“He told her about the first time he had looked on the back of her neck as she sat in the church pew. Of the feeling that had never let go of him since. He talked to her of the great waste of...”
Work
Based on local history and family stories passed down by the author's great-great-grandfather, Cold Mountain is the tale of a wounded soldier Inman, who walks away from the ravages of the war and back home to his prewar sweetheart, Ada. Inman's odyssey through the devastated landscape of the soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with Ada's struggle to revive her father's farm, with the help of an intrepid young drifter named Ruby. As their long-separated lives begin to converge at the close of the war, Inman and Ada confront the vastly transformed world they've been delivered. Charles Frazier reveals marked insight into man's relationship to the land and the dangers of solitude. He also shares with the great nineteenth-century novelists a keen observation of a society undergoing change. Cold Mountain re-creates a world gone by that speaks eloquently to our time.
Quotes
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Charles Frazier
Canonical work source
“He told her about the first time he had looked on the back of her neck as she sat in the church pew. Of the feeling that had never let go of him since. He talked to her of the great waste of...”
“His spells portrayed the spirit as a frail thing, contstantly under attack and in need of stength, always threatening to die inside you. Inman found this notion dismal indeed, since he had b...”
“She fit her head under his chin, and he could feel her weight settle into him. He held her tight and words spilled out of him without prior composition. And this time he made no effort to cl...”
“educated beyond the point considered wise for females”
“In Ruby's mind, everything […] fell under the rule of the heavens. […] They were, as Ada saw them an expression of stewardship, a means of taking care, a discipline. They provide a ritual of...”