of the hospital after nightfall and sets out west on a walking journey of approximately 250 miles.
The narrative alternates back and forth every chapter between the story of Inman and that of Ada Monroe, a minister's daughter recently relocated from Charleston to a farm in the rural mountain community called Cold Mountain from which Inman hails. Though they only knew each other for a brief time before Inman departed for the war, it is largely the hope of seeing Ada again that drives Inman to desert the army and make the dangerous journey back to Cold Mountain. (Details of their brief history together are told at intervals in flashback over the course of the novel.)
At Cold Mountain, Ada's father soon dies, and the farm that the genteel city-bred Ada lives on is soon reduced to a state of disrepair. A young woman named Ruby, homeless but a stronger worker than Ada and resourceful, soon moves in and, through hard labor, helps Ada clean the place up and return it to productivity as well as change as a person from being a learned girl, knowing nothing that could help her live to a woman who can fend for herself.
Inman also continually tries to hide from men known as the Home Guard. The Home Guard's purpose is to search for Confederate soldier deserters. He meets a preacher called Veasey, who he catches in the act of attempting to murder his impregnated lover, and after dissuading him, and leaving him in his hometown, Veasey, exiled from his home town catches up with Inman, and they travel together. They butcher a dead cow that had fallen into a creek, the owner of which, Junior, gives them away to the Home Guard and they are put into a group of other captured prisoners. They march for days before the Home Guard decides to simply shoot them because they are too much trouble. Veasey steps forward to try to stop it, but the entire unit is wiped out. Inman survives when he takes a graze from a bullet that has already gone through Veasey and drags himself out of the shoddy mass grave the Home Guard built, thanks to some passing wild pigs. After turning Veasey onto his front, not being able to bury him, he continues on.
Inman's journey is rough. He faces hunger, an attempted armed robbery at a rural tavern, and occasionally is given shelter in by civilians who want nothing to do with the war. Through cunning ingenuity he helps one of them track and recover a hog, her only possession and source of food for the winter, which had just been seized from her by Union soldiers. He is also helped by a woman who owns goats, who gives him advice and medicines to finally heal his wounds.
At Ada's farm, Ruby's father, Stobrod, is caught stealing corn. He was a deadbeat who maltreated Ruby by leaving her on her own for long periods of time when she was very young; he is also a Confederate deserter. Ruby grudgingly feeds him. He returns another day with a friend, and they play a fiddle and banjo. Ruby's father and his friend leave and, instead, take food from a hiding place. They are caught by the Home Guard, who shoot them. A third companion hides when the Guard finds the other two. He runs back and alerts Ada and Ruby, who ride out to see the two men. Ruby's father just barely survives; Ada and Ruby pitch camp to let Ruby's father recover.
Inman, after finding Black Cove empty, sets out to find Ada on the mountain and he unexpectedly encounters Ada in britches, shooting wild turkeys; however, both have changed so greatly in their appearance and demeanor since they parted that it is some moments before they recognize one another. Inman takes up camp with Ada and Ruby, where Ruby, after fretting that Ada will dismiss her now she has a husband, and Ada reassures her that her ideas are the priority, gives Ada and Inman her blessing, and they make love. They happily begin to imagine the life they will have together at Black Cove and make plans for their future. As the party begins the trek back to the farm, however, they encounter the Home Guard. A shootout commences in which Inman kills or chases off all the members of the Guard except for a seventeen year old boy who flees into the thicket and is cornered against a rock ledge. Inman, reluctant to shoot him down in cold blood, tries to convince him to lay down his arms and leave, but is shot and fatally wounded by the boy when he approaches, and later dies in Ada's arms.
Ada eventually gives birth to a baby girl, presumably the result of her and Inman's one night together, and raises her at the now-thriving homestead she and Ruby have built at Black Cove.
[edit] Literary significance & criticism
Early reviewers (and readers) compared the book's plot and tone to the acclaimed novel Snow Falling on Cedars.
[edit] Awards and nominations
The novel won the 1997 National Book Award. It also won the W.D. Weatherford Award that year.[1]
[edit] Film adaptation
It was later adapted for the screen by director Anthony Minghella in the 2003 film Cold Mountain, starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, and Renée Zellweger. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Jude Law, and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Renée Zellweger.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Weatherford Award. Retrieved on August 12, 2007.
