As much as humans can be conditioned to endure almost any discomfort, let there be no doubt that the emotion that drives us through all of life's challenges is love. It can take any of a hundred forms, manifesting as love of country, of ideology, of family, even of ones own labor. But regardless of its shape, it is equally powerful in all its guises. Without it, we are nothing but aimless animals. With it, we can endure any wound or torment, no matter its variety or severity. Few stories can claim to make this point with more clarity and gravity than this quiet, autumnal epic from Mr. Frazier.
As the American Civil War grinds to a bloody and inevitable conclusion, W. P. Inman, a young soldier who has only reluctantly fought for the all-but-defeated Confederacy, takes the opportunity of his convalescence in a military hospital to desert from the army. His intention is to return home to Cold Mountain, North Carolina, where he hopes to resume a pre-war romance begun with Ada, the intelligent but somewhat helpless daughter of a preacher. But in order to make this homecoming a reality, Inman must travel 250 difficult miles of treacherous country which, thanks to the war, has been stripped bare of all but those things essential for human survival. Not only must Inman complete this journey on foot, with only a pistol to help him hunt for the occasional game, he must also avoid the Home Guard, bands of Confederate loyalists who sweep the countryside in search of deserters who, upon being apprehended, are often executed as an example to any other soldiers who may be thinking of abandoning their sworn duty.
While Inman drives onward, through the endless obstacles that separate him from Ada, the object of his obsession and hope has her own problems. For her father, upon whom she depended for her survival, has died, leaving no one to upkeep Black Cove, their sprawling and now idle farm. Ada, at a loss for how to proceed with making the place viable, is on the verge of surrender when Ruby, a wiry vagabond, falls into her life. In exchange for Black Cove's roof over her head, Ruby willingly teaches Ada the basics of farmwork. It will take a number of seasons, but together they are determined to make a going concern of the place, to raise it up into a level of prosperity that will banish memories of the dark days of the war.
As Inman draws closer to Ada, and as the war shudders into its final, costly days, life has never seemed harder. Nonetheless, in spite of the fact that Ada has all-but forgotten the boy who left for war four years ago, Inman will not stop until he is home. Brigands, Home Guard, even starvation, all must fall before him for he has a love to find and a home to claim in his beloved Cold Mountain.
The winner of the 1998 National Book Award, Cold Mountain is a novel of exquisite prose and muted emotions. Mr. Frazier has clearly spent countless hours in the dusty corners of library archives, memorizing 19th century texts for he has vividly captured the customs and the rhythms of the 1860s. Far from ever doubting the account's period authenticity, its finely crafted passages draw the reader down into a convincing world of love and war and the extent to which the former makes the latter seem both foolish and depraved. It is masterfully done.
However, while the work's epic structure and fine phrasing make it worthy of acclaim, the author fails to make Cold Mountain a visceral experience. The stoicism exhibited by Inman, Ada and Ruby in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges is commendable, but their lack of affect, their unflappable determination to carry on, reduces them to somewhat mechanical figures, puppets who only act when their strings are pulled by their masters. A measure of this was clearly deliberate on the part of the author who injected his tale with a remoteness meant to reflect both the physical desolation of the environment and the emotional desolation of the war, but the technique is, perhaps, too effective. It left me numbed to the plight of the play's main actors when I ought to have been deeply moved by their endurance.
Despite its tendency to anesthetize the reader, this is a fine work of historical fiction that will withstand the test of time. For it is so much of the period that a reader, ignorant to the date of its publication, might well imagine it a product of Reconstruction. Rare, epic work. Cormac McArthy without the emotional fire... (4/ Stars)
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