"Charles Frazier's first novel, Cold Mountain, is a thrilling adventure and tragic love story. The National Book Award-winning novel tells the story of two people trying to find each other in the midst of the Civil War. Inman, wounded in the battle of Petersburg, sneaks out of a Confederate hospital and begins a long trek home across the war-torn South to Cold Mountain and Ada, the woman he loves. He encounters kind people who feed him and lend him a bed, as well as a few ill-willed personalities. He is constantly hunted by the Home Guard and nearly loses his life at least three times."

"Cold Mountain'' takes its title from a forested tower, Inman's destination, where the novel reaches its heartbreaking climax. It speaks to the reader with candor and honesty, without flamboyance, or literary tricks, pulling us ever deeper into the thoughts of Ada and Inman as they move irresistibly and fearfully toward one another.

Frazier has set out a story of love between two people, each wounded, who hardly know each other, but who desperately need not to be alone. Until the very end of the book, they are far apart."

"Hotel California" - The Eagles

"At the first gesture of morning, flied began stirring. Inman's eyes and the long wound at his neck drew them...So he came to yet one more day in the hospital ward. The window was tall as a door, and he had imagined many times that it would open onto some other place and let him walk through and be there. The window apparently wanted only to take his thoughts back. Which was fine for him, for he had seen the metal face of the age and had been so stunned by it that when he thought into the future, all he could vision was a world from which everything he counted important has been banished or had willingly fled."

"Hotel California" is a very fitting song for the opening of the book and the introduction to Inman. We first see him as being stuck to the hospital bed wanting nothing more than to be somewhere else. He sits and reads his book that takes him away to a better place and stares out the window wishing to be back home. The calming sounds of this song send the mind wondering and just put the body in a relaxing state. It's very easy to get taken away in the soothing beat of the song where the singer is talking about going away to the "Hotel California" which is "such a lovely place, such a lovely face." Both the singer, and Inman, are trying to escape reality and go back to a better place where there is a lovely face waiting for them.

"Chop Suey" - System of a Down

"He calculated that his days of traveling had put little distance between himself and the hospital. His condition had required him to walk more slowly and to rest more often than he would have like, and he had been able to cover only a few miles at a time, and even that slow pace had been at considerable cost...And the weather had been bad, hard rain off and on through the period, sudden downpours with thunder and lightning, both day and night...Each farm had two or three vicious hounds set to go off at the merest sound, rushing barkless and low out of the dark shadows of roadside trees to rip at his legs with jaws like scythes...The dogs and the threat of the Home Guard out prowling at the gloom of the cloudy nights made for nervous wayfaring."

"Chop Suey!" really describes most of Inman's journeys because he had gone from the lazy days of just sitting around in the hospital bed recovering, reading, and thinking, to having to overcome one challenge after another just to stay on his trek home. When he singer shouts "WAKE UP!!" at the beginning of most of the phrases of the song, this is what is going through Inman's mind as he is trying to keep battling and keep going strong. This upbeat and hectic tempo makes me think of a time when Inman is beating off the attacking dogs or having to duck into the closest bush hoping that the Home Guard doesn't happen to find him.

"Bodies" Drowing Pool

"Inman jerked the scythe form the smith's hands and used it as it was intended, making long sweeping strokes close to the ground. He went at their feet with it, mowing at them and making them drop back before they were cut off at the ankles...his strokes were hard, hoping as he was to strike a bone. In the end though is was adequate, for he eventually smote the three down to their knees in the dirt of the street...then he kept at it until they all lay prone and quiet, faces down. Ha gave up and beat the man about the head with it and flung it onto the top of the building and walked away."

"Bodies" Lyrics

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor Beaten why for
Can't take much more

One - Nothing wrong with me
Two - Nothing wrong with me
Three - Nothing wrong with me
Four - Nothing wrong with me
One - Something's got to give
Two - Something's got to give
Three - Something's got to give

Now
Let the bodies hit the floor
Push me again
This is the end
Skin against skin blood and bone
You're all by yourself but you're not alone
You wanted in now you're here
Driven by hate consumed by fear
Let the bodies hit the floor

This song would fit Inman very well because, like the scene above, there were many times when Inman found himself needing to battle someone or something just to survive. He had come from the war where all he saw around him was dying and bloodshed, and when he was attacked in the village he didn't hesitate to attack the men who were after him. He even tried to let some of them walk away with only injuries that would have temporarily stopped them, but he was "pushed again" and finished them off. The feeling of this metal, rage song would feel like the thoughts that rage through Inman's head in times of fighting.

"Hey There Delilah" - Plain White T's

"And then he thought of Ada and Christmas four years ago, for there had been champagne then too...It seemed like another life, another world. He remembers the softness of her, and yet the hard angularity of her bones underneath. She had leaned back and rested her head on his shoulders, and her hair smelled of lavender and of herself...He said, I've been coming for you on a hard road. I'm never letting you go. Never."

"Hey There Delilah" Lyrics

Hey there Delilah
I've got so much left to say
If every simple song I wrote to you
Would take your breath away
I'd write it all
Even more in love with me you'd fall
We'd have it all

Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me

A thousand miles seems pretty far
But they've got planes and trains and cars
I'd walk to you if I had no other way
Our friends would all make fun of us
and we'll just laugh along because we know
That none of them have felt this way
Delilah I can promise you
That by the time we get through
The world will never ever be the same
And you're to blame

This song is very fitting for Inman because there were several times on Inman's journey when he felt like all hope was running out, but there were little things that reminded him that all of his time will be well spent when Ada is in his arms again. "A thousand miles seems pretty far...I'd walk to you if I had no other way," these are very telling lyrics to describe how Inman feels about going home to Ada. He has times when he is just stuck in a daydream thinking about being with her again and knows deep-down that things will work out if he can just get home.

"Numb" - Linkin Park

"For several days Inman walked tied at the wrists to the end of a long rope with fifteen other men so that they went strung together like tailed coats. When the line started or stopped he was yanked forward and his bound hands flew up before his face like a man in sudden need of prayer...Like the vast bulk of people, the captives would pass from the earth without hardly making any mark more lasting than plowing a furrow...They walked therefore bent, as if bearing the burden of lives lived beyond recollection. Inman hated being sutured up to the others, hated going unarmed, hated most moving retrograde to his desires. When the sun rose full in his face he spit at it, having no other way to striking out."

"Numb" Lyrics

This part in Inman's journey is where all his trials seem to be worth nothing. He is tied together with all the other prisoners and is degraded to walking with them, being treated like scum, and loosing valuable miles. "I've become so numb I can't feel you there, I'm becoming this all I want to do, is be more like me and be less like you," is a good way to describe how Inman feels about being dragged down. The feeling of the song is also one that seems to show the singer feeling down and broken, which is how Inman feels during this long journey.

"Pardon Me" - Incubus

"Inman set the pistol down on his bedding, for he had taken upon himself to vow a bear, never again to shoot one, though he had killed and eaten many in his youth. The decision came as a result of a series of dreams he had over the period of a week in the muddy trenches of Petersburg...In that manner of life, (living as the bear did), he thought there might be a lesson in how to wage peace and heal the wounds of war into white scars...He awoke the last morning feeling bear was an animal of particular import to him, one he might observe, and learn from, and that it would be on the order of a sin for him to kill one no matter what the expense, for there was something about the bear that spoke to him of hope...Inman took a step to the side and the bear rushed by him and plunged over the high ledge that she never saw in the gloom...Shit, he thought. Even my best intentions come to naught, and hope itself is but an obstacle. The cub in the fir bawled out in its anguish."

This would describe a turning point that was noted by Inman after his run-in with a bear. He had made a vow to himself about something that he needed to place importance on. He decided that he was going to respect the bears and maybe that they were a sign of hope. After this encounter where his vow was broken to save himself, he really starts to reanalyze his situation and realizes that "even his best intentions come to naught." I think that the line, "Cause lately I've been thinking of combustication as a welcomed vacation from the burdens of the planet earth, like gravity, hypocrisy, and the perils of being in 3-D, and thinking so much differently" would exemplify how Inman is feeling at this time. The song has a theme of being lost and wanting to give up because everything has changed, and this is a point in Inman's life where he has been stuck during his whole journey.

"My Paper Heart" - All American Rejects

"When the trail turned upward, snow started falling again. The tracks began fading off like twilights the slow filled them. He walked fast, climbing to a ridge, and when the tracks started to disappear he broke into a run...No matter how fast he ran, the footprints disappeared before him until they were faint, like scars from old wounds. Then like watermarks through paper held to window light. Then the snow lay even all around, unmarked...Finally he stopped in a place where the hemlocks stood black around him and made a world undifferentiated, with no compass degree preferable to another and with not a sound but snow falling on snow, and he reckoned if he lay down it would cover him and when it melted it would wash the tears from his eyes and, in time, the eyes from his head and the skin from his skull."

"My Paper Heart" Lyrics

So bottle up old love,
And throw it out to sea,
Watch it away as you cry
A year has passed
The seasons go

Please just don't play with me
My paper heart will bleed
This wait for destiny won't do
Be with me please I beseech you
Simple things, that make you run away
Catch you if I can

Waiting, day to day it goes through
My lips, are sealed for her
My tongue is,
Tied to, a dream of being with you
To settle for less, is not what I prefer

So bottle up old love,
And throw it out to sea,
Watch it away as you cry
A year has passed
The seasons go

Please just don't play with me
My paper heart will bleed
This wait for destiny won't do
Be with me please I beseech you
Simple things, that make you run away
Catch you if I can

This defines the hopeless feeling that Inman is starting to have towards ever reaching his goal of being with Ada again. He has come so far, and gotten so close, yet can't ever seem to reach his goal. As he is trying his hardest to finally reach her, all hope seems to be lost, so he finally decides to give up. The lyrics to this song show how his emotions played with him as he ventured closer and closer, yet if things didn't work out then he would be crushed and feel like he had strained over an unachievable goal.

"It Feels Like Home" - Chantal Kreviazuk

"He looked at her in the eyes and knew it was here and was overcome by love like a ringing in his soul...Firearms standing between me and everything I want...Tears started in her eyes, but she blinked once and they were gone...Inman thought her about as handsome a sight as men are allowed to see, and he was momentarily taken aback by it...He held her tight and words spilled out of him without prior composition. 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...Ada and Inman lay under covers for some time entwined and talking, the fire low and the door to their hut open, letting a brilliant trapezoid of cold moonlight project onto their bed. "

"Feels Like Home" Lyrics

Somethin' in your eyes, makes me wanna lose myself
Makes me wanna lose myself, in your arms
There's somethin' in your voice, makes my heart beat fast
Hope this feeling lasts, the rest of my life

If you knew how lonely my life has been
And how long I've been so alone
And if you knew how I wanted someone to come along
And change my life the way you've done

It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me
It feels like I'm all the way back where I come from
It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me
It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong

When Inman is finally back in the arms of the one and only woman that he truly ever loved he is finally happy. It had been four long years since he had been able to say that there was nothing on his plate other than what was in front of him. I feel like this song truly encompasses his feelings that he has when he is with Ada. He is happy and finally "home where he belongs." I think that the lyrics are very vital to Inman's inner feelings and thoughts. The mood and tone of the song also seems very fitting to what would be a happy ending to this love story.

"I Will Remember You" - Sarah McLachlan

"A pair of lovers. The man reclined with his head in the woman's lap. She, looking down into his eyes, smoothing back the hair from his brow. He, reaching an arm awkwardly around to hold her at the soft part of her hip. Both touching each other with great intimacy. A scene of such quiet and peace that the observer on the ridge could avouch to it later in such a way as might lead those of glad temperaments to imagine some conceivable history where long decades of happy union stretched before the two on the ground."

"I Will Remember You" Lyrics

I'm so tired but I can't sleep
Standin' on the edge of something much too deep
It's funny how we feel so much but we cannot say a word
We are screaming inside, but we can't be heard

But I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

I'm so afraid to love you, but more afraid to loose
Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose
Once there was a darkness, deep and endless night
You gave me everything you had, oh you gave me light

This song shows how Inman felt at the close of the book. As he is dying, he has finally reached what he wanted and was truly able to be happy one last time. I think that in some ways he chooses to give up in Ada's arms because there was no reason to fight anymore, he had found his love. He dies while being in the arms of his one and only true love. At the end, he looks at her one last time and knows that he will remember her forever. She watches him slip away, and takes in her last glimpse and knows that the love like theirs will never die, the memories won't fade, and that they had truly "given each other everything they had, and gave each other light" on their darkest days.