Has anyone here read it? I just finished it moments ago. One of the best novels I’ve read in years. Puts the movie to shame. There’s quite a bit on playing the fiddle and the evolution of fiddle tunes. For example, I never knew that the fiddle was once considered by conservative preachers as the devil’s box and playing the fiddle could get you kicked out of your church.
where do you think the dulcimer came from???
Seriously, the dulcimer was seen as “proper” where-as the fiddle wasn’t. The fiddle caused people to want to dance. The dulcimer was just used as backup to voice. No Don Pedi style playing in that day and age!!!
I didn’t see the movie, but did read the book. I thought it was pretty good.
I have read where priests in 19th adn early 20th century Ireland would ban all music in their parish and physically destroy instruments to try and stop people from dancing.
djm
Haven’t gotten to the book yet, but given that the book is almost always much better than the movie, and that movie was, IMO quite good, I am sure the book is excellent.
And yes, the fiddle has often been associated with the devil, and long before he hit Georgia. 
I liked the book and the movie.
I’ve read in old record books where folks were “churched” because of the fiddle, or in some cases because of playing instruments. Why do you think the arms don’t move in step dancing or old time flatfooting? 
Sin!
In the past, a number of Protestant denominations tended to have a big problem with non-vocal music in general. A few still do. In the early 19th century, a bonfire of fiddles about 40-50 feet high was burned by Free Presbyterian clergy on the Isle of Skye.
There’s also that old joke: Do you know why Calvinists don’t shag standing up? They’re afraid it might lead to dancing.
The book was splendid, and yes, music was important in it.
One chief character is saved by it.
The movie was awful, IMO, because they turned the book,
which read like a movie script, into a star vehicle for
Jude Law and Nicole Kidman.
This was most egregious when it came to dialogue.
So, in the book, these mad fellows who are going about
shooting deserters from the Confederate Army.
find a fiddler and a banjo player in the forest.
Before they shoot them they have them play
a tune, at the end of which one of these murderers,
a boy 14 years old, exclaims:
‘These are holy men, who know mysteries you and I cannot
guess!’
In the movie the character, age 23, substitutes this line:
‘Are we going to sit here all night?’
Yes, truly a great book. I read it twice cover-to-cover, which is something I’ve only done a few times before. I thought the movie was OK, and might have liked it better if I hadn’t read the book first.
Charles Frazier spent a large part of his young life in the Blue Ridge, and really captured the essense of that region, as well as a remarkable amount of technical detail about the geography, flora, etc… Truly a fine read!
I find it is useless to try to justify a movie as compared to the book that inspired it. They just simply cannot cannot measure up. I try to look at them as a separate effort, and enjoy them for what they are - a different telling of the same story. I almost always prefer the book, by a great degree, but I don’t often get to have a book read to me in a two hour timespan with moving pictures to illustrate the story, so I sometimes substiture the movie. 
If I weren’t on here toalking to you lot, I might get more reading done… or cases … or chord books… or dishes… hmmmm
Some movies are successful adaptations of books; some
are superior to the book (as in Damage, The Bridges of
Madison County, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold,
All The Pretty Horses.)
When I read Cold Mountain I was struck by the fact that
it read like a movie script. The stuff that novels do
that movies can’t (long internal quasi-philosophical
or psychological ruminations) are minimal; the stuff
movies can do (great dialogue, action, interesting
characters) was there in abundance.
What bothers me is that terrific cinematic stuff that could
have been effortlessly transferred to the screen (for
example, wonderful, real dialogue) wasn’t. It was
replaced by your standard cliches. The failure of the
movie to do the book justice wasn’t the result of
the difference between genres.
They could have done something extraordinarily good
without going to much trouble. It was there for the taking.
Instead they went
entirely for commercial success. What rankles
is they could easily have had both.
Definitely a missed opportunity.
I enjoyed the movie because it came before I read the book.
The only movie I’ve seen that I thought was better than the book was A Color Purple. I loved the movie and have seen it several times. I did not like the book at all and had to force myself to finish the thing.
I often do read books that movies are based on simply because I liked it and figure the odds are , the book will be great if the movie was good.
I avoided this when it first came out, thinking it was just a vehicle, as has been mentioned here by others. I just watched it and, while I don’t think it was great, it certainly was an okay movie. Renée Zellwegger was excellent. Three babes in one movie, can’t be all that bad.
djm
Yeah, it was OK–but if you want to see in your mind
the movie they could have made, read the book.
It’s quite an extraordinary book.
An article in fRoots the other day mentioned that cold mountain (the novel) had been added to the UK high school syllabus, and that this was a source of work for UK based old time musicians, some of whom were doing show and tell type gigs in schools.
Great book!!! I also enjoyed the movie though…Renee Zelweger stole the show…and Jack White made a cameo..one of my favorite musicians!
One thing I must say though…
I think that the movie version of The Notebook was easily on par with the literature version. One of my favorite movies, seriously.
The book was one of the greatest in American literature.
The movie SUCKS.
I would nominate it for one of the greatest disparities between a WONDERFUL book and a truly AWFUL movie.
The fate of the book, once the author sold the rights, is straight out of the “The Player.” It changed hands again and again, finally winding up in the hands of a bunch of people who DON’T GET IT.
Wrong producer, wrong cast, wrong director, wrong plot changes, and perhaps the WORST dialect EVER.
They even managed to screw up the music. Elvis Costello? STING? WTF?
In stark contrast, Tim O’Brien, Dirk Powell and John Herrmann did a great CD that was sold with the paperback version of the book called “Songs From the Mountain.” You can hear music samples here:
http://www.timobrien.net/storedetail.cfm?rid=8
It is a terrific intro to the REAL Appalachian old time sound. Very interesting to compare/contrast to ITM.
The Hollywierd people forced it off of the market for a time, but with support from the author, it’s still available. I strongly recommend it.