![Picture](/uploads/7/7/7/4/7774990/editor/cold-mountain_1.jpg?1551529382)
John's Comments
Cold Mountain is a book full of riches but set amidst much cruelty and suffering. Inman, a wounded Confederate soldier absconds from the Civil War to walk back to his home in the Cold Mountain country of N. Carolina, where he hopes Ada Monroe is waiting for him. Inman and Ada's stories are told in alternate chapters and converge in a heart-wrenching climax. Alongside the main narrative, we are told many tales of personal history, myths and legends. Food, music and the struggle for survival, acts of kindness and great brutality, enrich the story and all suffused with the abundant life of the natural world, the changing seasons and the timeless landscape of rivers, trees and mountains. Charles Frazier brings you into that world with painterly descriptions, well-drawn characters, and wry observations - "marrying a woman for her beauty makes no more sense than eating a bird for its singing." For me, the ending detracted somewhat from my enjoyment of the book, but nevertheless I highly recommend it..
Both Ceri and Sheila gave the book 10/10
Cold Mountain is a book full of riches but set amidst much cruelty and suffering. Inman, a wounded Confederate soldier absconds from the Civil War to walk back to his home in the Cold Mountain country of N. Carolina, where he hopes Ada Monroe is waiting for him. Inman and Ada's stories are told in alternate chapters and converge in a heart-wrenching climax. Alongside the main narrative, we are told many tales of personal history, myths and legends. Food, music and the struggle for survival, acts of kindness and great brutality, enrich the story and all suffused with the abundant life of the natural world, the changing seasons and the timeless landscape of rivers, trees and mountains. Charles Frazier brings you into that world with painterly descriptions, well-drawn characters, and wry observations - "marrying a woman for her beauty makes no more sense than eating a bird for its singing." For me, the ending detracted somewhat from my enjoyment of the book, but nevertheless I highly recommend it..
Both Ceri and Sheila gave the book 10/10
Background from Rob
I was struck by the number of references to old time mountain songs in the book. This is very much 'my' music and I have listened to and even played some of these songs since I was a spotty adolescent. Rather than go on about them on Friday, I thought I'd get most of it out of the way now, and fortunately, I came across this link to an interview with Charles Frazier, in which he talks quite a bit about the songs:
http://jsr.fsu.edu/Volume10/Ketchin.htm
The source is the somewhat surprising Journal of Southern Religion. As the interviewer says, song lyrics crop up all over the book including in some chapter titles. Lady Margaret and Sweet William, by the way, is a Child Ballad (Collected by F J Child and published in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads). There are many variants, and either Ada or Inman comments on the way in which folksongs change over the years late on in the book. In the interview, Hard Times is credited to Stephen Foster, but is most likely a song simply written down by him for the first time and popularised.
Probably one of the most important songs in the book, and missing from discussion in the interview, is Can't you hear me callin' AKA Come back to me is my request. This has been described as the first recorded Bluegrass song and was recorded in 1949 by Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys, who also recorded Wayfarin' Stranger, Hard Times and several of the other songs referenced in the book. As with Foster, Bill is credited with authorship of Can't you hear me callin', but the chorus at least is most probably much older Bill was steeped in the traditional music of Kentucky and its surroundings.
I was struck by the number of references to old time mountain songs in the book. This is very much 'my' music and I have listened to and even played some of these songs since I was a spotty adolescent. Rather than go on about them on Friday, I thought I'd get most of it out of the way now, and fortunately, I came across this link to an interview with Charles Frazier, in which he talks quite a bit about the songs:
http://jsr.fsu.edu/Volume10/Ketchin.htm
The source is the somewhat surprising Journal of Southern Religion. As the interviewer says, song lyrics crop up all over the book including in some chapter titles. Lady Margaret and Sweet William, by the way, is a Child Ballad (Collected by F J Child and published in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads). There are many variants, and either Ada or Inman comments on the way in which folksongs change over the years late on in the book. In the interview, Hard Times is credited to Stephen Foster, but is most likely a song simply written down by him for the first time and popularised.
Probably one of the most important songs in the book, and missing from discussion in the interview, is Can't you hear me callin' AKA Come back to me is my request. This has been described as the first recorded Bluegrass song and was recorded in 1949 by Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys, who also recorded Wayfarin' Stranger, Hard Times and several of the other songs referenced in the book. As with Foster, Bill is credited with authorship of Can't you hear me callin', but the chorus at least is most probably much older Bill was steeped in the traditional music of Kentucky and its surroundings.