Saturday, January 17, 2009

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

I stayed up way past my bedtime Thursday night to watch this movie (11 p.m.!!). I had read Cold Mountain years ago. I kept saying to myself, only 1/2 hour longer, then I'll go to bed, but I had to see how they did the end which I remembered as very sad (it was).

I really enjoyed the movie, the scenery was lovely, and I think they stayed pretty true to the story line (although the years may have blurred the distinctions).

The main character, Ada, grew from a smart woman with no competence to sustain her life, into a smart woman who grew into a competent woman. The two melded together make for the most powerful women I know. But, although we admire smart, the women who are survivors are the ones who are competent. This holds true for men too. How many smart people do you know who don't have a practical bone in their body? They're like Ashley in Gone with the Wind. He didn't know how to survive for anything. Scarlett may not have been book smart (what did she see in Ashley anyways - Rhett was much more exciting), but she sure was survivor smart. Ada became survivor smart too. I really liked that about her.

As a result of watching this I'm re-reading the book. I've already discovered one small area where they veered from the story line, but it hasn't ruined either the book or the movie for me. Hopefully that will hold true for the duration of the story!

2 comments:

Tonia said...

I liked that book, except I thought that the ending was unnecessarily sad. It didn't have to end that way in order to advance the author's themes or anything.

Barb Terpstra said...

But it was a "real" ending, wasn't it? I think when we look at real life, it often is sad (and sometimes unnecessarily so)! The movie had some change arounds, but it stayed true to the actual story line, so it was okay :-)