Cold Mountain Analysis

Just think how confusing this book would be if we didn't have a narrator who knows the score telling us what happens. It switches back and forth between Inman's and Ada's stories every chapter, and...

This book cleverly merges two genres, historical fiction and the quest. By retelling the age-old story of the hero's quest to get home in the specific moment of the American Civil War, it gives us...

For all the darkness of some of its moments, for all the sorrow it explores, this book is wistful. It's about longing: for home, for healing, for love. Take this scene from the novel, where Ada is...

This book may be packed with action and full of tense questions about who will survive and how, but it's also beautifully lyrical and gives us a much wider exploration of human experience than your...

It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war of organic beings, going on in the peaceful woods, & smiling fields. —Darwin, 1839 journal entry Men ask the way to Cold Mountain. Co...

This is one amazing ending. We knew Charles Frazier was pretty awesome, but here he knocks it out of the park. The novel ends with Inman, shot, in Ada's arms. Frazier doesn't even tell us whether h...

Okay, this book is long. There's no denying that. And the narrator, like a coy date, doesn't always come out and tell you what he's thinking. He sure likes letting you figure it out on your own. Bu...

Homeward BoundInman just wants to go home, and Ada wants to figure out what her life's about…not to mention how to run a large farm with no experience and practically no money—and they both sta...

Inman realizes he's not willing to go back to the army and that he really wants to go home to Ada. He heads for the hills—literally, since Cold Mountain is, you guessed it, a mountain. This part...

Act I lasts until Inman decides to run away from the Confederate Army hospital and go home to Ada. That's the point where he's committed to going home and the plot really kicks off. Phew! Act II go...

We still have some hardtack made during the Civil War. That's shelf life! Just don't try biting it. (Source.)Ugh. The menu was pretty bleak for everyone involved during the Civil War.(Source.)Turns...

This book isn't all about sex, but there's plenty of it. There are a few attempted (and successful) seductions and some nudity…but it's hardly Harlequin. It's 95% yearning, 5% sexy reunion action...

Homer, the Odyssey: The entire plot of this book is one big Homer shout-out, folksWilliam Bartram, Bartram's Travels: Inman's only reading material in most of the book is Bartram's Travels, a book...