Cold Mountain ~ Charles Frazier ~ 5/98 ~ Book Club Export

Hey!! Where is everybody? Me to go first?

Well, I just finished this book this morning, and am just floating in such a wash of emotion, don't really know where to begin.

As to one of the topics above, I found Frazier's voice true to the South from the very beginning, almost stunningly so. I knew from reading it he either lived in or was from the south, but am surprised to find him a Southerner, as I'm surprised he NOTICED some of the patterns common ....that is, that he would think they were something to remark on.

Now, as to the illustration on the cover and the photo of the author, I've heard comments both ways, what's YOUR opinion of both?

Ginny

Ginny and Ros: I'm here - read the book sometime ago, but will go back over it again to comment from time to time. Ginny - what are you doing reading the whole book? Those instructions above don't say to do that! haha Never lived in the south, Ros - can't comment on that!

Frazier's style of writing, as I remember it, was very unique. He didn't finish sentences, just phrases, at times. Remember thinking that was odd, but it didn't take away from the story, which was wonderful. I didn't see the romance part as much of a whole as some people might have, but was very interested in the adventures of both the women and the mountain man escaping from the confederacy.

Have often wondered since reading it, and since it won awards, how the southern folk felt about it - some of the diehard confederates - those that wanted to keep the confederate flag flying over their state capitol and the like! Hope some southerners come in here and tell us!

Ros, this is actually one book that I have a copy of that didn't come from the library but loaned to me by a friend so will be able to keep it throughout the discussion. I just briefly looked at the links you have above and want to go back and read them as they should add some interesting background for our discussion.

I was struck in the first few pages with the total isolation that the wounded soldiers must have experienced and the length of the recovery period. It seems that it would have been so easy to fall into a deep depression just from the unchanging surroundings and the suffering that the individual soldier experienced as well as the human suffering all around. The initial picture of the hospital situation was certainly bleak.

Larry

This is one of those books that you can't put down once started. I can understand why Ginny went on and read the whole thing!

My husband is like LJ, not much for fiction. Son #2 gave him Cold Mountain for Christmas...husband always reads whatever the boys give him. He was into it right away. Said he didn't know he was going to like it so much, but knew it was well written from the first chapter.

Not from the deep South, though the boys all went to school out in the Blue Ridge (and Charlottesville, Williamsburg and North Carolina) We have driven through to Florida on occasion.
I often marvelled at the extent of the wet, reedy land on both sides of the road and contemplated what it would be like to walk through there if the road was blocked for any reason. Also that standing water! I've never seen anything like that! The thick yellow-brown muck sitting stagnant. Sometimes I noticed rowboats on the shore...and couldn't imagine floating through it on a Sunday afternoon...much less swimming in it!!!

This will be fun to discuss, with so many 'defensive' Southerners aboard! But as I've only read the first 100 pages, please don't give away the story if you've read the whole thing! Can't resist asking Ginny though, if she finds dog hair in her gravy!

Later!

Joan

I agree, I'm not much on reading fiction but this book is realy great. I'm certain many of us have been in many of the places described, but I notice an evasiveness about identifying specific locations. Can we start with the assumption that his recovery is taking place in Raleigh?

Best

LJ

Well, this is my third try to post a message welcoming everyone to the discussion. The first two were swallowed up somewhere in cyberspace and who knows if they'll ever appear? Maybe it's a subtle supernal hint that I should keep quiet for a change. So I'll save my remarks for a day when the demons of Cyber are not angry at me. Meanwhile, welcome, everyone - keep those cards 'n' letters coming.

Ros

That is a REALLY good point, LJ, and Joan, too. What do you mean defensive Southerners?? hahahahha

I've taken out the map and tried to FIND Cold Mountain, as I live 60 minutes from Asheville, but am hopelessly lost on the endpapers maps. Do help.

Why do you say Raleigh, LJ?? Because he came thru Spartanburg?

Ginny

Ginny, on one of the earliest pages, we learned that when Inman's wounds were suffered, at Petersburg, he was taken to a field hospital, but after a few days, when it was clear he was not going to die, he was transferred to a "real hospital in his own state." We inferred that it was in or near Raleigh because he could see the capitol building when he walked out. Sound reasonable?

Ros

I, too, read the book some time ago, and am preparing to start over so that I can make some sense in discussions. I just got back from two beautiful days in Virginia followed by a bus ride home in the rain. I kept looking at the misty mountains in the distance and thinking of this cover! I guess it's supposed to be North Carolina, but the mood is the same: a sense of isolation, loneliness, that makes the viewer contemplative. When I looked at Frazier's picture as Ginny suggested, I find he makes me think of an ol' man of the mountain, isolated and reflective, even though he's not that old. (He's certainly not much interested in tonsorial splendor!) The style and tone of the novel seemed like that to me, too - contemplative. It's an extended image of an inward journey as much as it is a physical one. I think the name "Inman" reflects that intention.

I started to read Cold Mountain, but found it hard going. At that point I thought I would get more out of it if I just waited until the discussion started, and read along with the discussion. I think that was a good idea since you all have brought up points already that I never even thought about.

Thanks for the guidelines Roz!!

I was lucky enough to borrow the book from a friend who doesn't need it back for awhile.

Since I am not from the South, and have driven through that area only once I don't have anything to add about that part of the country. But I am sure I'll learn a lot from all of you.

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

What a great group, and JO! "Inman," how insightful! My husband works in Inman, SC, and I never gave it a passing thought, now I have a new appreciation.

And the cover, so symbolic, I think.

On Raleigh: I knew my complete ignorance of the Civil War would show itself pretty quickly, but not that fast! I knew, for instance, that Milledgeville was the capitol of Georgia during the Civil War, and I knew that the Federal troops captured the North East section of NC and held it throughtout the war, so I had assumed that the capitol had been moved from Raleigh? Apparently, and I say apparently, as am having trouble finding exact information, NC was in a state of chaos, just as the book describes, and they did NOT move the capitol. The presence of a dome means nothing, many southern towns have domes for the county seats.

But what a delightful time we had last night, as my husband is a Civil War buff, being from South Georgia and having been engaged in a lengthy hunt for the burial place of his great+ grandfather who disappeared in the skirmish of James Island, so my island in the kitchen is now covered with huge tomes, as we dragged out book after book, my husband muttering darkly about Salisbury. I had ancestors in the Confederacy, too, but my Grandmother was a history teacher and had that all documented before I was born.

Now, that's close to the best you can get: wonderful people to discuss a book with, and lots of research and finding out things you never knew...what a wonderful experience, and we've just started.

Ginny

Finally found my long ago bought copy of the book and I hate to tell you how much less than one hundred pages I've read.

I had printed out the first chapter last week and taken it along to work with me. Read some of it and felt that it really wasn't the kind of story I felt like reading right now. Strange, but as I was driving home I found myself thinking about it and some of the strong images those pages had evoked in me, particularly the description of Inman's injury, the almost miraculous healing process and the memories of things past he pictured through the frame of his hospital window.

But what has my attention now and has raised a question for me is Inman's meeting with the blind man. I am not yet talking about Inman's issues with the horrors of the sights of war he wished he had not seen

I am wondering about the blind man's saying that he was glad that he had never been sighted. That is was far worse to have your sight and lose it than never to have seen at all. I once worked with a remarkable blind man who was the head of a government agency. He had lost his sight due to an illness sometime late in his teens. He was grateful for once having had his sight . He knew what colors were, what things in the world looked like. He had frames of reference. (He also felt grateful that it was his eyesight and not his hearing that was taken from him.) I think it would be a horror to be blind. But that being said, I can't imagine not wanting the "ten minutes" to know certain things you couldn't feel or have described. How do you describe color to a person who has never seen it? I wondered if any other readers among us were taken by this and how you feel about it? Do you agree with the blind man? What do you think?

Oh and if you would take the ten minutes to see, what would you want to see that would have to last you for your lifetime?

Good posts. I think this first chapter is giving us some "Preparation" for understanding the "Mind-set" and the empathy that are to follow.

That description of a scene burned in memory (Through the window) should be a point of contact for all of us.

Notice also the way he quit school and the presumed logic in it as well as premeditation. From this we know what he's going to do and from the succinct summary of the minds of the "Generals", we know why.

This will be a perspective on the Civil war somewhat different from those most of us have read before. The state of medical practice (which grew by leaps and bounds from what was learned on the battlefield) is well presented, but I never did figure out the "Walnut" (Of course, neither did Inman)

Best

LJ

Helen brought up a topic that I have thought about many times. When remarking on the blind man who was grateful never having lost his sight, since he never was sighted....

While I was in college I knew both a blind student and a deaf student, both young women, and both well adapted to their handicap. It seemed to me that the deaf young woman had a much more difficult time adjusting to her problem than the blind young woman. At least when you can hear you can join in on any conversation, and people, I think, are more patient explaining things to you. This of course was before televsion and closed captions, so I might think differently now that I am older.

The book is much easier the second time around, and I am happily reading it again.

Inman leaving school certainly does prepares us for what is to come, and I'm looking forward to getting my 100 pages in this weekend.

Fran

I FOUND IT. COLD MOUNTAIN IS on the map. The triple A NC/SC map shows it. About 10-12 miles Due South of I-40 between Ashville and Waynesville in the Pisgah National Forest.About 24 miles ESE of Cherokee and about 8 miles due west of Pisgah Mountain. Its only at an elevation of 600 feet. You might describe it as being in a basin surrounded by Mount Pisgah (5749 ft.) Sugar Top (4930 ft) and shining Rock (6040 ft).

Best

LJ

LJ!!You smart thing! Going right out to the car for the map! Want to see if we drove right thru it without even knowing it when we went up to Waynesville to buy a hunting dog for my husband.

Also, just came back on I-40 all the way from Oklahoma, didn't know I was passing such a landmark, would have segued over to see it.

Great work! I DID notice all along the way, what looks like "hairnets" all along the rock faces that the road goes thru. It looks like chain link fences rolled down the mountain sides along side the interstate: even curling up on the ends, but apparently, it's the same mesh they use in concrete building to fortify concrete, and has been placed there to deflect rock falls, as we know I-40 has been closed for some time due to massive rock slides. I must say two things really stood out for me on this last trip I took the week before Easter: one was the tremendous storm damage visible, trees down, etc...looks like they really have some awful weather thru there, and the second was the beautiful waterfalls, so numerous now, cascaing over the sides of the rocks, right next to the road.

Helen have been thinking over your questions all night. I believe if I could only see for 10 minutes, I'd want to look at my husband and children, my home and fields and forests, my friends, my animals, and every color in the rainbow, so I'd know what people were talking about. Maybe look at the sun and the moon, a book, the birds: as I write this I've got Indigo Buntings and Cardinals and Blue Jays and another blue bird I've never seen and gold finches outside my window. Then all the flowers I could cram in, only 10 minutes huh? Would get on the golf cart and ride over every inch of ground so it would be sealed in my memory forever: the pond, the creek, the grapevines, and lastly, my children once again. And of course, I'd look in to SeniorNet just once before having the computer fitted up with AUDIO I could "see" you all chatting and chat back!

Ginny

Good for you, LJ! I've been poring over a Southeastern States AAA map without getting any closer than Brevard and Mount Pisgah.

Frazier's acknowledgements page is the last in the book, after the end of the story. I thought this was a bit unfair, because it withholds information that we really need. He apologizes for taking liberties with the geography of the region and gives Cold Mountain's height as 6030 feet, much like Balsam and the others shown on various maps.

He also identifies W. P. Inman, a real person, on whose life his protagonist is loosely based. (I speculate that the amount of fictionalization was the reason for using only his surname, and I also think that added a tone to the narrative that would have been lost if we'd been invited to think of him as "Will," Walter," "Wendell," or "Whatever.")

Very late in the book, Frazier gives us information about the pronunciation of the woman's name which we really needed from the beginning. Her father always used "a broad A," so depending on your interpretation of "broad" her name was either Adda or Ahda, not Ayda which is what I've always understood. I still see/hear it as Ayda.

The book is so strongly visually oriented, and Inman so observant of visual detail, that the blind peanut vendor does seem to have special meaning. This would be true even if the character himself was abstracted from one of the countless diaries, letters, and other documents that Frazier examined as he prepared to write. We all deal in metaphor, but it's how the artist awakens our perception of metaphor that makes a good book great.

Ros

Thanks, LJ, for finding Cold Mountain for us! Anyone who has ever travelled Skyline Drive and the Blueridge Parkway has passed within spitting distance of it. I once spent the night at Mt. Pisgah Lodge having spent the day getting intimate with Mt. Pisgah! I tromped all over the Great Smokies in my "salad" days... Mt. LeConte, the Chimneys, Clingman's Dome (before they built the road), Indian Gap Trail, etc etc. I imagine this country was still quite wild during the Civil War. It was pretty wild even in my youth! This book, Cold Mountain, certainly awakened some of my most precious memories. I'm looking forward to reading your discussions of this book's ending...

Please forgive a little personal excursion into metaphor:

When I first thought about Balis, the taciturn dying man who dragged himself on his crutches to his work-table and struggled all day with his pile of notes, I speculated that the clue lay in his having "tried to learn Greek" at Chapel Hill. However, coming across a chance reference elsewhere, I began to wonder if Balis's notes were about physics rather than Greek, and if that second fragment -- the one which Inman felt he could accept -- was just a restatement of the so-called "second law of thermodynamics," which defined the gradual dissipation of energy by a process that was named "entropy":

In any process,no matter how orderly, involving a flow of free and usable energy, there is always some loss, so that the entropy (randomness of energy) of the universe is continually increasing.

Important inquiries into the nature of energy were taking place in the mid-19th century, and if Balis knew German, he might have been translating from the work of Rudolf Clausius, who defined entropy in 1850.

"The comeliest order on earth is but a heap of random sweepings." This could have been Balis's key to the randomness of everything that had happened to him, and it might also offer a key to understanding the pattern of the book, which is constructed in a very orderly fashion, and yet ....

Ros

Hi again. Enjoying the postings and enjoyment all are having with CM. Read the book when it first appeared and hardly put it down. As some may remember, my being from Virginia and liking our conversation on Thomas Jefferson, this book really gets to the heart of closeness to humanity and "down to earth living and feelings". Being raised in the mountains (first l5 years), I want to believe that one's experiences are more sensitive to events and relations but that may be wishful thinking. How very real this book depicts the true "feel" of the times and nature, harshness and loving relationships, hatred and gnawing pangs of love and true affection for others and memories. How one can "get lost" in meditation among beauty and survive with basic knowlege of your surroundings. I was really jolted by the description of the times as to living,working, etc. as I realized that just 50-60 years ago in much of the Blue Ridge and Allegany Mts life closely resembled that depicted in the book. Well enough for this time. Thanks for your patience. Jim

This is a book I can put down and think on it for awhile. Discussing it with a friend, she made the remark that she was surprised how much she empathized with a "deserter." I had not thought of Inman as a deserter. When he decided to "head for the hills - home", it seemed the logical thing to do. I first saw this part of N.C. at 19 - these were the first mountains I had ever seen. I have lived in N.C. now for over 35 years and have lived from the mountains to the sea. I have a sense of dread as he is walking "home" - the distance, the wild terrain, the human encounters and avoiding the home guard - but he seems calm. Strange. Then there is Ayda (that is the way I would pronounce it too) and Ruby - I have known a character like Ruby - she reminds me of a female character in one of O. Henry's tales - "...it is us what provides the meat..." and Ayda seems to fit "the little fool you fished out of the river."

My first encounter with this part of the "Smokies" was over 50 years ago at the age of 15. It was the first time I'd ever looked down on clouds or been in them. Cherokee was still primitive and the antique Indian materials some of us were priveleged to see and handle are now in museums.

Fred Vinson (Supreme Court Justice) commented perceptively on the attitudes of the appalachian folk and their independance of thought so well presented in this book. He pointed out that these people began migrating from Virginia during the Revolutionary war, the war of 1812, the civil war and think about "Sergeant York" and the First World War. This migration reached thru Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and even into Missouri. Time changes all things, but many of us have met and known these people on their own "Turf" and can relate to the reality of the personalities so well presented here.

Best

LJ

I just knew that the shared wisdom of our members would deepen my own experience of this book. Jeryn, LJ, James, Joyce, your personal knowledge of the region seems to underline that feeling of closeness to nature that Frazier communicates without ever using those words.

If you have read the "Mountain Man" interview and the first of Frazier's diary entries from Salon, you will also find references to the distinctive identity of his people, their comparatively unmixed ethnic background, their qualities of proud independence, and their feeling of detachment from the war except insofar as it impinged on all these aspects of their lives.

Joyce, I too instantly warmed to the sturdy, capable Ruby and imagined how she would fit into the story. Already the personalities and abilities of Ada and Ruby seem to mesh together so well that they are almost like two parts of the same individual. (More about this later.)

Ros

I am enjoying this book so much. It is reaffirming everything I have come to know about this area. Bob's dad, 94 years old now, was raised in Cherokee County, NC. We take him to Murphy, NC every Memorial Day that we can to visit the land and his memories of his beloved mountains. Bob and I have tramped through all the back areas, looking for old cemeteries and seeking his dad's parents grave site. Dad was raised by his grandfather, after his mom and dad's death when he was 9 months old. (WE FOUND IT, TOO!!!) Made him so happy! We have traced his family back to his GGGrandfather, Samuel Elliott. Sam was born in 1834 and fought at Battle of Chicamaugua(sp) and at Look Out Mtn. His family, as well as most in that area, were from Scotland and settled here because of the "home like" atmosphere. They were Border Reivers.

We have found the people to be independent, hard working, PROUD, and very close mouthed! They, like Bob's dad, are a very simple people who find their joy (if it can be called that) in everyday living, survival and family.

I think Frasier has crafted Inman beautifully! He is the epitome of every man I have known about from that era. The women, too, were fiercely independent and proud. (Still are in the back areas.)

It has taken me years to understand Bob's dad...his seemingly inability to show emotion, his proudness, his distancing of himself from others...and underneath this they have a delightful, dry sense of humor. (His one grandpa crept out in the middle of the night one January and tied plastic roses all over his trellis...and Sunday morning when folks were walking down the hill, past his house, too church...there he was with a hose, watering them! When several asked in awe (what he was waiting for) how in the world he got roses to bloom in January, he smugly answered..."well...it's jes lak your souls...if'n you want 'em to thrive...ye gotta tend to 'em!") Now I know most people would see this as a nutty old man...but, I found him delightful!

Bought Cold Mountain on tape for dad (he can't see well enough to read any more) and it is so great to see him listen and enjoy...tears filling his eyes and a winsome smile on his face. (by the way on the tape it is pronounced Ayda) His remarks on the book were..."now that boy (Frasier) knows mountain people!"

Well, enough about this...not too interesting to anyone but me...but just had to say how this book has affected me and mine. Sorry I got carried away...will try and stick with Ros's format from now on. She has done such an excellent job of presenting this discussion.

Thanks,

Eddie

Eddie, Your comments are VERY interesting. I suspect we'll all have little experiences with mountain people to relate as the story unfolds.

The church Ida describes reminded me of a drive up one of those mountains (In sight of "Grandfather Mountain") on a curvey, two lane, deserted road. Suddenly we came round a curve and found this little frame church nestled near the road. NO-ONE was there but the doors were unlocked. Everything in the building (Including the pews and the latches in the doors) was hand made by the congregation. (The organ was "Store-bought'n") Later the pastor told us that whenever something needed for doin, he would ask one of the congregation to do it and as long as he never mentioned it again he could be certain that it WOULD get done. (It would take MUCH longer if he mentioned it again)

Best

LJ

Poor urban wretch that I am, I don't know any southern/mountain people, but I do know how beautiful those mountains are through travel experiences. I do "know" Ruby, though. My best friend IS Ruby - a quiet, calm, capable woman who can take charge and bring order out of chaos, whose entire life has been a model of productivity and creativity. How well Ruby and Ada work together, accepting each other's differences and making their partnership work. What if either one had not been able to accept the different temperament? Their mututal survival might have been compromised, although it's hard to imagine Ruby not surviving.

Eddie, you have so exactly fulfilled my hopes for the "Prelude" of our discussion that I can't think of a single response except "Thank you!" Your message, LJ's, and those that have been posted earlier confirm what was for me only an impression: that Frazier's depiction of people is wondrously, piercingly accurate. And he does so much of it through dialogue, seldom using adjectives to describe anyone's character.

Jo, you're fortunate in your friends! I think Frazier is careful to let us feel Ruby's dignity and pride from the very beginning. Her capabilities are revealed one by one as she steps in to help -- no, I should say rescue -- Ada. The chapter which introduces her begins with Ada's helpless hunger and ends with a bountiful supper provided by Ruby. What better way to point up her resourcefulness without ever saying, "Ruby was resourceful"?

I haven't read too far yet, but found Eddie's description of her father-in-law fascinating. My father was of Scot's ancestry that went back to NC and Scotland. I can easily understand her description and it's similarity to my father. Looking forward to reading everyone's contributions. Sharon

The story of Ida and Ruby, much like a modern Robinson Crusoe, Prince and the Pauper, or other great stories is one that will frequently come to mind for the rest of my life. I've met people so inept that they would starve to death in a supermarket, and I've watched them Grow, like Ida. It just makes you feel like you're there with them --- helping.

Best

LJ

That's a good quote, LJ, starving to death in a supermarket, kinda sticks with you.

I was struck by the "Armageddon" quality of the book. That's a hot topic right now: WHEN the world ends, what will we do? Mad Max and all. Here the world apparently DID end, and we can see the chaos that resulted, but with an historic twist that makes it even more poignant. Really gets the points home for me.

I like the interweaving of the two stories, and the endless Chaucer like tales each spawns. Am totally struck by the violence and the instant killing, tho, did not realize it was like that. No wonder Monroe found the people to be "touchy and distant, largely unreadable. They often acted as if they had been insulted, though neither Ada nor Monroe could say how. Many homesteads operated as if embattled. Only men would come out onto the porch to meet them...." (page 42).

This is certainly true today in many places. I never will forget my first visit to the deep south, where the custom in that area was to drive up to a house and honk your horn if you were visiting and not sure of your welcome. The men would then go out.... Having come from New Jersey, where such behavior would be a death warrant, I was astounded, but different cultures have different ways, which they have developed for a reason. More later....

Ginny

Natives on Montserrat (That's realy South) after 5:00 P.M. would stand on the sidewalk and call out "Good Night" to get your attention. That was equivalant to ringing a doorbell.

Best

LJ

No, we all don't know Mountain folk, but we do now! Eddie Marie's Dad has verified the portrait which Charles Frazier has presented to us - with his tears!

I know Ada though, the motherless daughter, raised by her father to learn not much more to run a home than write the menus. That would be me. Can you believe that when I first met my husband, I had to ask my new stepmother (in an urgent whisper) how to make tea for him? You think I'm kidding, right? I could play the piano and speak French though! My husband says he should have known then what he was getting into...

I liked the contrast - Ruby was also motherless, but instead a caretaker father, she looked out for herself. And her father. It was a familiar role for her, which prepared her for her relationship with Ada. I think one of the reasons they got along so well was because they grew up without mothers, without any preconceived ideas on the role of a woman in the home. Theirs was a partnership- based on survival.

How do you see Ruby? In his description, Frazier tells us she is a "dark thing", and that she has black coarse hair, dark eyes, broad bridge across her nose... barefoot. It seems she knew Sally Swanger - so she was from Cold Mountain.(?) Is she black? Is she Cherokee?

Yes, he presents us with visual portraits on every page. I especially like his metaphors...they are 'right on' as he describes Balis, the amputee, 'smelling all the time like last year's ham', the blind man's eyelid as 'dead as shrunken shoe leather', Swimmer's voice as 'a rush of sound as soothing as creek noise'. Such economy and yet sufficient to paint the picture worth 1000 words.

This is a book that will be read over and over again, each time noticing something missed the previous times. If you don't own it, buy it! It's a keeper!

Yes, Joan, it's almost impossible to avoid falling under the spell of Frazier's measured, thoughtful writing. Glad you're enjoying it.

The rivers shown on the map I'm using run mostly north-to-south so I can't spot some of the little ones he refers to. The Cape Fear River is due south of Chapel Hill, so at the point in the narrative where Frazier and that wild girl try to ferry across, he's gone perhaps 35 miles from Raleigh. (He should now be heading west and south, but we don't seem to have many clues to his direction.) Another twelve miles' hard walking brings him to the gypsy encampment, after his encounter with the twisted preacher and the poor pregnant girl.

Think of trying to find one's way through woods and swamps, having to hide at the sound of human voices, always in fear of somehow wandering northward to be captured by roaming "Federals," or encountering the gangs that are hunting for "outliers." Even Odysseus had the open sea and the sun and stars to guide him. Frazier counts on Orion when he can find it.

Ros

Yes, Odysseus! Glad you mention him, Ros. I have been aware of the parallels between the Odyssey and Inman's struggle to return home after the battle A reluctant warrior, as was Odysseus (remember how he was "drafted" from the fields), confronted with obstacles of nature and alluring women as he attempted to return. I wonder how intentional was this parallel on Frazier's part - or if it just happened. It's a question I would like to ask him.

The "romance" between Ada and Inman is evident in these first 100 pages, and yet as far as I can tell, nothing much happened except for the lap scene. Somehow Frazier with few words, managed to convey the depth of understanding between them from the start.

I wonder if they had a parting scene before he left for the war - or if their sole encounter was that brief scene (though unforgetable in it's understated power) in the kitchen during the Christmas party...

At any rate, Ada is his Penelope, struggling to survive on the homefront! (I do remember Penelope working the fields too.)

Read on, Joan, and all will be answered by the time you reach the antepenultimate page. Your first impressions may well be changed as you move through the story.

Joan, please bear with me as I try to explain why I decided to avoid laboring the Odyssey connection for several reasons:

First, because it's such a facile and obvious and yet such a weak comparison. Not every book that has the protagonist laboring to get from Point A to Point B is an odyssey in the strictest sense. Inman isn't a Homeric hero; his previous history, family life, motivations, and general moral sense are quite different. Nor is Ada a true Penelope in terms of character, background, or behavior, as I felt even the first of her chapters shows. In his interview, Frazier acknowledges and then brushes off the Odyssey question.

Second, because I felt that superimposing Homeric expectations on Frazier's narrative does him a disservice. He writes to a smaller scale, closer to the miniutiae of rural nature, the practicality of life-and-death decisions, and the quiet humor of the Southern culture -- features far more characteristic of the naturalistic frontier literature of the 19th century. Beginning with his first gaze through the hospital window, there's a strong contemplative element which is consistent with Inman's habitual solitude. I feel that the book incorporates some of the tone of Bartram's 18th century journal -- part of which accompanies Inman as he toils westward; and, I thought, there was also something of Gilbert White's "Natural History of Selborne," which was contemporaneous with Bartram.

Ros

Good morning Ros!

I read another 20-30 pages last night and thought a while about your last post...

Not to labor the Odyssey connection, but simply to make an observation rather than to initiate a debate:

every story of a man's attempt to make his way home, following an epic battle, facing great obstacles in which he must make 'life and death decisions', not knowing what awaits him at his destination - is an odyssey ...'in the strictest sense'- no matter the scale, grand or small!

Having spent nearly a year with Homer, his 'quiet humor", with Odysseus, his integrity, strong sense of right and wrong, though not infallible manhood, I must insist, the comparison is facile, obvious, but not at all weak!

Of course, you have read the entire book; my observations only come from the first 100 pages. I may understand your viewpoint after reading the rest of the story.

You have also heard Mr. Frazier himself 'brush off the Odyssey question.' What was the acknowledgement? Would love to read that interview. Do we have that stored anywhere? Or do you know where or when the interview took place?

Off to work. Looking forward to the rest of the book and hearing from you all.

Joan

Joan, in preparation for the discussion I looked up every Frazier reference I could find on the Net, and selected as links those that I thought would be the most helpful Unfortunately I didn't bookmark every single one I'd read, and as I've since had to reinstall my ISP software, I'm not sure how many of them I can retrieve. However, I'll try, and will give you the URL if I can find it.

As for our difference of opinion, I suspect that it's more semantic than substantive and that it wouldn't be productive to argue about it. On the contrary, I'll depend on you hereafter to identify whatever parallels you think are worth mentioning. Your contributions will, as always, enhance the discussion and will be sincerely appreciated.

Ros

I haven't looked up anything on Frazier, mostly because I don't do that well "researching" on the 'net. We seem to know about Ada before Inman went to war but little about him or his family. I am impressed with this writer - he does develop the love interest with only the lap scene - now that's romatic! That this is his first novel is surprising to me. I hope he has another in the works as I find his style intriging. He presents the Civil War through Inman's eyes as I think it must have been. Not romantic, heroric, or even patriotic, just horrible, horrible, horrible.

There's something about this book that engages the reader. I'm amazed at my own reaction to it: am not interested in reading about the Civil War, had quite a time getting thru the first part of Inman's narration, and then we came to Ada, and the entire thing took off for me.

It seems in each vignette or character he meets or in the descriptions of his surroundings we can feel the little frisson of "OH, I know that, or her or I've been there or seen that." So these little jolts seem to really hold the reader, as he's got something to relate to.

I, too, saw some literary connections to the book, I guess because of the parade of people he meets. I was reminded of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales but was too lazy to count the tales told by each person Inman or Ada met.

In Chaucer, the pilgrims to Canterbury propose to tell two stories each on the way to and from Canterbury, and there's to be a contest for the best.

In Cold Mountain, Inman meets up with a wide assortment of characters, each of whom has a story to tell, and the unremitting parade of characters, each of whom tells a story (but I didn't notice how many plots each had) reminded me of this pilgrimage in earlier literature. It does seem Inman is making a pilgrimage of sorts.

But the fact he is going home and his sidekicks always seem to end in defeat reminds me of the Odyssey, too. Seems like something unpleasant always happens to those who take up with him or whom he encounters...with one exception, and was not paying enough attention to that one to really say. Maybe when we get to that part it will be made clearer.

But here some troubling things occur: the companions are lost, but not necessarily of their own fault or sins. It seems almost a random, Armageddon type of thing, very frightening, and at the same time, very evocative of the apparent chaos that DID occur. Must have been a very very bad time in which to live. And our hero, Inman, survives time after time, but not necessarily out of moral supremacy...I'm troubled with what the book is saying, but have no problem with the way he's saying it.

But these lines, for instance: "The houses were dark inside, even on a bright day. Those with shutters kept them pulled to. Those with curtains kept them drawn....All the while the men would sit in straight chairs looking at the fire.....when [Monroe] pressed them with a direct question they sat and thought about it for a long time, and sometimes they answered in brief vague phrases and and more often they just looked sharply at him as if that in itself conveyed all the message they cared to pass...They had evidently come to entirely different conclusions about life and lived utterly by their own light."

Been there, seen that.

In fact, just recently, in a small town newspaper "Home" editorial I was startled almost out of my shoes to read that the author's little girl had asked her older brother a question, and became angry when her brother did not respond. The author admonished the little girl, saying that when you ask someone a question, and the person does not respond, that means that YOU are supposed to take that as advice to do further reading and study on the subject!! Can you imagine?

It's one thing to read about it in a book of fiction, it's another thing to know it's not only actively going on, but set up as some sort of standard in a newspaper, for Pete's sake. I can only hope that little boy marries somebody brought up in the same culture: imagine asking your husband or wife a question and being met with a deliberately meaningful silence or stare!!! YOU to guess what is meant?

Ginny

Joan Pearson - and anyone else who's interested - the address for the Charles Frazier interview from the PBS News Hour was five lines long so I chickened out on making it a link. However, if you go to www.pbs.org and click on the search button, then key in
Charles+Frazier+Cold+Mountain
you should quickly reach it. There's also a Real Audio link but my computer currently refuses Real Audio so I don't know what kind of Southern accent Frazier has.

Here's the relevant paragraph from that interview:

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Because it’s the story of a man’s odyssey from this terrible war where he’s so badly injured and so damaged--home--it naturally has echoes of the "Odyssey," and I felt those echoes all the way through. Were you thinking of the "Odyssey" when you wrote it?

CHARLES FRAZIER: I was. When my father told me the story, that was one of my first thoughts, was that in some of its basic features the story was similar to the "Odyssey." So I went back and reread the "Odyssey" and tried not to write parallel scenes or anything like that but just to have a recognition, as I wrote, that that was a literary ancestor of the story.

The rest of the interview is equally interesting and worth hunting up, especially for those of you who can get the audio.

Ros

Ros,

Thanks so much for the PBS site. It is an interesting interview with Frazier.

Joan, Ginny Ros:

I am enjoying the posts re parallels to other literature and he certainly addressess his take on the Odyssey. Actually , I have this MICRO comparison spinning around in my head as I read about Ada's helplessness as to her own survival due in large part to her privileged upbringing in Charleston. Am reading the Kathryn Graham book at the same time. Can't help thinking that here is a woman of a magnitude of wealth and privilege beyond my comprehension. She describes the circumstance of having zero responsibility for domestic chores at all and it's negative impact upon her early adult life.

Can you imagine that Frazier took seven years to write this book at a page a day and sometimes not even that? That is the kind of effort he put in to getting the details to create the kind of imagery that suceeds in making me feel as though I am there and can feel the environment he has drawn for us.

The PBS site is a good one to bookmark; lots of wonderful information there.

Ginny and Helen, it occurred to me that in both your posts you're commenting on differences in culture, and on the factors that bring about these differences; time, geography, ethnic background, socio-economic levels, for example. Also, don't many of these differences relate to gender roles? At one time, girls were not to ask questions but were to keep their knees together and grow up to be stay-at-home ladies who "kept house" at whatever level of elegance their husband's social class and income dictated. In my mother's generation and ethnic setting, an eighth-grade education was more than enough for a girl, and "keeping house" included spreading newspaper on the clean kitchen and bathroom floors -- a custom that I never questioned until I was fully grown and a fellow-worker who lived in a fashionable suburb wondered whether there had been a plumbing leak.

I fancy I can detect a difference in style between the Inman chapters and the Ada chapters. Maybe it's a difference in the kinds of detail that each one notices and the kinds of introspection that are recorded. As for the "period" character of the writing, do you agree that it's appropriate and well done? A single "No way," "That's for sure," or "Get a life" would throw everything out of balance. The care that Frazier and his editor devoted to organizing and polishing the manuscript was well worth it.

Ros

Hi there from rainy Southern California. I have so much enjoyed the conversations going on I had to put in my impressions. I read CM last month and throughly enjoyed it. I was rather upet with Ada and her incompetencies when so much of what one has to do do survive is logical and I couldn't find any sympathy for her lack of it. I do realize that pampered children(people) seldom have clues that most of us have, I just got irritated. Inman on the other hand was a romantic character that I seem to find myself drawn to in literature all the time. That dedication and determination to get from point A to point B, what ever that is, is very attractive to me. I've only been in parts of the south as a tourist; I don't consider Miami Southern; but we did get to the Smokey Mountains once and the colors were amazing. I almost envy those of you out there who can relate to the scenery. I do have a sister who lives in a log cabin her husband built several years ago. He is a Mountain Man who fells timber. But their existance does not compare. Thanks for listening.

My husband received this book for Christmas and really enjoyed it. I found it hard going, BUT, this discussion is motivating me to try again. Your comments are just great. I think I can read it now, maybe slowly, but I am going to try.

The difference in tone in the Ada and Inman episodes reflect the differences in their experiences. Inman knows he could be killed any minute as he follows his determined course to Cold Mountain, where he believes he may be lucky enough to find something he values that the war has not destroyed. Ada won't be shot or strung up, but because of her inexperience in providing for her own basic needs, she may starve to death! An edginess in the Inman episodes makes the reader aware of his fears and contrasts with the wistful reflection in Ada's sections. I think she is just as strong and determined in a different way: she behaves in a straightforward, sensible manner in welcoming Ruby into her life, and she shows great willingness to learn. She possesses a strong life force, makes necessary adjustments, and never behaves like a prima donna.

I don't consider Miami southern either. In fact, as a native Floridian, who has lived the past 35 years in two really southern states, N.C. and Va., Florida is not a deep south state. The Civil War experience was especially very different in Florida. They had been two territories - East and West Florida - and had only been in the Union about 20 years when the Civil War broke out. Florida was also a haven for run away slaves who found refuge with the Florida Indian population. From my ancestral stories, most Floridians feared the Seminoles more than the Yankees. Also, Florida won all the battles fought during the Civil War - two! The "Mountain Man" belief of Inman is still around. I worked with a man in Raleigh, who went home to Taylorsville every week end. Once he was snowed in at Raleigh and he almost didn't make it. He claimed the 4 most horrible years of his life was the four years he spent at N.C. State (Raleigh) when he couldn't go home. He grew up in Stoney Point. I asked him once how one made a living in agriculture in the mountains - he was the Assistant Supervisor of Vocational Agriculture for N.C. His reply was "you don't have to make a living in the mountains, you can just live." He has a beautiful, productive apple orchard in Alexandar County and at age 88 still insists on walking in the orchard when my husband and I visit him in the fall each year. I get the same idea from Inman, i.e., if I can get home to Cold Mountain everything will be alright and I can live. I have seen some of those hugh catfish in mountain rivers but not quite as big as the one Veasey caught with his bare hands. Of course, some of the mountain folk can tell really tall tales about fish and bear - maybe this one got bigger and bigger with each generation.

These messages add so much to our discussion and - we hope - will encourage lurkers to participate.Connie, thanks for your comments. Yes, it's true, Inman is depicted as a wonderfully strong and self-sufficient character in contrast to Ada's obvious need for some connection with other people. Yet there is something in Ada that is pulling Inman steadily toward her, and it must be more than what he first noticed about her in church - the way her hair grew at the back of her neck. I've speculated that Frazier depicted their attraction as that of two people with a similar intelligence that was not related to book-learning or woods-lore, but was a way of looking at life.

May, I'm so glad you're giving the book another chance - it's really hard to get past the first section, but once you get into the rhythm of Frazier's prose, it's hard to put the book down.

Jo M., thanks for that insightful way of defining the difference in Frazier's writing between the Ada chapters and the Inman chapters.

Joyce, you're adding to my new understanding of that "Mountain Man" character which you show us still exists in the South. The closest I've ever come to it was in the wilds of northern Wisconsin 50 years ago, staying with a family distantly connected by marriage, who knew every inch of the North Woods, vegetation, wild life, water life, built their own cabins, and lived on fish, wild fowl, venison, and the smaller "varmints," fresh-caught in summer, preserved for the winter. They were isolated and self-sustaining in many ways and truly loved and appreciated their surroundings, but after World War II when electricity and running water came in, their lives changed. Now people travel by snowmobile in winter and the older folks go to Florida.

Ros

100 pages per week in this book is a lot.

My first comment or impression in the current segment of the book is that the Civil War was premonitory of the Mi-Lai incident. It's apparantly a great American tradition to wage war on the civilian population. It's easier too since civilians are essentially defenseless.

Our national dedication to bigotry is well delineated by the draft dodgers who made a carreer of attacking and killing deserters, and the civilians who made a living off of them.

Of course there was also the underlying segment of "Normal" people who simply had "No truck with war".

To change the thought rapidly: Can anyone imagine living for days on oysters and champaigne.

The poignant story of the young soldier at the ball where Ida wore the "Ashes of Roses" dress was worthy of thought

There are also some literary highlights to be mentioned, such as:"But now, as she looked out at the view, she held the opinion that what she saw was no token but was all the life there is" and, "For it is at twilight that the threat of dark makes itself felt most strongly"

Geographically, Salisbury is about 60 miles west of Raleigh, still in the Piedmont but past the "Dee" river. This is probably where Inman found the ladies doin the wash. (My notes say to ask Ginny about the Dee River)

Nuff fer now

Best

LJ

LJ: I, too, found some great lines in this one, will ask my Mother who is 90 about the Dee River. She's a native of NC, her father was a country doctor who went up into the NC mountains in a buggy, and she remembers riding along. She used to have some really cute stories about this, will ask.

This section starts with the "signs," and anybody who seriously makes any kind of jelly or preserves knows about the signs...no kidding. As some of you know, my hobby is making jelly and preserves and jams when I can't get out of it, hate jams and preserves, not the purity of jelly. Anyway, just made strawberry preserves as the strawberries are in, and what a disaster. It's the full moon, you only make on the new moon...I could take the entire page telling you what went wrong. Am rendering juice to make jelly later and will try again closer to the 25th and the next new moon. Got stuck with a big crop.

Noted the reference to Odysseus on page 108, and do appreciate the info that Frazier was aware of it.

Ada's seeing herself in the mirror and not knowing who it was has happened to me many times. It's amazing how we straighten up and change our facial expression!!

I love the way Frazier expresses himself: On page 114, a woman who wasn't much for directions is characterized as "Intent, apparently, in exercising thrift in gestures, she barely tipped her right thumb in response." hahahhah Love that.

Then on 118, "His ambition seemed to be to disburden himself of every feature of his prior life by passing it along to Inman." Love that, too.

There were some phrases I didn't know at all, and would appreciate help with?

"though it was a tale of considerable sordor and bloodshed." on page 142....is this a form of "sorrow?"

"A bloodstone chestnut," on page 153. I've owned chestnuts, never heard the phrase. Have a sorrel at the moment, but that sounds too much like the sordor!

I have looked both of those up in a dictionary, by the way, but perhaps it wasn't large enough. Thought somebody might know?

Liked this phrase: "The red Petersburg welt at his neck began to hurt as if in sympathy with its new brethren." Pge 181.

This section reminds me so much of the Mad Max movies, it's not funny.

I really, though, wonder at somebody just setting out and walking, and expecting to find home with not many landmarks mentioned?

Ginny

The nameing of colors in that era was very descriptive. Stamps issued then and later were described with such terms as "Pidgeon Blood" red.

In N.C. Its easy to see how one could head home from the east and expect to get there eventually. The transition from Coastal Plain to Piedmont to Mountains is so straightforward.

How did you like, "It is still a cloudy matter to me if I did the right thing, letting you live"!!

What did you think of Veasey's fundimental philosophy. "Contentment is largely a matter of talking yourself into believing that God will not strike you too hard for leaning in the direction of your hungers"

On page 123 compare Inman's response to Veasey's srory of "Legion" turned wild by ill fortune (I thought they were wild pigs), and the response of the parishoners to Ida's father.

Nuff fer now

Best

LJ

Ginny, my dictionaries indicate that sordor is derived from sordid, just as languor comes from languid and splendor from splendid. It means either the condition of being sordid or, simply, dirt and filth. Either might fit the context? As for bloodstone, since it's my birthstone I know that it's a gem with unattractive red flecks on an unattractive dark-green ground; but how would that look on a horse? Maybe it just meant darkly mottled on a lighter skin, or vice versa?

Interesting to note that Ruby saw Odysseus not as a hero but as a wily Coyote-like rascal like her father.

How else could Inman have traveled westward from Raleigh to "40 miles west of Asheville," which is how Frazier describes the location of Cold Mountain? He must have been an experienced woodsman and knew how to follow stars and sun and could ask people which rivers flowed westward. We have to remember that he was an "outlier" hiding from the Home Guard.

LJ, I infer that your comparison between Veasey and Monroe is characerized by the examples given, that the former approached his congregation by emphasizing the mystical healing powers of Jesus, while the latter asked his to consider theology and their responsibilities as Christians.

Ros

Ros: Good grief, I thought my birthstone was bad. Unattractive red flecks on an unattractive dark green background? Hahahahah, no WONDER he was cow-hocked! hahahahahhah

Thanks for the sordor....a tale of considerable sordidness and bloodshed, then. I didn't know that word, is it colloquial?

Ginny

I think "sordor" is more likely to be archaic or even a high-flown kind of word that would fit in with the 19th-century flavor of Frazier's writing. He does range widely from the colloquial to the formal. It would be interesting to know how much of his language he borrowed from first-hand journals and letters, as well as from contemporary newspapers. (This selection is simply crammed with term-paper topics. In fact, a junior-high-school teacher somewhere in the state used the book as the basis for term papers by her students, some of which appear on the Web and are really very nice.)

Ros

Gee, I thought Inman's lack of verbal reaction to the sermon was an obvious comparison with the "Mountain" parishoners "Tacitidy" (Probably a neologism, but surely translatable in the face of "Sordor")

To move along. Odell's sad tale of love crossing the colout barrier gives us a vivid comprehension of some of the social strictures of the age and juxtaposes the horrors of war with the horrors of Slavery.

Best

LJ

I take exception to the description of the bloodstone. It is also my birthstone and I love it. It is a beautiful deep green with red flecks that don't jump out at you right away but become more pronounced as you look at the stone. I remember my father giving me a ring with some kind of washed-out bluish stone that was also supposed to be my birthstone and having to swallow my disappointment hard because it was not a bloodstone. I think I was 10 at the time. I managed to lose it.

The horse was probably a dark roan with reddish hair mixed in with the darker color.

If I didn't already hate war, Cold Mountain would certainly push me in that direction! I admire Ada's ability to learn from Ruby and to push herself to her utmost to make the farm prosper. I thought the horticulture book that kept Inman grounded and sane was a nice link to Ada and the farm.

JEAN!! We were posting together! Am glad to hear it wasn't a green horse with red flecks! hahahahah

I have to tell this joke. I'm sorry, but I have to! LJ's remark reminded me of it....There was this young man about to preach his first sermon? And he was sent to a mountain town? And he had practiced it night and day, and it was a little long, but, he felt, good.

On the appointed day, he stood up in the pulpit, looked out over the congregation, and was appalled to see only one old farmer in attendance.

Well, thought he, I'll give it all I've got, anyway. So he did. In fact, it went a little over long, he got caught up with it. When the sermon was finally over he hurried around to the front door to shake the farmer's hand.

Well, he exclaimed! How was it??

The farmer thought a long while, and said. "When I take a truck load of hay out to feed the cows, and doesn't but one of them come up, I don't dump the whole load on her."

hahahahha..I love that joke. Tell it all the time, told it last to the teacher of my Excel class, as we were only two students, and she hasn't spoken to me since! hahahahah

LJ's remark about the taciturn mountain men reminded me of that one, now ON WITH THE SHOW!

Ginny

Well, that did it! I thought I would just lurk quietly and enjoy (and I AM) all the comments on CM. Now I am LOL with Ginny and her joke! But the funniest part was where your Excel teacher wouldn't speak to you anymore! <chuckle> Seriously, I am reliving CM through all your comments. It was an enjoyable read the first time and now, I see so much more. Keep it up, fellow readers!

I am getting weary with Inman's journey - it took Ulysses 20 years but he had to go over water. When he was shot and buried I really thought he was done for and then he went back to get his 'knapsack' the poor boy is becoming foolhardy. I am about ready for Ada to go looking for him. I bet if Ruby was with him, he would make it. I agree, if I didn't hate war this book would do it. However, ever since reading Gone With the Wind - o.k. so I was only 9 and easily impressed - I have thought the Civil War was the worst of all wars. My mother told me about a story her grandmother told her about coming across common shallow graves that wild hogs had unearthed the bodies she heard groans from some that were still alive. I can think of nothing more horrible than to be buried alive or to be eaten alive by wart hogs. Ugh!

Joyce, don't you think Frazier is skillful in somehow conveying all these horrors yet in an unromantic, matter-of-fact way? I've sometimes thought that the Civil War seemed especially terrible to Americans because it was the only full-scale war fought right here. Service people come back from foreign wars with dreadful memories and gruesome stories, it's true. But it's what happened on home ground, in their own front yard so to speak, the childhood memories of people like those in your family, that resonate with us.

I agree that it will take patience to stay with Inman as he makes that long, long, walk from Raleigh to Cold Mountain. However, that's the way Frazier wrote the book, and he obviously had a reason for it...at least partly based on his research of records and family lore, and partly on his wish to convey the moral circumstances of his hero.

I think Inman is a strong character who made a decision based on his own principles rather than blind loyalty to a cause he didn't really understand. As a result, he knows, he is in deadly danger every minute. Frazier has described both his woods lore and the temperament of his people. I think both these things would dictate his caution about where and how he traveled, and also about his choice of companions. (And that's also why he chose Ada, isn't it?)

So stick with us, Joyce!

Ros

Mrs McKenner very succinctly is described as a fairly typical widow reacting to an unmarried preacher.Ruby chooses not to argue the opinions about war with her, thus showing exceptionally good judgement, but the author juxtaposes opinions and attitudes of the populace for us to savor and analyze.

The "Home Guard" early predecessor of the North Carolina National Guard has often been at odds with the people. (Nothing like the murderous Ohio Guard). Techniques stay similar. During a strike breaking operation in the 50's some people shot at guardsmen. Athough the culprits weren't apprehended, the houses from which they fired were totally "Dismantled"

Ruby's thought about being fathered by a "Great Blue Heron" were interesting and help explain her attitudes toward her father. Isn't the Great Blue close to extinction? (Ginny)

I'll leave commentary about Ida's parents' courtship to you ladies.

Best

LJ

Mrs McKenner very succinctly is described as a fairly typical widow reacting to an unmarried preacher.Ruby chooses not to argue the opinions about war with her, thus showing exceptionally good judgement, but the author juxtaposes opinions and attitudes of the populace for us to savor and analyze.

The "Home Guard" early predecessor of the North Carolina National Guard has often been at odds with the people. (Nothing like the murderous Ohio Guard). Techniques stay similar. During a strike breaking operation in the 50's some people shot at guardsmen. Athough the culprits weren't apprehended, the houses from which they fired were totally "Dismantled"

Ruby's thought about being fathered by a "Great Blue Heron" were interesting and help explain her attitudes toward her father. Isn't the Great Blue close to extinction? (Ginny)

I'll leave commentary about Ida's parents' courtship to you ladies.

Best

LJ

Hey L.J.;

Is this double posting becoming contagious?

Helen (the other double poster)

Jean Gordon, I'm perfectly certain I posted a message retracting my unkind words about the bloodstone - I saw it on the screen - but last night it had disappeared, along with another message responding to LJ's comments about the blue heron. Unfortunately I didn't log everything so although I have a notebook entry stating that I did post, there is no copy of the message. No great loss to literature, but a puzzle nevertheless.

LJ, to recap my lost thoughts briefly, it seemed that the idea of being impregnated by the blue heron suggested an Indian myth, possibly supporting Joan Pearson's suggestion that Ruby's mother might have been a Cherokee. (Further evidence was her coarse straight black hair, skin color described only as dark, and broad-bridged nose.) However, I don't think such beliefs are genetically transmitted so Ruby would have had to be in contact with other Cherokees in order to absorb some sense of the kinship between animals and humans. She might in her untutored way have grasped at anything suggesting the wayward Stobrod wasn't her biological father.

As for Monroe's courtship, I paid so little attention to it that I had to go back and read it again when you referred to it. I didn't think the romantic aspects were unusually significant. The narrative implies that Monroe learned to control and channel his passions; that he lived with a sense of loss and a determination to make life tolerable for his daughter, and that his advocacy of "mission" and his pursuit of theological (read "intellectual") explanations for himself and his congregation reflected the abiding interior struggle.

Ros

I have had some trouble getting my message posted so I hope this one works.

I read "Cold Mountain" some months ago after I saw the author on Book Notes with Brian Lamb. I have more interest in a book if I know something about the author and how he happened to write the book. He told about some of his ancestors and how they influenced the writing of this book.

The thing that stands out in my mind is the depressing futility of war. That is why Inman leaves and starts his trek back home. The rest of his story is an adventure that reinforces this feeling of futility and his anxiety to return home and have done with the war that is lost.

John Findlay, welcome to the Book Club Online. We're glad you've succeeded in reaching us.

Seeing Charles Frazier on Brian Lamb's show must have been interesting. Though I have to confess Lamb's not my idea of a good interviewer, often the program is lively because he has a good interviewee sitting there.

Yes, we agree, we're all reacting to the ugliness of the war but impressed with the determination that set Inman on his dogged course back toward Cold Mountain. In the current segment we see that Inman is ready to take a life when his own life is directly in danger - a different situation from risking death for a vague "cause" or a distant government. He is certainly capable of violence though he longs for peace and solitude.

I hope you will feel free to continue participating in the discussion. As you've noticed, those of us who have already finished the book are carefully limiting our discussion to one segment at a time in order not to spoil the ending for anyone who is still engaged in a first reading.

Ros

I agree the war IS an important aspect of the book, but most especially in giving us a better understanding of the attitudes and feelings of people which are not usually represented in historical documents such as Bruce Catton's books or the fiction related to the era e.g. GWTW.

I find Inman's trek an adventure story with realism that impinges on other adventure stories (most still to come) and intertwines with a drama that unfolds with Ida and Ruby that is in itself an exciting narrative. In each instance I can identify with the characters. I feel as though I am there.

Best

LJ

Have been reading your posts and reliving the adventure. Perhaps you touched on this but I missed it. I read this book months ago and along with the horrors of the war, what has stuck in my mind is the roving bands of old men/young boys on the lookout for deserters - this is the main problem Inman had as I remember - am I correct in this? It's been awhile. How terrible in this story is the fact that having served in the Confederate Army, he has to suffer from those same southerners he fought for!

Ruby is the character I most remember - a remarkable soul!

John! Welcome, welcome!! You made it in! I'd like to hear more about that interview, I always TRY to see BookNotes, but usually miss it: need to set the VCR, they've always got somebody good featured. I can't seem to find a schedule that would indicate reruns, either.

I agree, too, LJ, that the book is realistic, almost uncomfortably so. It sure does give you a picture that was heretofore hidden from me, anyway. I was very surprised to read what I did about North Carolina in the World Book Encyclopedia, too. Apparently a very horrid time.

You are right, Ella, that aspect IS frightening in the book, I had no idea it was so prevalent, but then, I'm not a Civil War buff.

Ginny

Did any of you notice that relatively characteristic North Carolina phraseology on page 188 "...and Ruby had once got so ill at it that she let off a precious barrel of shot..." I first heard the term used in the phrase "Ill as a hornet"

I notice some reference to the local distillates in North Carolina. The Mountain Moonshine is the finest on earth. It diffracts sunlight like a prism. It is sold by the Jug (Gallon or Half Gallon), Jar (Quart) or drink. A "Drink" is half of a half-pint. One must be careful of Arsenic poisonung if its dispensed in Hair Tonic Bottles (The Georgia variety has been known to result in lead poisoning from being distilled in batteries). The Kentucky variety has a fruity bouquet and a carmel colour and is likely to cause the most dreadful hangover imaginable.

Best

LJ

LJ, Do I detect some personal experience speaking? That was a pretty authoritive post and informative.

Larry

My younger days Larry, were very colorful.

I work this weekend so must rush to keep up with the "Schedule" After this next adventure and the helpful slave who aided him and gave him directions, we have Inman located in Wilkes (Wilkes county) near the foothills of the mountains to the west, and just north of "Moravian Falls"

Best

LJ

Eureka! With two road-map atlases I was finally able to locate Cold Mountain and many of the other mountains and towns, as well as the westbound rivers that figure in Inman's homeward route. This greatly enhanced my ability to visualize his journey, even though I've never been there and almost certainly will never see Cold Mountain myself.

I also used the North Carolina State Guide, a 1939 WPA publication, one of the complete set of 48 guides published with federal funding through the Federal Writers Project, one of the New Deal measures to create gainful and meaningful employment as a way out of the Great Depression. (Yes, with hindsight we recognize that defense spending and the war effort really were the defining factors in the recovery, but Roosevelt's measures came much earlier and did some good, not least the restoration of economic survival and self-respect to millions of people.) The state guides are historic documents. North Carolina's told me about the social status, including straight-faced explanations of the mechanics of segregation, and about the population and transportation of the time. Many travel routes for sight-seeing trips are described as "dry-weather dirt roads."

As I leafed through the first two segments using my new guides to pinpoint place-names, I was struck by Inman's pragmatic attitude toward killing, which he does liberally throughout. The idiotic futility of the war must have taught him that killing can be a necessity in the interest of survival. I guess he learned marksmanship as part of his mountain-man education. One murder is done for revenge, but we are certainly understanding, if not sympathetic.

The address of the captive deserter, emphasizing the villainy of Teague and bringing Ada and Ruby greater knowledge of the realities of combat, forms another link between the two stories. But the captive's conclusion? "This world won't stand long. God won't let it stand this way long." . . . and that was well over a century ago.

More in next post about language and flowers - quoting from the State Guide.

Ros

Ros: Decided that post didn't make any sense at all, so deleted it entirely!

Ginny

By the way, Guys, I've started The Color of Water and it is fabulous. Now, you remember Angela's Ashes ? Well, this one is about a single woman raising 14 children in the projects. It has so many rave reviews you couldn't print them all.

Somehow this woman managed to send 12 of these children to college, and teach them about " family, faith, and forgiveness." The NY Times Book Review called it a "triumph."

ANOTHER fabulous book right on the heels of this one: please get it and join us here in JUNE!

Ginny

We've wondered about the phrase "They God," which crops up frequently in Cold Mountain. Here's a direct quote from the Carolina Guide about the language and character of the "deep-cove" people:

"Kephart [a historian of the area who is actually buried in the nearby city of Bryson] says this country was settled 'neither by Cavaliers nor by poor whites, but by a radically distinct. . . people who are appropriately called the Roundheads of the South....The first characteristic that these pioneers developed was an intense individualism...the strong and even violent independence that made them forsake all the comforts of civilization and prefer the wild freedom of the border....' Their descendants have preserved to a marked degree the individualism, independence, and originality of character of their ancestors.

..."Pungent, graphic, and expressive, the deep-cove type coins his own word if he can think of none at the moment that suits his need. Though the Scotch-Irish influence is noticeable chiefly in the sounding of the letter r, the English is really predominant. He speaks often in Elizabethan, Chaucerian, or pre-Chaucerian idiom; his pronoun hit antedates English itself, while Ey God, a favorite expletive, is the original of egad and precedes Chaucer. The highlander uses many expressions in common with the Canterbury Tales: heap o'folks, afore, peart, ; some of his ballets are old English folk songs."

You might have noticed occasional references to "galax," a distinctively aromatic plant that apparently grew underfoot in many places Inman walked through. The Carolina Guide contains a picture of this white-flowered, broad-leaved evergreen plant, Shortia Galacifolia,, which (I verified this elsewhere) grows only in Carolina. There's only one other species and it grows in Japan.

In reflecting on these first two sections I realized that Inman's self-protecting violence alternates with deeds of great humanity and kindness--which, however, he seems to perform in a distant and reserved manner. Could this be seen as the way Frazier portrays the typical "mountain man"?: unemotional, formally courteous when the occasion demands (touching his hat, saluting with two fingers to his brow, saying "Thank you, ma'am"), yet somehow not warmly involved with his fellow creatures? Even in the two touching farewell love-scenes with Ada, he withholds warmth and relies on cool speeches that almost invite rejection. She is the one who goes to Inman's room and brings their sketchy acquaintance to a physical level.

There's a distant literary connection, perhaps, with the rugged hero of the old-fashioned Western novel: Owen Wister's The Virginian, for example.

Ros

CONGRATULATIONS GINNY ON THAT GREAT ARTICLE IN SENIORNET NEWSLETTER ABOUT OUR BOOKS & LITERATURE SECTIONS! GOOD PUBLICITY

LARRY - GREAT ARTICLE ABOUT YOU ALSO - ONE HANDSOME GUY!

Ella: thank you so much, was just thrilled to see our books mentioned in the nice large SeniorNet publication. I'd say we've arrived!!

Also thought the photo of Larry very handsome, indeed! Looks like a movie star, so glad we've got him here! Wouldn't take anything for knowing him or all of you, we're the best!

Ros, WHAT a beautiful post! Am looking up galax, want to see if we've got any, I loved that entire post.

As we only live an hour from Cold Mountain, after reading your post i thought of another bit of flora that Inman and Ruby and Ada would have known of: the muscadine grape.

Sir Walter Raleigh's colony wrote "In 1584 we departed from England with two boats and found Roanoke Island (off the coast of NC) on the 4th of July and the smell was as sweet as if we had been in the midst of some delicate garden, and grapes grew abundantly--every shrub was covered, climbing towards the tops of high cedars and we think the like is not to be found."

They were talking about vitis rotundifolia, the muscadine grape which grows wild here and occurs in many colors: predominatly purple and gold. The smell is overwhelming in the fall. It is native to the Carolinas, grows a little farther south, but doesn't want to go too far up into Virginia.

Of course, some of you know we have a vineyard, and we also grow its hybrids, 43 varieties of them.

In looking for a study guide for another book, I came upon a really good fiction guide, and they kept talking about point of view. I, too, noted that Inman seems a blunted hero, sometimes acting heroically, but then, again, sort of flat....kind of his own judge. It throws the reader off, as he struggles to empathize with Inman. Inman may be the most stereotypical character in the book, am still trying to decide.

Now I'm hung up on Jo's idea about the names. In man. Ruby: a jewel. Ada??

Ginny

Don't get too hung up on that Ginny! As we now know,Inman was a real guy, although thoroughly fictionalized here, according to Frazier's remarks in his acknowledgements. It is a tantalizing name, though!
I have to wonder about the readership/posting activity here and in other book discussions, especially: I'll bet ten dollars much of what is posted is missed by many of us: valuable insights and resesearched material that a sleepy clicker may not go back and read, thinking they have read it before. I use my "subscription" button, but I almost missed all the info. Ros posted about the people who settled the Cold Mountain area and their language. So glad I didn't! Click back, folks, and check!

Part of Ros's observation about Inman: "Could this be seen as the way Frazier portrays the typical "mountain man"?: unemotional, formally courteous when the occasion demands (touching his hat, saluting with two fingers to his brow, saying "Thank you, ma'am"), yet somehow not warmly involved with his fellow creatures?"
Ros, could this be partly life experience and recent prolonged experiences with living under seige? If you have to concentrate on survival, that could encourage taciturnity and discourage easy social exchange. Then, of course, there is the garroulous Veasy, (Ginny, it rhymes with greasy! Names again!), but his habits were formed as a preacher who thought he was "getting over" on the populace, not as the fugitive he becomes.
My favorite part in this section is the part after the prisoner recites his miserable story for Ada, Ruby and the others in the town. I,too, noted his remark about God not putting up with such things. From his lips to God's ears, wherever that is.
Anyway, I loved the part about the exile bird, the heron, after Ruby tells Stobrod's story of the heron and her mother. Then Ada tells hers about Monroe's romance with her mother, first a disaster and reclaimed at last for a precious two years. The heron looks at Ada strangely, and she feels a

(trying to finish thought! kicked offf, again!) ...she feels a kinship with the bird before it flies away. After she tells the story of Monroe and her mother, they reach home, and two bright planets are setting in the indigo sky. Ada says the brighter one is Venus (love?). I sense the presence of a parent or parents in the "exile bird" and the planets. Also I notice repetition of the color blue: blue sky when she spends the night in the field with the pot of jam, blue heron, indigo night sky when the planets are setting in the west - other places I can't remember. There are a variety of birds in interesting places, including two references to the lonely heron: one when Inman is with the gypsies, and here, in the Ruby - Ada section. At the end otf the next section when Inman kills Junior, he sees three crows harassing a snake that manages to escape - like Inman from Junior and all the human offal he attracts.

Jo M, although I've tried hard to avoid excessive symbol-reading as we move through the chapters, preferring to save such possible interpretations for the end, I do agree that some of Frazier's tropes cry out for recognition. We simply must discuss crows before we lay the book aside.

I certainly agree about the effect of Inman's experiences on his behavior, though I think there's more than that in the depiction of the character. In the next segment, the singularly beautiful and event-loaded chapter "Bride Bed Full of Blood" finds Inman reflecting on how the years as soldier and fugitive have changed even the way his face looks in a mirror.

The more I learn about the language of the region the more I'm falling under the spell of Frazier's prose. Observant readers have commented on the way he combines archaic terms with regional dialect usage; and I'd add to that the purity of his syntax. His writing is colorful but never sloppy.

Ros

I hesitate to fling around the term "genius," but perhaps the mastery you describe is that, Ros. A great part of the reason I can read this twice is the beauty of the language.

I was trying to asorb the symbols into the story line so I acknowledged them and "put them aside for later contemplation" but I completely missed the crows. I just can't seem to put aside cutting up the cow to clear the stream of drinking water, however. With food so scarce, why not just cut off at least one steak or "hunks" for stew.

Joyce, your question about the possibility of saving some of the dead bull for food might be linked to Junior's original evil purpose. The bull, according to his report, had died of some mysterious ailment and had been dead for several days; it was decomposing and clearly unfit for food, as well as contaminating the water supply. If we want to carry our mistrust of him to an extreme we might speculate that he had put the bull into the water in order to catch "outliers," or any other hapless travelers who came along. However, he might just have found it rotting there and used the opportunity to snare the passersby.

Language notes:(1)At the end of the whole ugly episode, when Inman returns, he sees Junior in the smokehouse with his bayonet "stobbed into" the dirt floor. A "stob" is a short stump or length of wood used for fencing, part of a gate, etc. Hence the derogatory nickname given to Ruby's father, "Stobrod," with the connotation of no-account.(2) The use of "ill" to denote vicious, angry, etc., primarily referring to an animal, lost currency in the mid-19th century except in the Southern hill country.

Ros

Well, of course, "ill" is very common here, use it myself. Also common are "ill as a snake" and "it flew all over me." Colorful expressions that may soon be extinct, it's a shame, really.

Ginny

Hello all, just caught up on reading all the posts. I decided to wait until I had finished the book--just have about 10 or 20 pp to go now, but I have been so busy with so many diffeent things, I finally decided that I had to catch up on all your comments. I was very pleased to find comments on the language and to find that it is still somewhat typical of the region. I must confess that I have found the book very slow going. I was greatly put off by the "sordor" especially in the Jr. segment. I also got very impatient with Ada in the beginning. I couldn't imagine how someone so intelligent could be so dumb and ineffectual! However, as I have read more of the book, I have found it more interesting. My main problem is that by the time I start reading in the evening, I'm too tired to truly appreciate it. One of the reasons I find it interesting is that my Scots ancesters first settled in NC before moving to southern Indiana. I wish my Dad were still alive (for many reasons), but especially to hear his comments on this book. He was very interested in the Civil War and one of my grandfathers died eventually from a bullet received during the War. I'm afraid I'm not adding anything of substance to the discussion, but did want you to know that I am at least lurking. Sharon

Sharon, welcome again! It's good to know that you are keeping up even through that evening drowsiness (I know it well!). This book was too heavy to read in bed, and it's a good thing because I'd have been limited to about 3 pages at a time before falling asleep. Sitting up, however, it held my attention.

I hope you'll read those last few pages slowly - they are really gripping.

Can't help agreeing about the "sordor" - don't you think that one of the book's messages is how the horror of war spreads beyond the battlefield and affects everyday life, not only through loss and privation but through the dehumanizing process that makes men more ready to kill no matter where they are? I imagine that any family, like yours, whose ancestors were involved in the Civil War (or, if you prefer, the War Between the States) must have heard anecdotes that support that feeling.

Ros

Ros, just checked back in & caught your post. You know, I hadn't thought about the fact that all the sordidness was an outgrowth of the war. Guess I just laid it to the crudity of the backwoods culture & being written by a man! Sorry LJ! But you probably are right, both that it was an outgrowth of the war and that the author put it in to emphasize that. Going to go in and finish the book in a few minutes. Sharon

For some reason the brief sojourn with the little old womam, secluded and living alone in the mountains with her goats, in sight of the "Real" "Grandfather Montain" caught my interest more than any of the other encounters our protagonist experienced. Almost too bizarre to be believed, but too realistically described, too detailed in exposition not to be based on fact. This is the one point upon which I would like to question the writer as to his sources and background. I found it absolutely fascinating.

The other truly dramatic episode in which Inman (Admirably) slew the three thieves was prefaced by the most poignent of experiences in the bed of the abandoned wife.

I do hope you ladies were not too tired to fully appreciate these tales, each of which I found worthy of amplification into a small book in itself.

Best

LJ

P.S. I'll put my recipe for "Goatwater Stew" into the Seniornet Book - Recipe's folder for anyone who's interested.

LJ, You're right - the two chapters you mention are beautiful and worth several re-readings.

I really liked the goat-woman, a self-sufficient senior citizen if there ever was one. Inman admired her and wondered what it would be like to grow old alone as she had, remembering youth and love, looking forward courageously to death, which is after all a solitary experience no matter whom we hope to have at our bedside.

For the young wife, on the other hand, he obviously had other feelings, identifying with her isolation and her somehow hopeless courage, and able to understand (perhaps because of his love of Ada) why she asked for his closeness just as another human rather than as a lover. I was much moved by her singing, which Frazier describes as exactly like the mountain singers I've heard many times in broadcasts and on records. Can anyone check "Fair Margaret and Sweet Wiliam" in Child's book of ballads?

I've eaten goat in the Islands (back in one's meat-eating days) and found it quite tasty. In the Detroit area it's considered a barbecue delicacy. But "goatwater"? Which is the principal ingredient, the goat or the water?

Ros

Goatwater stew ( pronounced go-utwater ) is merely the West Indian equivalant of Stewed goat. By my personal standards it IS usually thinner than any other stew I've made, but it is obviously nutritious.

I've tried broiling racks of goat and compared to racks of lamb they can't even play the game.

Best

LJ

Well, that does it. I've taken this Cold Mountain business too far. You know how a book sorta stays with you? Great. Well, I tried, but did not succeed, to cut off my little finger of my left hand yesterday. Ever mindfull of Inman, I just bound the little devil up. I guess if I hadn't spoken to Katie Bates, I would have been in a fix, but her advice saved the day, and probably the finger, tho I did not follow her advice to have it stitched. Yes, some of us take our reading a bit far.

Kept thinking of my great great uncle who cut off his toe with an ax, and since no doctor was available, my great grandmother sewed it back on on the kitchen table with her sewing thread. When the doctor WAS consulted he had a fit and said that was a waste of time as it would never stay on, but it did, discolored and useless, but it did.

I do believe I have carried research in reading and getting "into" a book a little far this time, tho.

As for goat, I've had goat barbeque, but with goat, of course, you are either eating cysts or anhelmentics...neither of which are on my wish list.

Crankily,

Ginny

Hi everyone. I finally got back to reading all the messages. Great! Keep it up. A couple of comments: LJ, thanks for the quote about a "token life." I have too many students who believe the life they have is only a token and nothing else. I have tried to explain that a token can also mean a Token of what can be if you look at the bright side and not the dark side. Roslyn, can you give me the web site of the junior high schoool teacher who used the book? I also am an 8th grade teacher and would love to see if she has anything I can use. As far as the symbols go, the only thing that a crow reminds me of is the crow that was depicted in Stephen King's book,can't remember now, old age you know. Anyway, the crow was evil. The only goat I've eaten was in France. I believe is roasted, but I'm not sure; I do love goat ;cheese though. Did anyone read "Son of Morningstar?" It's the story of Custer and in the story the men killed their horses, cut them open and gutted them so they(the men) could hide from the indians in the horses carcus. Great ending thought uh? Connie

Ginny, carelessness with knives must be going around! I sliced the top of my knuckle Sunday night and bled like the proverbial stuck pig (I'm on blood thinners), but after bleeding through a couple bandaids, it stopped and is healing nicely now. Hope yours is too. Sharon

Connie. The French will eat anything. On a visit to Guadaloupe a Montserratian who was with me refused to eat anything but bread and milk. He was certain that the French would feed him Donkey. Personally, I loved the broiled roulades of turtle meat over seasoned rice.

Crows have historically been thought of as ominous. I've recently read in 13th century Japanese literature references to "Omens" implied by sighting crows.

PP 217-220 are fraught with serious philosophical approaches of several characters. I won't quote them now, but if any of us have failed to think about several of these we will have missed much of the "Meat" of this book.

Best

LJ

Sharon, hope your knuckle is feeling better, bad place to knife yourself. Hope this isn't some sort of Cold Mountain curse! hahahahahha

Now report in if you've cut yourself since starting the book!!

Crows are hateful birds. There is actually a crow season here. They are very smart, take baby birds and bird eggs out of nests, set up a mockery that will drive off hawks, pull up corn seedlings and lay them on the ground, and generally make pests of themselves. Last year when a fawn died in our front yard, I was alerted to the site by the awful chorus of crows which just rang out over the woods.

When Augustus won at the battle of Actium, somebody got the idea of training any bird which could talk to say "Hail, Caesar, Conquerer, Victor" to stand alongside the triumphal procession. Soon everyone caught on and trained crows, magpies, and parrots.

One magpie of a shoemaker couldn't learn to say it, and only would exclaim off and on, frustrating the man no end. Alternately encouraged and discouraged, in moments of discouragement the shoemaker used to exclaim, "O, it is time and labor lost!"

When the day of the triumphal procession arrived, and the streets were packed to see Augustus march by, all the people hailed him, and one by one, the different birds did, too...."Hail, Caesar, Conqueror, Victor!" Augustus was amazed at the first bird, and stopped to give the owner some money and his congratulations. He repeated the procedure with each bird, buying them all, but his enthusiasm diminished with each succeeding performance. As he came abreast with the shoemaker, that bird...

Ginny

Sorry, freak thunderstorm....sunshine....thunder, hail!

Anyway, this is a true story, too, anyway as Augustus came abreast of the bird, that bird, to the owner's amazement, cried out, "Hail, Caesar, Conqueror, Victor!" "Octavianus stopped and said,' I am deeply impressed, and will just thank and congratulate you because my palace by this time if filled with such talking birds.' Then to the consternation of the shoemaker, the magpie exclaimed, 'O, it is time and labor lost.' Octavianus, amused and breaking out in great laughter, bought the bird for a sum of money greater than that paid for any previous talking bird."

I've never heard of talking crows and have always wondered if they can be taught, or if that's a myth.

This next to the last section of the book seemed to me to stretch on indefinitely, truly despaired of getting thru it. Wondered WHY Frazier saw fit to include these parts? Maybe they are the true stories and he didn't want to leave them out.

Ginny

Ginny, I loved the anecdote. One wonders why Athena didn't have the owl as her official bird, they're so wickedly smart. Crows have entirely taken over our section of town. When we first moved to this area (right next to the zoo), it seemed as if the owls were controlling the population, and crows were so scarce that if I found a discarded feather I wanted to save it. No more. From dawn to dusk, we hear the various calls, squabbles and conversational exchanges. They stand on people's driveways and scold. They land thumpingly on our upstairs porch with whatever morsel of carrion they have found and hammer away at it, making a tremendous metallic din that echoes through the house.Yet there's something so human-like about them that I'm not surprised various cultures have invested them with spiritual, prophetic, or emotional qualities over the centuries.

LJ, I agree about the philosophical value of these pages. Isn't the goat woman almost sybilline in her wisdom? She questions, listens, advises, and Inman's tongue is loosened as it hasn't been before. I liked the style of the dialogue - rich, but not flowery, and consistent with the speech of the region.

As for why Frazier placed all these tales at this point -- besides building up suspense as we got closer to the end -- it occurred to me that Inman was now approaching home, and was responding emotionally to the people whose outlook, anecdotes, and speech were more familiar to him. Also, where previously he had been constantly wary, looking out for the Home Guard, that demon Teague, and other traitors disguised as patriots, now to some extent he was letting his guard down.

Ros

The second reading makes me sure this is my favorite part of the book. Before he struggled up that mountain, Inman had slept the night in a squatting position inside a chestnut tree. He awoke to discover the temporary loss of the use of his legs. He feels as if he's disappearing, turning into a wraith, when he pulls himself out of the trunk in the morning and drags himself along on his arms. How could he survive all this, with wounds and all? I wonder how much Frazier borrowed in tact from the story of the real Inman's life. Does anyone know if Inman made such a foot journey? Was he escaping combat, the Home Guard, as Inman here is?

Inman's sojourn with the goat woman has a fairy-tale quality: she's like a little wood gnome, and her symbiosis with the goats and every other living creature makes her seem a natural part of the environment. Their conversations about war and its wounds make the episode more real than fantastic. Inman has passed the pillared homes of the slave-wealthy on his way toward her mountain, and he was sickened to realize that's what he had been fighting for. The goat woman, speaking of slavery, says "We've lit a fire and now it's burning us down." She has found peace in solitude, has cultivated generosity of spirit along with her powers of observation and creation. She's a little warm pulse of life hidden away from human eyes, but somehow helping life to continue. Her existence, the struggles that might seem pointless under the light of pragmatic scrutiny, have enabled her to survive and now enable Inman to do that, too.

Stobrod showing up and then producing that music is amazing, too. He certainly doesn't seem like the Stobrod Ruby knew when he talks about the dying girl and the discovery of his own powers of creation. What lines!
Font color=black>"The grouping of sounds, their forms in the air as they rang out and faded, said something comforting to him about the role of creation. What the music said was that there is a right way for things to be ordered so that life might not always be just tangle and drift but have a shape, an aim. It was a powerful argument against the notion that things just happen."
Human capacity for such creativity is indeed, a powerful argument against mere randomness of things. Both of these episodes contributed to this feeling for me.

Ros, I can't find sybilline. Please, what does it mean???

ROS: The city of Athens DID use the owl as it's symbol. In the days of the greek city-states each "City" was identified by a symbol, especially on its coinage (about 500 BCE). The symbol of Athens was an owl. (Corinth was a Pegasus etc.)

Best

LJ

I agree, Ros & LJ, with the philosophical import of the goat lady, etc. I found it very difficult to understand her staying there on top of the mtn for 25 years (I think, my book is upstairs). I really thought it was interesting though that she had a gypsy trailer or wagon because she COULD leave if she wanted--even though she hadn't in all that time! Knowing that she could leave at any time gave her a sense of freedom and independence, because the choice was hers. Interesting--early feminism, maybe?

I'm really having trouble waiting for the last part of the discussion. I have a million questions. The end was so totally different from what I expected--and I'm not totally sure I know what the end was! Sharon

Don't forget C-Span Sunday night at 8 Eastern for Booknotes: an interview with Jill Ker Conway!!

Ginny

LJ, I think part of my brain went missing last week, too much arthritis medicine perhaps, or maybe the swelling in my ankles has moved up to my head as well. Yes, you're right about Athena's owl, and I knew that - I meant to say "crow" instead of "owl," for the crows clearly have the better of it around here. (I've just found the dismembered fragments of a small bird on the lawn, part of a crow's dinner.)

Jo, of course you couldn't find the word I used because I misspelled it: It's sibylline, resembling a sibyl - prophetic or oracular, and by extension, witchlike - Now let me see if I can clarify my impressions. It's not that I think Frazier introduced a mythical figure, but that this little old woman -- who as we all agree lived so self-sufficiently, close to the earth and to wild creatures, and seemed to have absorbed so much earthy wisdom -- was the kind of person who in other days might have been thought to be a witch, and to have supernatural powers. She offered physical healing to Inman, and in some mysterious way (or maybe it was just the opium) she inspired his trust and loosened his tongue, so that he unburdened himself of some of the thoughts and dreams he'd kept bottled up as he made the long trek from Raleigh.

Now we're about to move into the last segment (sigh!), and this is the time to ventilate all our unanswered questions, doubts, and unfulfilled wishes about the way the story ends.

The schedule for rating the book and for going forward with votes for the August selection will be posted soon.

Ros

I can't let this segment pass without comment on the mountain handicrafts mentioned, especially on P257. in Ida's letter ti her cousin (An important shadow figure in Ida's past, present, and future).

The Silver bracelet with the "Dogwood Blossoms". This is a classic motif (Like a "Berry Picker") still to be found in abundance in Appalacia, e.g. Berea College, in Berea Ky.

Note also Ida's conbtemplation of her own physiognomy as compared to Inmann's (as pointed out earlier), and her sense of contentment withthe status quo.

More later

Best

LJ

Yes, L.J. the silvercraft with dogwood blossoms - N.C. and Va. State flower - is still done by skilled artisens in the N.C. mountains. I have several myself, earings, bracelet, pin, necklace - one of my favorite pieces - it is just a silver chain with a large stylized dogwood blossum. Also, the mention of the quilts. I am told by some Tar Heel natives that it was customary to bury infants or very young children in their "baby quilt" usually made by a relative in anticipation of a child's birth. At a funeral of an 87 yr old woman born and reared here in Eastern N.C. recently, her baby quilt, over l00 years old was draped over the end of her casket. It was not buried with her, as her children told me, because she had used it in the crib of each of her 7 children when they were young. I thought it touching when the woman insisted on preparing food for Inman after he made the coffin for the baby and when he looked at it he felt the need to give thanks. In a much less dramatic way, I felt some of that when I had been living in Northern Nevada for two years, not tasting seafood and upon returning to Florida, ordered fried fantail shrimp and the plate was placed before me, golden fried gulf (butterfly) shrimp, french fries and coleslaw with hush puppies. Ah, bliss. Had this feeling just recently when I had my "once in a while" fried seafood platter for dinner as the children and husband took me out for Mother's Day!

Joyce, how neat! Loved your post!! Here I am trying to diet, too...oh well!!

You mention "tar heel" and I was pleased to have that explained,in Cold Mountain too. Now I'm anxious to hear what you all thought of the ending of the book?

Sat thru a very long and very boring talk by a UNC Chapel Hill professor of English on the local PBS yesterday, but DID hear him say that up until 1848, the western part of NC was still regarded as the "frontier," with its own laws and a man's own justice.

Did any of you see the Jill Ker Conway interview on C-Span last night? I thought it was alternately fascinating and uncomfortable. In fact, was only able to sit thru 1/2 hour. It seemed the host had not read the book Road From Coorain , which, after all, was NOT the book he had come to talk about, but his INTERROGATOR like way of putting questions put me ill at ease. He'd bark out a question, she'd pleasantly and gamely answer, somewhat like a school girl confident ot getting the answer right, always almost smiling,....the whole thing got on my nerves. She made marvelous points, in a soft, pleasing voice, said she wrote Coorain as an example for women to emulate, to show they could....

But he was awful. Barked out her newest book was "in memory" of her husband and when she said yes, he'd been dead three years, his only reaction was to show the camera the dedication page of the book.

F- to him, A++ to her. The woman sits on so many boards, she says it's half her life, she's done so much, and did make one telling point about her new book:

She talks about the modern memoir as sort of Grimm's Tale-ish: the glowing memory of a saint like mother usually told by a son...and she says nothing's that simple...

Interesting in the light of our next book, which I loved. Maybe someday I can stomache up the nerve to finish watching the last half hour of the interview....did you see it??

Ginny

We have, incidentally, picked up TWO new members for our The Color of Water discussion, Kathleen and Ann-Marie, so an early welcome from me!!

Joyce, thanks - your comments added much to my Northerner's understanding of the connection between Frazier's narrative and today's world. In the touching episode about the dead child, and the food her mother prepared for Inman, I felt once more how his emotions were coming closer to the surface as he drew nearer to home -- he had kept everything under control while he directed all his energy to the perilous journey.

Yet the reunion scenes were somewhat subdued, perhaps appropriately so in preparation for the ending.

I look forward to everyone's messages about the Epilogue and how it relates to the ending of the story.

And then, what about nominations for the August selection?

Ros

AHH And observations upon the site of the rising and setting sun at various seasons of the year. This is in the nature of humankind to mark his or her permanance in a given place. Ive done it here, in Oklahoma and in the Caribbean. I know the compass readings for the shadows cast at noon on the first day of each of the celestial seasons here on my hillside.

Now don't forget the killing of the cub-bear on the top half of page 280. When you get to the end you may want to dwell on that half page.

On a lighter note the likening of the taste of bearmeat to the eighth deadly sin was amusing.

Keep your eye on the "Georgia Boy" you'll wish you knew more about him before its over, Don't let the "Ring Scene" between Ruby and Ida go past you. You'll at least need to think about it at the end.

Those who wish to write their own ending might stop with the penultimate "Happy Ending" with Inman and Ida in each others consummated embrace.

Best

LJ

LJ, you're full of surprises which I guess shouldn't be surprising when one thinks about them. Compass readings on your hillside? Of course, why not?

I too read over the "ring scene" several times. The offer and rejection of Ada's ring could have many interpretations, and the metaphor of this highly civilized artifact seems curious, in fact conspicuous, in fact deliberate, at this point in a book where previously all the symbolism dealt with natural things. You haven't spelled out your reading of the passage (and neither will I at this moment), but I hope other readers will come forward.

Thank you for pointing out several places where we need to pause and think things over before proceeding.

Best, indeed.

Ros

ROS, Quite clearly we're both reading or re-reading with the same analytical perceptions.

Since this should not become an intellectual classrom type of folder, we needent spell out all of the analytical desiderata. In fact it will be months before I finish coming back to this book in my mind and thinking about all the meanings (Overt, subtle, symbolic and otherwise).

As usual Ruby's dad breaks the solemnity of the saga with his delerious "Monkey" song and then we have the juxtaposed deep insight: "And then she thought that you went on living one day after another, and in time you were somebody else, your previous self only like a close relative......with whom you shared a past"

The byplay in the Ruby/Ida discussion about Ruby's dad at the bottom of 335 should be added to and considered a part of, the "Ring" scene.

Best

LJ

Well, I hate to ask the obvious question, but WHY? Why take the hero all the way thru the book to end as it did? Is there special meaning that I missed??

Ginny

Ginny, I am with you on the ending of this book. I saw Charles Frazier on Charley Rose's TV show and decided then and there I wanted to read the book. My daughter read it and loved it. I had some different thoughts. I think the author did an excellent job in describing nature, found it hard to comprehend anyone with the apparent talents of Ida to be so lax in her activities after the death of her father. I did not like Ruby's father at all and was disturbed that he kept comking around "beating" off Ruby and Ida. Frazier had said it was a love story but when the book ended, I was disappointed, thinking the couple would get together at some point.

Am I wrong or did Ida have a little girl from her brief encounter with Inman? I, too, was disappointed at the end. I think though that Ida was really the protagonist, not Inman. Wasn't Inman a distant relative of Frazier? If so and it was direct line, Ida must have had his child.??? Somehow, I got the feeling that the book was all about self sufficiency and independence in a changing world. If that is the case, Inman had to vanish from the picture. Am I all wet or not. Am looking forward to everyone else's insights. Sharon

Yes, I do believe the little girl is supposed to be Inman's - a product of that "brief encounter."

Betty! WHAT a joy to see you here!

Of course, we do know that Inman was based on real life, so I guess Frazier thought it would be more REAL to have him perish at the end, I guess we can now reveal the ending? But I'm sure there was more to his life than this long trek back...back to his love, and since the book seems to feature on just this brief period of time, I just couldn't help wonder WHY Frazier made it end like he did?

It's not Non-Fiction, is it? So there's a reason for the plot and the characterizations.

Ginny

When did Ada become Ida? Well, anyhow, I think this book HAD to end as a tragedy. I am not an English major nor particularly adept at interpreting books; I just enjoy reading them! And I have read a lot of them. Did you ever read a really good book or a classic that had a predictable ending? Somehow, it seemed more true to life that this book ended as it did. It may not have matched our hopes and wishes for characters we had learned to care for but it was "fittin'" to the general mood of the book. Comments, anyone?

One more thought: I felt it gave the story a very classic, even "classy" twist, to have Ada produce a child from the brief encounter with Inman. Ever onward...

Nonfiction? Well, yes and no. It is based on true incidents, as this excerpt from Frazier's interview will confirm .....(See the COLD MOUNTAIN DIARY link above for the full text.):

.... Eventually I found the marker -- a flat riverstone -- on a shelf of land cut into a steep hillside. Two men occupy the same hole, civilians killed in the last days of the Civil War by Federals, Kirk's men come over the ridge raiding from Tennessee. Buried together, I guess, to save shovel work. Just a few miles away on the other side of Mount Sterling is another such grave.

In it, sharing one coffin, lie a fiddler and a retarded boy killed by Teague's Confederate Home Guard. The tree the men were backed against to be shot still lived not long ago and may yet. I have not,though, found anyone who can say which, out of many candidates, it is. Witnesses reported that the fiddler played "Bonaparte's Retreat" before the triggers were pulled.

I was not then thinking about writing a Civil War novel, and though I am triply qualified for acceptance into the Sons of Confederate Veterans, I remain largely uninterested in the great movements of troops, the famous personality traits of the noble generals and tragic presidents. What I am interested in are those two double graves and what they seem to represent.

. . . . I knew I wanted to write about those old lifeways, but I needed some point of access. I was given such an entry not long after that day on Caldwell Fork when my father told me about an ancestor of ours, a man named Inman who left the war and walked home wounded. The man who killed the fiddler was waiting for him when he reached the mountains. The story seemed like an American odyssey and it also seemed to offer itself as a form of elegy for that lost world I had been thinking about. So I set out on Inman's trail and followed it for five years of writing.

Last year, when I was nearly finished with the book, I went looking for yet another grave. I climbed up the hill where my father says the real Inman is buried. There's nothing to tell exactly where he lies.Just a bunch of sunken oblongs with wooden markers rotted down to stubs or flat stones with unreadable scratching on them. All anonymous. If he's there he has a fine view to the forks of the Pigeon River, where once stood a Cherokee town called Kanuga, not a trace of it left but potsherds in the river sand. His long view is up toward Cold Mountain. I am in his debt and I wish him peace.

(From Frazier's Salon interview, July 9, 1997)

As for the novelistic explanations of why the Inman of our story didn't survive to live happily after, I would speculate that it was Frazier's final example of the way war not only disrupts but shatters lives. A fine young man laboriously seeks his way home, promising himself the peaceful life he has not yet had, but he doesn't have a chance to experience it. His journey reveals to us countless examples of the privation, loss, bitterness, and pain that the war has inflicted on civilians, as well as the innumerable ugly ways in which death finds soldiers on both sides of the conflict. We witness the starvation, loneliness, betrayal, environmental destruction, economic ruin, social chaos that befell humans for whom the principles of either side were only distant words.

Inman's death was, for me, the final irony. His survival would, for me, have flavored the whole story with saccharine sentimentality. That Ada survived to bear his child was a realistic observation about the way life goes on, oftenest through the female line. That Ruby survived is a further comment on the special nature of her character and her role in the story. Of which more anon.

Ros

Ros: You have stated completely and beautifully that which I was struggling to articulate! It was "fittin'" that it end as it did... for all the reasons you mention. Thank you!

Delightful commentary! JERYN. Although it didn't become "Ida" and was spelled "Ada" throughout, the text makes clear that it was pronounced "Ahda" more a southern Ida than Ada.

Does the conclusion seek any comparisons with the bereft wife with whom Inman slept and comforted? Is there a similar, more complex analogy between Inman and HIS slayer with the innocent bear-cub which was shot and eaten?

I very much appreciate the background information

Best

LJ

Yes, Ros, that was fabulous...thanks so much.

Ginny

Ros, as always, you have a talent for distilling a book to its essence. You do express succinctly what all of us might have felt but didn't or couldn't express. By the way, the Ida was due to my typo or poor memory. I'm not sure which. I agree that the end was a fit one to the story from a literary standpoint. I was disappointed because I am a romantic at heart. I am glad to know that I wasn't out in left field to think the little girl was Ada & Inman's. No comments on my idea of the stress on independence & self-sufficiency? Sharon

Ros, I do enjoyed your comments on this book. As for Ada/IIda, I think I saw it written as Ida and I had loaned my book out, and could not check for myself, so used Ida. Sorry 'bout that.

War is indeed an awful thing and I am so thankful we have never, in my lifetime, had to endure war here in our land. I am sure it was a tragic thing to endure. My grandmother, who was born in 1862 would tell me about hiding silverware, money etc. under growing potatoes so the Yankees would not find it.

I'd like to hear more from Betty about the things her grandmother told her, because, here, right at the end, we've got a true daughter of the south joining us!! Would like to hear more.

Sharon, I thought you raised a couple of startling points: WHO is the protagonist of this thing??

Is Inman the main character or is Ada the main character??

Which is more strongly drawn, do you all think?

And if history notwithstanding, independence is the theme of the book, and Imnan had to disappear, then Ruby is the winner! And didn't Ruby marry? (too lazy to look back, but think she did).

There were things about Ada that I found strange, and felt I could relate more strongly to Ruby, tho I've never known anyone like her, thought her character was more consistent.

Those of us who have been following this discussion, do join me in thanking Ros for the wonderful job she, as usual, has done, and please be thinking of two books to nominate soon, as we'll do TWO month's worth of voting this time!! NOW is the chance to squeeze in that one you've been wanting us to read!

Ginny

Ros thank you for the "real" Inman background, and for the beautiful interpretation of the conclusion. A comfortable, romantic ending would have been out of step with the book as Frazier developed it: a reflection of the cruelty of war and the fact that it seems to empower the worst in human nature.

Ros, your background on the real Inman is revealing. As I read the book, I felt many of the events and supporting characters were so strange that they must be true. However, like raisins in pudding, I found these morsels excellent but the pudding that bound them together rather bland. Overall, this just was not my type of read.

As far as becoming a classic as some have said, I doubt it.

RSD

Its one of the VERY few GREAT pieces of fiction I've EVER read.

It clearly ranks with "TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD" and I found it vastly superior to "WAR AND PEACE" Best

LJ

Yes, I will join in thanking Ros for her knowledgeable summation. I was so glad to have my feelings about the ending confirmed. As to whether this is truly "great" literature (whatever that is), only time can confirm. For the next choices, I'll propose Sharyn McCrumb's new book, The Ballad of Frankie Silver, as one of them. I have read all her books in the "ballad" series; they are quite entertaining but each stands on its own. While we're in Appalachia, why not?!?

Jo, you are probably right about the outcome of this book. I don't guess there was a whole lot of reason for getting romantic in those times.

Richard, I'm with you about this not really being my ty pe book.

Ginny, I'm afraid that I was not too interested in what my grandmother was saying at the time. I was just out of HS when she died. I do have a rather interesting fact about the end of the Civil War though. Generals Johnston and Sherman met at a farm house outside of Durham,NC for the signing of an agreement about the ending of the war. They asked the owner of the property (James Bennett) if they could meet in his house. The answer was yes (he probably knew of nothing more he could say!) and so the family went over to the kitchen area, which was apart from the main house, which was the practice at that time.

Living with Bennett were his wife and daughter, together with the daughter's two children. The husband of the daughter, Eliza Bennett Duke, was away from home fighting.. One of the two children there at the time was my grandfather, Alphonso Duke.

A museum has been built on the site and hanging on the wall is a photo of Eliza Bennett Duke, my great grandmother, and in a case, the family Bible which my aunt gave to my brother many years ago, and which he gave to the museum. A dedication service was held in April of 1984 and James (my husband) and I attended.

Betty, how super! How interesting, and it is as you say, it's a shame more of us weren't listening earlier!

Richard, welcome welcome, we are delighted to see you, please stay and help us with the next book.

LJ: I'm shocked you finally found a piece of fiction you liked!

Jeryn: Appreciate those nominations, and we'll get them in the heading ASAP!

As to whether or not it's a classic....that's a good question, too. It certainly has a strength of writing, which sounds at once familiar and yet strange. Some of the characters are memorable, some not. You don't suppose if he writes a sequel to it or another just like it, it may dilute the appreciation of this one, do you??

Just finished The Color of Water yesterday, a powerful book in some ways. I hope you all have it and will join us here. We'll not have a discussion leader, but will just react to each other, and the discussion questions taken from a Library site on the subject.

Please be getting your nominations ready!

Ginny

BETTY ALLEN. Wasn't that the "Final" surrender of the war ?? I've seen the site; don't recall the museum but it was nearly forty years ago.

Best

LJ

Betty, that is really fascinating. I would think that you would be very involved in genealogy and Civil War history with such a background.

Stranger books have become classics before, but I wouldn't vote for this one. I had a very difficult time connecting to either Ada or Inman. Their reactions and thoughts just didn't seem logical or realistic to me. However, I didn't dislike the book. Just thought it was curious.

I will not be participating in the book club for quite a while--probably not till fall at least. My daughter & family are moving in with us in a couple weeks until they sell their house and/or we sell our house or until they have learned the business & we can move. Under the circumstances, I expect them to learn very fast and to be moving in August regardless of house sales. Consequently, I will be extremely occupied--if not with moving, with the grandkids etc. I hope I can survive cohabitation with all of them for such an extended period of time! Their family also includes a dalmation & a cat! I will continue reading for a couple weeks, but then that is all. TTYL Sharon

L. J.: Perhaps it is referred to as "final" surrender, but I have found that the school books do not refer to this incident, unless it has been in recent years when I have not had access to such books.

Sharon, I wish you well with your upcoming "combination." My own daughter and her 6-year old moved in with us for several months back in '90. Her husband was teaching in Nova Scotia for one school year and it was not feasible for them to move there. I was truly glad when they moved to Atlanta!!

I am very intrerestred in genealogy and have three family histories on my computer. I get almost upset with young people of today in their lack of interest, but then I remember that I was forty plus when I got interested.

Betty, I too had never heard of the "Final Surrender" before happening upon the site, and although its been so many years, I still recall the explanations on the historical marker(s). In essence, Lee's surrender which ended the war for all PRACTICAL purposes wasn't quite the actual END of the war.

Best

LJ

There is no question in my mind that this book taught me a great deal about the sympathies and motives of the ordinary people (both civil and military) of the era. I was able to identify with nearly ALL of the characters, and was emotionally involved with most of them. There were fresh approaches to philosophical commentary with passages of very significant literary merit; and it was both interesting and exciting while being realistic from cover to cover.

To throw down a "Gauntlet", I think the human motives, actions and feelings were far more applicable, realistic and representative of reality than GWTW (with a lot less verbiage)

Best

LJ

EEEK! How dare you compare this with GWTW?!?!? No comparison. GWTW does become a bit of a soap opera, I suppose, but it IS a tried and true "classic"... what is the definition of classic? That which stays popular OVER TIME, right? SOOooo... we can't yet know about Cold Mt. Several months on the NY Times Best Seller List isn't sufficient qualification! I liked it too, LJ, but--a classic? I don't know...

Maybe we ought to read GWTW next and compare? We've been wanting to read an oldie but goodie, and it certainly IS! As well, it's a marvelous book, much better than the movie, and I love Clark Gable.

LJ: I thought that was a wonderful point about the common man, the book DID illuminate just that, and so does the next one. I hope everyone is planning to join us here, and speaking of that,

SHARON!! Now, you KNOW we'll be all agog for news, don't you STAY away!! Now you've opened the box, we want to hear all.

Clubbers news: Our Helen and Jerry are now in Israel, and she hoped to be able to say hello, she may do it in the Travel folder, I told her the Book Club is easy to get to from Israel, too, so will watch!! hahahhahaha

Let's do Gone With the Wind? And compare?? That's one nomination, anyway.

Who is it that has nominated The Hundred SEcret Senses?? Do try again?? We're to get 2 this time!~

Ginny

PS: That's a good question Jeryn asked: what IS the definition of a classic??

I've just opened a new folder for our nominations for our next two books, and you can find it right below this one at: Book Club Online Nominations

Ginny

Strictly speaking, a classic is "a work of lasting historical or literary significance ... generally considered to be of the highest quality or class." It seems to me that only time can determine which contemporary work becomes a classic. But for readers like us - those to whom books are an important part of our lives - I think much depends on a kind of personal 5-W's ranking. How old was I when I read that book and how was I feeling at the time? Why did I decide to read it? Who recommended it to me? Where did I read it? What did I look for, what did I find in it, what special parts did my friends tell me to read? Did I see it as a movie, and if so, was it before or after reading the book? How many times since that first reading have I returned to it with enjoyment? (Answers for GWTW: Fourteen, my older sister and friends, mostly in the bathtub, mostly the hot parts, yes, much later, never ... tried to watch the film again last year and lasted about 20 minutes.)

Ros

I can't let the Cold Mountain discussion end without trying to express how much the exchange of ideas has meant to me, and how much I have been enriched by the contributions of readers with family connections to the Old South, and those for whom Inman's home region was a reality rather than a series of marks on a map.

The quality and the level of participation were superb. I recognize that not everyone was as delighted with the book as I was. The principal criticisms seemed to relate to Frazier's rather difficult style -- which certainly made it hard to "get into" the first chapters -- and also to some plot twists that led to an unexpected ending which was a disappointment to some readers. Some readers, I believe, felt that the alternating points of view of Inman and Ada were confusing.

These were legitimate objections based, I think, on the expectation with which any of us might have begun reading. The book was touted in some places as a romance - but it's really quite different from the typical romance. It was referred to as an odyssey - but it resembles Homer's epic only in very superficial ways. It's been called an "adventure story," but the principal male character is not a hero in the true "adventure" sense. And although the Civil War is ever present, it would certainly not meet the expectations of any reader who looked for military strategy and political discussion.

Because I happened to be familiar with Bartram's "Travels through North and South Carolina," the fact that Inman carried a battered section of this book and read it for comfort suggested to me a much subtler kind of hero, and I think I was ready for the surprising quality of the narrative and the ending.

I want to comment finally on the wonderfully moving depiction of the relationship between Ada and Ruby. Of course if we want to indulge in metaphor we can see the two women as parts of a single female entity, combining the European tradition and something more indigenous to the land, blending urban and rural, book-learned and earth-wise, subtle and forthright. At many points, such as the hair-braiding episode, Frazier hints at sensuality and at their physical closeness; and he skillfully implies their strong emotional bond (one of the lovely aspects of the ring scene). It is a tribute either to his sensitivity or to the guidance of several women who worked with him on the manuscript that (without awkwardly spelling it out) he shows such awareness of the ways in which women support each other.

Now, on to the ratings:I think it's fair to rate books the way restaurants are rated in some newspaper columns: not by comparing the individual to every other book ever written, but by considering how well it meets our personal standards for excellence in the various aspects of its particular kind of book. It won't surprise anyone to learn that I would rate Cold Mountain a 10. I'd also give a 10-plus to all the readers who made the journey and posted such wonderful messages. I am truly richer for having been allowed to learn from your knowledge, your heritage, and your understanding.

Ros

Sorry I haven't posted here much during the discussion of this wonderful book. We have been vacationing in New Mexico, with my sister and her husband. Bob just bought me a lap-top and am finally getting used to it. Am writing this from Amarillo Texas. Have been able to review all the great discussion on this book.

Ros, your direction in this discussion has made it so interesting. You certainly have a way with presentation and drawing people into expressing how they feel about it. This whole discussion has been absolutely riveting! I appreciated all who posted of interesting asides of this book and era. L.J., you too, have contributed greatly in making this an enlightening discussion! Your love of history and it's effect on the common man and his surroundings really shows...and your ability to draw everyone in with your musings and questioning is fantastic.

As for the book being fiction...I have looked on it as non-fiction, with liberties! I definitely believe it is written as a man's book with the main focus being not on Inman, nor Ada, but on humanity of that era...using Inman, Ada, Ruby and others as vessels to carry and deliver the culture and feelings of that time in history.

As for it being (becoming) a classic, only time will tell. I certainly enjoyed it more than any book I have read...with the possible exception of Angela's Ashes. I give it a resounding 10+ and hope that it will not pale the next book I read, by comparison.

Will be back home in Missouri on Monday and then plan another genealogical trip to Western NC and Georgia. This lap-top will come in handy for that!

God Bless, Eddie

Well, on a 1-10 scale, I'd give it a 10. For adventureous, historical fiction its one of the two best I've ever read, AT ANY AGE. I'd give it a 97% as non-fiction

Eddie and Roslyn; Your summary comments are magnificent, and Ros, your leadership has been stellar.

And to think I'd have missed this one were it not for OUR Book Club.

Best

LJ

'Though a minor contributor, I have enjoyed this discussion a lot. For many years, I had thought I would enjoy belonging to a book discussion group of some sort. This HAS been interesting! I'll rate the book about 8.5--considerably better than your average best seller but lacking a bit in clarity and definition, I think. Will our descendants have to read it to pass senior English? I doubt it.

Our descendants will probably not be fortunate enough to get the opportunity. Its much like Chesapeke Bay where I took my children and harvested crabs in abundance. The abundance and for the most part the crabs, are now gone.

Best

LJ

Yes, I'm very proud to be a member of OUR Book Club, and to be reading books such as Cold Mountain as a result of it, which I NEVER would have chosen otherwise.

And Ros's handling of the discussion has, indeed, been wonderful, and I got so much more out of the book than I ever would have.

My initial rating would have been an 8, but I've decided to change that, simply because of all the insights pointed out to me since we started, all the things I learned from reading it: the awful frontier like climate which apparently WAS the case, the strong characterizations of some of the characters, and the general feeling of being swept away into another world. I enjoyed the book, but thought that at the end the song was protacted just a bit too long for no purpose, and the end left me feeling strangely flat.

I loved Ros's W's, and I have to admit I doubt I'll be picking this one up again any time soon, but I am so glad I read it and in such splendid company, too!

So my adjusted rating is a 9 ...

Now, we need to keep our ratings coming!! Let's combine the ratings with the nominations, up until next Friday, and we'll vote on two months' worth this time, so we really need your input!

Did you notice on the NY Times Best Seller LIst how MANY MANY books have already been chosen by our different book clubs? I must admit that prior to our book clubs I almost NEVER got a bestseller read, and now I feel quite au courant~

Also, I was at the beauty parlor Friday (am now a definite brassy blonde as the attendant's attention was distracted by his new convertible) and we all got in a heated debate about Cold Mountain half loved it, half hated it, one threw it down??? So it was extrememly FUN to be able to say, ooooo, yes, dahling, I read that one, too. But of course!!

Do, please, nominate some new books you'd like to see us read in August or September, so we can vote on Friday!!

Four DAYS left to NOMINATE new books, and POST RATINGS: WE VOTE FRIDAY!!

Ginny

I think that I will give CM an 8.5 rating. Much of it was memorable and illuminating in its depiction of the life & times, but part of it I felt was not complete for me, felt like I was left hanging. No nominations come to mind now. TTYL Sharon

LJ Klein

- 03:47am Jun 1, 1998 PDT (#6 of 7)

Kentucky hills

I nominate: "OUR GUYS: The Glen Ridge Rape and the secret life of the perfect suburb" by Bernard Lefkowitz.

This could be YOUR community. These could be YOUR sons and grandsons. What did the social fabric do wrong? What can WE do to prevent the errors in upcoming generations ? IS THIS AN UNALTERABLE TREND IN THE CIVILIZATION WE HELPED TO CREATE ???

Best

LJ

I would also very much like to read Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz. This Nobel prize winning book is a "tale told with great affection, humor and sensitivity, and a style that in this translation....is always accessible and elegant."...The NY Times Book Review....

"A magnificent work," Chicago Sun Times

"A wonderful story," Seattle Times

Synopsis: The bestselling first volume of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy is being published in paperback to coincide with the hardcover release of Palace of Desire, the second book. His "masterwork" is the engrossingh saga of a Muslim family in Cairo during Eqypt's occupation by British forces in the early 1900s.

I'm in the mood for a good story, and a Nobel winner to boot gets my latest nomination, what's yours??

Ginny

"A feast, indeed." Chicago Tribune

I've been trying to post for several days without success. I suppose it's too late to deal with Cold Mountain, except to thank Ros for the wonderful interpretations, most especially the last one about the two complimentary females, the folk-wise, capable Ruby and the urban, book-wise Ada. It added to my great apprciation of the book and everything eveyone has said here.
I give it a 10 !
Ginny, Palace Walk sounds enticing!

Jo, it does, doesn't it? It's supposedly a wonderful read, and a Nobel Prize winner, too.

Here is the NY Times Bestseller List again, PLEASE NOTE the books in RED are already chosen by one of our book clubs, and thus not really eligible to be chosen! I just left them in there because it astounds me how many we've read!!

May 31, 1998

HARDCOVER FICTION:

book stores.

This Week

1 ''N'' IS FOR NOOSE, by Sue Grafton. (Wood/Holt, $25.) Kinsey Millhone pursues the facts behind the sudden, strange death of a cop in a California town. First Chapter
2 4

2 YOU BELONG TO ME, by Mary Higgins Clark. (Simon & Schuster, $25.) A popular radio talk-show host finds herself endangered when she undertakes to expose a killer who targets lonely women on cruise ships. First Chapter
1 5 3 A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR, by John Irving. (Random House, $27.95.) Three looks at the complex emotional life of a writer and single mother. First Chapter
6 3 4 MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE, by Nicholas Sparks. (Warner, $20.) After finding a seaborne bottle containing an enigmatic letter, a divorced woman encounters love.
5 6 5 BLACK AND BLUE, by Anna Quindlen. (Random House, $23.) After her husband turns violent, a woman flees to Florida with her young son to start a new life. First Chapter
4 16 6 THE LONG ROAD HOME, by Danielle Steel. (Delacorte, $25.95.) A woman who grew up in a fractured family tries to find the courage to confront the past.
3 7 7 THE STREET LAWYER, by John Grisham. (Doubleday, $27.95.) A young lawyer comes to terms with himself after discovering his prestigious firm's dirty secret. First Chapter 7 15 6 SECRET PREY, by John Sandford. (Putnam, $24.95.) Lucas Davenport pursues the killer of a company chairman who was on a hunting trip with four colleagues.
1 9 CITIES OF THE PLAIN, by Cormac McCarthy. (Knopf, $24.) The concluding volume of a trilogy about two cowboys vexed by changing times.
1 10 MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, by Arthur Golden. (Knopf, $25.) The life of a young woman growing up in Kyoto who has to reinvent herself after World War II begins.
9 28 11 A PATCHWORK PLANET, by Anne Tyler. (Knopf, $24.) Estranged from his affluent Baltimore family, a self-destructive, voyeuristic underachiever tries to cope with life and love.
8 5 12 COLD MOUNTAIN, by Charles Frazier. (Atlantic Monthly, $24.) A wounded Confederate soldier journeys home toward the end of the Civil War. First Chapter
10 HARDCOVER NON FICTION:

Week

Last Week Weeks On List 1 TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE, by Mitch Albom. (Doubleday, $19.95.) A sportswriter tells of his weekly visits to his old college mentor, who was near death's door.
3 32

2 WE ARE OUR MOTHERS' DAUGHTERS, by Cokie Roberts. (Morrow, $19.95.) The television news anchor's personal reflections on women in politics and business and as mothers, wives, sisters and friends. First Chapter
1 4 3 STILL ME, by Christopher Reeve. (Random House, $25.) The stage and film actor looks back at his life, especially since his crippling accident three years ago. First Chapter
2 3 4 ANGELA'S ASHES, by Frank McCourt. (Scribner, $25.) An Irish-American writer recalls his childhood amid the miseries of Limerick.
4 89 5 THE MILLIONAIRE NEXT DOOR, by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko. (Longstreet, $22.) An analysis of the lives of wealthy Americans. (+) First Chapter
5 71 6 THE MAN WHO LISTENS TO HORSES, by Monty Roberts. (Random House, $23.) The memoirs of a professional horse trainer.
9 41 7 *THE GIFTS OF THE JEWS, by Thomas Cahill. (Talese/ Doubleday, $23.50.) What Western civilization owes an ancient nomadic tribe.
8 7 8 *TALKING TO HEAVEN, by James Van Praagh. (Dutton, $22.95.) A ''world-famous medium'' discusses communication with the other side. Read an Interview With James Van Praagh
6 21 9 AMAZING GRACE, by Kathleen Norris. (Riverhead, $24.95.) A poet reflects on her discovery of religious faith and the meaning of its language. (+)
10 6 10 TRIUMPH OF JUSTICE, by Daniel Petrocelli with Peter Knobler. (Crown, $25.95.) The lawyer who represented the Goldmans in the O. J. Simpson civil trial explains what it told him about Simpson and our legal system. (+)
7 3 11 MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL, by John Berendt. (Random House, $25.) The mysterious death of a young man in Savannah, Ga. (+)
11 202 12 CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD: BOOK 1, by Neale Donald Walsch. (Putnam, $19.95.) The author addresses questions of good and evil, guilt and sin. (+)
12 76 13 CONSILIENCE, by Edward O. Wilson. (Knopf, $26.) The biologist argues that a few fundamental natural laws govern the principles of every branch of learning. (+) First Chapter
14 6 13 6 15 THE PERFECT STORM, by Sebastian Junger. (Norton, $23.95.) The story of the nor'easter of 1991, focusing on a crew of fishermen from Gloucester, Mass.

PAPERBACK FICTION:

1 THE HORSE WHISPERER, by Nicholas Evans. (Dell, $7.99.) A woman seeks solace for her daughter and their horse from a wrangler.
28

2 PRETEND YOU DON'T SEE HER, by Mary Higgins Clark. (Pocket, $7.99.) A chance witness to a murder must live anonymously to save her life.
6 3 ORPHANS: BUTTERFLY, by V. C. Andrews. (Pocket, $3.99.) A troubled orphan is adopted by a couple who hope she will become a ballerina.
2 4 TOM CLANCY'S OP-CENTER: BALANCE OF POWER, created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik. (Berkley, $7.50.) American intelligence agents try to prevent another civil war in Spain.
5 5 DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD, by Rebecca Wells. (Harper Perennial, $13.50.) Three generations of Southern women.
15 6 LONDON, by Edward Rutherfurd. (Fawcett, $7.99.) Two thousand years of life in Britain's capital as seen through the eyes of six families. First Chapter
6 7 SANCTUARY, by Nora Roberts. (Jove, $7.50.) A photographer, coming to grips with her past, returns to the Georgia inn that her family operates.
6 8 *COMANCHE MOON, by Larry McMurtry. (Pocket, $7.99.) Two Texas Rangers, veterans of ''Lonesome Dove,'' battle defiant Comanches. First Chapter
1 9 PLUM ISLAND, by Nelson DeMille. (Warner, $7.99.) The murder of a Long Island couple may involve germ warfare research.
6 10 THE NOTEBOOK, by Nicholas Sparks. (Warner Vision, $5.99.) A World War II veteran meets an old flame who is about to be married.
19 11 THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS, by Arundhati Roy. (Harper Perennial, $13.) Death and secrets haunt a once-prosperous family in India. First Chapter
1 12 UP ISLAND, by Anne Rivers Siddons. (Harper Paperbacks, $6.99.) An Atlanta woman, after a bad marriage and her mother's death, seeks a new life on Martha's Vineyard.
1 13 *SHE'S COME UNDONE, by Wally Lamb. (Pocket, $7.99.) A woman's harrowing progress from youth to middle age.
36

2 PAPERBACK NON FICTION:

eek

Weeks On List 1 INTO THIN AIR, by Jon Krakauer. (Anchor/ Doubleday, $7.99.) A journalist's account of his ascent of Mount Everest in 1996, the deadliest season in history.
6

2 PERSONAL HISTORY, by Katharine Graham. (Vintage, $15.) The autobiography of the former publisher of The Washington Post and capital grande dame.
5 3 UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN, by Frances Mayes. (Broadway, $13.) A celebration of life in the Italian countryside.
34 4 JAMES CAMERON'S TITANIC, by Ed W. Marsh. Photographs by Douglas Kirkland. (Harper Perennial, $20.) The making of the film.
20 5 THE COLOR OF WATER, by James McBride. (Riverhead, $12.) A black writer remembers growing up with his white mother in Brooklyn.
66 6 A CHILD CALLED ''IT,'' by Dave Pelzer. (Health Communications, $9.95.) The autobiography of a man who survived his mother's abuse.
31 7 INTO THE WILD, by Jon Krakauer. (Anchor/ Doubleday, $12.95.) How a young man's obsession with the wilderness had a tragic end.
68 8 A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, by Walter Lord. (Bantam, $5.99.) A historian's account of the Titanic disaster.
18 9 THE LOST BOY, by Dave Pelzer. (Health Communications, $10.95.) The author of ''A Child Called 'It' '' recalls life at a series of foster homes.
7 10 BRAIN DROPPINGS, by George Carlin. (Hyperion, $10.95.) Comments on life and the ways of the world by the stand-up comedian. First Chapter
3 11 A CIVIL ACTION, by Jonathan Harr. (Vintage, $13.) A lawsuit brought by Massachusetts householders against industrial polluters. (+)
87 12 UNDAUNTED COURAGE, by Stephen E. Ambrose. (Touchstone/S&S, $16.) Lewis and Clark's exploration of the West.

Time for me to nominate "The Hundred Secret Senses" by Amy Tan again!

Here's Newsweek comment:

"Tan has once more produced a novel wonderfully like a hologram, turn it this way and find Chinese-Americans shopping and arguing in San Francisco, turn it that way and the Chinese of Changmian Village in 1864 are fleeing into the hills to hide from the rampaging Manchus . . ."The Hundred Secret Senses" doesn't simply return to a world but burrows more deeply into it, following new trails to fresh revelations".

Eileen Megan

I started Cold Mountain.I "read" by audio books, driving back and forth,to and from work.I really enjoy this. Cold mountain, I've only finished one casette. I'm not sure I like the main characters.The man,Inman, dwells on the carnage of war, the female,implies she is bright, but can't figure out how to do the simplist tasks to take care of herself.it really has not involved me yet. I've got about 12 casettes to go.

Evelyn, you've come at a good time! Although we've just finished Cold Mountain, you can see by going back thru the posts, that several of us agreed with you! Now we'll want to hear your final thoughts, too, when you finish all the tapes!

Meanwhile, welcome, welcome, and we're just now nominating books for August and September!! Please feel free to nominate and vote and join in our newest discussion, The Color of Water on Monday, June 8th!!

Meanwhile, keep on with your cassettes, as that's exactly my position at the beginning and I'd like to see what more you have to say, it'll be a point counterpoint!

Welcome,

Ginny

I would like to nominate Sharyn McCrumb's new book, "The Ballad of Frankie Silver", for one of your selections. I have read her other books of the "Ballad" series, those featuring Nora Bonesteel, and found them quite entertaining. McCrumb makes you care about her characters as she weaves a tale of suspense and mystery. Setting: Appalachia! While we're all in the mountain mood...

Also I will cast a vote for "Offshore" as the other selection.

Ever onward...

For some reason I can't access the previous posts for Cold Mountain. I had to be away for a few days but finished it. This is the most chilling description of the horrors of war that I have ever read or heard about - and being the daughter, wife and mother of veterans I have heard horrible stories. Some of the villians are a bit one dimentional but perhaps this is to convince the reader of horror for sure. Perhaps, I read more into it than intended, but I was not convinced that intellect and culture cannot survive without intervention by the "unwashed." However, I was a little pleased that the "Georgia Boy's" genes continued as well as Inman's. Sometimes I needed a 19th Century N.C. expressions dictionary since it was not clear exactly what Frazier meant at times. About half way through the story I knew this could not end happily for Inman & Ada but I kept my hope up - after all Inman was a "Mountain Man." Another question "What were those vigilantes called the 'Home Guard' doing at home?" I understood that every able bodied male from 16 to 60 was either on the battlefield or in a hospital or dead in the south. Although, I have been anti war most of my adult life, this book convinces me that I shall ever so remain!

Joyce, that's right! Why were they roaming free, able to do their bloody bounty hunting?

Joyce,

Right before the messages begin you should see two buttons that say "To Top" and "Previous Message". If you click on the first you should be taken to the first message and you can work back through them. If you just want to go back a few days, click on "Previous Message" and you will see several of the most recent messages before the screen you are then reading. You can repeat this to keep moving up a few messsages. Also, in the address line you see a /158 (that is what I currently have on my screen) and if you click at the end of the address line and backspace that 158 out and substitute an earlier number you should go to somewhere close to that message.

Larry

There's a new edition out of E.M.Forster, a combination of The Clestial Omnibus and The Eternal Moment available nowhere in this edition but Book of the Month Club, but they are on the Internet, too....It's short stories, and the type of writing Forster made famous in Room With a View and Howard's End, with English Country Houses and Italian Villas, but "these tales are characterized by bizarre deaths, ghost visitations and lush otherworlds. Among the best are 'The Story of a Panic,' in which upper class English tourists in Ravello battle for the soul of a possessed boy, and 'The Machine Stops,' in which a family sturggles to survive as its technologically advanced world crumbles...Dramatic, unpredictable, passionate and enduring...."

Wonder if anyone at all has any interest in trying these?? The book is $19.95 in hardback, or if you have 4 credits at BOMC, $9.95.

Maybe we could start up a Short Story Book Club in the fall? We've not read any short stories in the Book Club Online, but Forster is not a new author.

Any thoughts on this??

Ginny

Good Morning Ginny and Book Clubbers!!

I've just posted my meeting with Fairwinds and the first part of our trip in the travel folder. If anyone would like to see it, just click here: Mediterranean Cruise

Ruth

Ginny: I would love to read some Forster short stories! They sound delightful. I've always liked his novels. Can I vote here for the next two selections? If so, I nominate Sharyn McCrumb's new book, "The Ballad of Frankie Silver." Her other books of the "Ballad" series (those featuring Nora Bonesteel) have all been winners, novels of suspense set in Appalachia. Some of the titles were "The Rosewood Casket," "She Walks These Hills," and "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter." I will also cast a vote for "Offshore" by P.Fitzgerald. Your description of it just intrigues me!

Jeryn, sure you can vote!! I loved Ros's letter, and hope everyone in here votes. I'd like to read some of those stories, too. I fear the unavailability of the book will turn some off, but DON'T they sound good?? We may have to hatch up something in the fall SS wise.

Anyway, RUTH!! Here's our Ruth back, sick I hear, and everyone click on the site to learn of one of our original Clubbers meetings with Fairwinds, another original clubber. See, not only do we "do" books here, we care about each other.

Not to forget our Helen now sojurning in Israel and our Katie Bates soon to be living the high life in SUCH a castle like place in Hawaii. Ah, the world of the Clubber. We've got the best mental world and friends right here, and a chance of travel (to NYC in December)...and the most fun reading and chatting about books. Really, what more could you want??

Any more nominations?? Any votes?? The curtain is coming down tomorrow, get your vote in!!

Ginny

Bon Voyage, Ginny! Have loads of fun and enjoy! You will be missed, but look forward to your return to tell us all about Italy!

I have already rated Cold Mountain with a big 10!

The two books I vote for are:

#1 Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape, by Bernard Lefkowitz

#2 The Ballad of Frankie Silver, by Sharyn McCrumb

What a great discussion this month, looking forward to the next.

God Bless,

Eddie

Bon Voyage, Ginny! Send us a cyber postcard!

My vote is for "The Hundred Secret Senses" and "The Ballad of Frankie Silver". I rate "Cold Mountain" with an 8.

Good Morning!

I will vote for HUNDRED SECRET SENSES and PALACE WALK.

I will rate COLD MOUNTAIN with an 8. I will say the discussion was certainly a 10 + + + +. Rah, Rahs, to Ros and all you eloquent posters!! We discussed this in our F2F (copying Ginny) and I also heard one of the college instructos from Mount Mary give a Book Review on COLD MOUNTAIN--this site beat them all!!! I did get a lot out of everything said. (It still didn`t change my rating---Ha Ha).

Bon Voyage, Ginny!!! Have a Fabulous Time!! I am looking forward to hearing about it on your return!!

I've had a letter from Ros's daughter that her computer has died or is trying to die, so am just in to vote and to say:

Vote today!!
Vote Today!!
Vote today!!

I vote for Palace Walk and The Hundred Secret Senses in that order.

Now continue to post your ratings and we'll get the ratings total up tonight, and do take a whack at a free book!! The August Book will be given Monday night, just guess a NUMBER in the new new WIN A BOOK CONTEST: Win a Book Contest which can be found by clicking on this, or at the VERY bottom of the B&L main table!

Ginny

I vote for "OFFSHORE" and "OUR GUYS"

Best

LJ

Thanks for all the Bon Voyages, you can bet money that if I can FIND a cyber cafe in Rome, I will send my FIRST cyber card to our beloved Book Club Online, it's such a THRILL to actually see you all when in England, and now Italy.

You'll note a close vote overhead!! Those are the tallies for the new books to be read thru post 166, so keep 'em coming!

The book with the highest number of votes is the August book, the second will be the September book.

In case of a tie, we pull all Larry's hair out~!

Ginny

I vote for Palace Walk. Of the above choices, I don't have another choice! I have read most of Amy Tan, and found The Kitchen God's Wife much better than any of them, including A Hundred Secret Senses. I already gave Cold Mountain a 10.

Just got off the phone with our Ros, who sounds 40 years old! I really thought it was somebody playing a joke! BUT no.

I think we ought to call each other once a year, I enjoyed that conversation so much, and I have just LOVED every conversation I've had with those I've been able to talk to, to a man they have been as intelligent as you'd think, but for some reason, they are usually laughing all the time, something makes them laugh!

Could it BE my accent??

Anyhoo, Ros's computer decided to help us out by falling apart, and she's got a service contract but needs to call next week to get them out. Poor thing, she was trying to say she had several options about the BC but when she hit the "cyber cafe," my jumping up and down on the phone kinda killed all the others, so now she has to GO out and FIND a cyber cafe and PAY, just for the pleasure of being among us all, but HEY!! hahahahahahha

I'd pay to chat with you all.

She SAYS she posted her votes, I can't find them, so will post them here: Palace Walk and The Hundred Secret Senses, so will adjust tallies. I do like that tally board, stole it from Joan Pearson's Great Books.

So let the voting continue, we've got wonderful good taste, and I've ordered the Forster book, maybe we can find time in the winter to knock off a few stories.

Ginny

I just about forgot to vote. I am voting for The Ballad of Frankie Silver and Our Guys.

Now Ginny, why would you want to pull my hair out if more than two tie. We can just have a run-off between the ties if need be.

Larry

Stick your head over here, Larry, it's a RUN OFF!! Vote for ONE, winnder to be announced Monday am!!

Vote for The Ballad of Frankie Silver
Hundred Secret Senses
or Palace Walk.

Ratings Later Today,

Ginny

Run off Today!! Vote Today!!
Run off Today!! Vote Today!!
RUN OFF TODAY!! Vote today!!

Ginny, I will vote for: The Ballad of Frankie Silver

Larry

And I vote for Palace Walk .

Ginny

PALACE WALK!!!

My vote is for The Ballad of Frankie Silver. We still have a tie so far.

have we already discussed Cold Mountain? Palace Walk is a very discussable book

Zabelle, yes, we just have finished Cold Mountain, you can scroll back TO TOP to see all our posts, and WELCOME to you!!

Delighted to see you here!!

Was that a vote for Palace Walk??

Ros votes by phone for Palace Walk.

Ginny

Ballad of Frankie Silver

Again they're tied, what suspense!

Ginny

and from me A"Hundred Secret Senses" looking forward to the reading of the color of water--a brilliant book,cheers,Aileen

Palace Walk Judy

I vote for The Balld of Frankie Silver

Joan

My vote goes to "Hundred Secret Senses" and I give Cold Mountain a 10 - one of the finest books I've read in a long time. I was reading it before the book club and sorry I didn't get in here to discuss - surely did enjoy the the Club Members remarks, very intellegent and thought provoking, as always.

Palace Walk

I cast my vote for Hundred Secret Senses. However, in August I will be enroute several places - may not have opportunity to post or read.

Palace Walk

Just got off the plane and hope I am not too late to vote before I go straight to sleep!

"Palace Walk"

Ginny: If you haven't left yet...You don't necessarily need cyber cafes anymore. My experience was that the larger hotels have special areas with a computer/fax for the use of their guests. So bring along the e-mail addresses you think you will need.

Have a great trip!

Later

Helen!!Back already?? SAFE and sound?? Hurray!!

Want to hear ALL!!

Can't BELIEVE you have that much presence of mind, no jet lag???? Also good news about the larger hotels, we're staying at a MONSTER in Milan, all glass all nice nice, all suites, so if I can't find one in Rome, will hope there.

The votes are coming along nicely, and I think we can continue thru today, and announce the winner when I come in here first thing tomorrow morning, so plenty of time to get your vote in!!

It's been kind of exciting to me to watch the votes swing back and forth, such fun.

So Monday morning for our new discussion The Color of Water and to find out which book won?

Don't forget the Win a Book Contest currently going on at the very bottom of all the Books and Lit folders, back in a sec with our ratings total for Cold Mountain .

Joyce, have a safe trip going around, and we'll look forward to hearing from you in September!!

Ginny

And our Group Rating for Cold Mountain is 9.2 !! Very high.

Rating for Ros's leadership of the discussion: 15!!

Am posting the rating in our Ratings and Reviews section:

Ratings and Reviews . You might want to have a look at how it compares to the others.

Ginny

I will vote for HUNDRED SECRET SENSES.

Also: to find out about any of these books (thanx, Walter, for the suggestion):

To find out about any of them, go up in the Cold Mountain heading, and click on the Click Here to Buy the Book. This will take you to the B&N screen for Cold Mountain, but there's a search feature to the left. Type in the name of the book, select title, and it'll bring them up, and you can click on them for further information.

Ginny

Here is my vote for THE BALLAD OF FRANKIE SILVER--not to be shouting, just to be noticed! I don't yet know how to do my post in larger fonts and color as some of you do. If someone would want to give me a hint, I'd love it!

Walter has emailed me a vote for the Ballad of Frankie Silver.

Ginny

Although I know that I will be in the midst of moving in August, I think I would most enjoy hearing a discussion of PALACE WALK. Best wishes on a marvelous trip to Italy, Ginny! We really loved our trip there a few years ago. Look forward to hearing about it. Ruth, so glad to hear that you have been on a Mediterranean Cruise. I had been wondering where you were and feared the worst about Ralph. I will check out your post on the trip. Envy you getting a chance to meet Fairwinds. TTYL Sharon

Thanks, Sharon! Now you're moving? I thought the kids were moving in, I certainly get confused. You'll have to straighten us out by keeping in TOUCH!!

The voting is going very well, it's kind of neck and neck, will announce the winner bright and early tomorrow am, so vote on!!

Ginny

Ginny, the kids are buying our pharmacy and John is retiring. Both they & we are trying to sell our houses, but so far no luck. That's the reason the kids are moving in with us. They can't swing a new mortgage till they sell the other house. As soon as they are comfortable running the business--hopefully in about 6 weeks, we are moving to Sun City Hilton Head, SC. Our house there is ready and waiting. When we move out of here, Melanie & family will bring their furniture in from South Bend and rent from us until one house or the other sells. Confused yet? :>) Sharon

Sharon: I HEARD that about Hilton Head! Paradise on earth! ONE of my favorite places, lucky you, you're going to be a South Carolinian, and my "neighbor"!! HEY, Betty Allen, did you See that? She's down there too, as well as our Johann McCrackin, and Sandy, too. And Mimi J and Grace are in Charlotte, I do feel a reunion brewing!

No problem, Sharon, we'll just have our 1999 convention at your fabulous place!! Sharon??? Sharon?????????????????????

hahahahahahha

Ginny

Ginny, don't have the room AT my place, but would love to see it happen in HH or Beaufort or Savannah. I could have everyone in for wine & cheese or a luncheon perhaps--seriously, would love it! Sharon

hahahah BLESS your kind heart, I'm pulling your leg, but you BETTER keep in touch now, or I'll jump in the car and FIND you! I doubt the gatekeeper wil let me in, but I'll just sit outside and cry SHARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!! That ought to stir Hilton Head up.

We'll want lots of news about the move, etc. Who knows, maybe we CAN someday have a meeting on the SC Coast? I'll tell you all one thing, I am so excited about meeting everyone in the NYC trip I can't breathe, but we'll take lots and lots of pix, so you'll ALL get to see us. Meanwhile, packing awaits, just washed a red top with a white one and guess what ran?

hahhahahah

Ginny

I vote for The Ballad of Frankie Silver. Good summer reading!

And the winner is, by a nose (1 vote) our August selection: Palace Walk and our September selection: The Ballad of Frankie Silver .

So THERE is some fabulous reading for us all.

Now, please, turn your attention to our newest discussion, The Color of Water appearing right below this one!!

As this discussion is now closed, thanks to all who participated and Ros, who so ably led!

Ginny

Cold Mountain	by Charles Frazier
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