At 14, a visit to my grandparent’s meant lying in the guest bedroom, enjoying the sound of an LP featuring old-time radio favorites. For those of you who aren’t familiar with an LP, that is not blogging lingo for “lollipops”; it stands for “long-playing” record–a vinyl disc with grooves in it which would produce sounds recorded in studios. Think CD, only bigger and more archaic. Anyway, I loved to be transported back to a time when comedy didn’t have to be bleeped out, but was simply hilarious: Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Burns and Allen; and the drama, though devoid of any blood and gore was still suspensful and had you on edge. I still remember the dark, foreboding voice: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows. Ha ha ha ha….” The Shadow was an elusive crime fighter that lurked in the shadows. With the ability to levitate, knowledge of any language, and invisibility, he was the 1930’s equivalent of Batman without all of the fancy contraptions.
Though necessary for a crime fighter, I personally don’t want to know “what evil lurks in men’s hearts”. It is enough for me to guard against the blatant visible evil, then to contemplate or want to know the sordid thought life of someone else.
This is what left me cold while reading Charles Frazier’s Civil War drama Cold Mountain. Frazier’s descriptions of a place of raw beauty, a place his protagonist, Inman, can’t wait to get back to, seemed to me to be a stark contrast to the ugliness in men’s hearts. From the mountain people he met along his road home, to the infamous Home Guard itself, you can’t get away from the vile and revolting sentiments of the time. There is, however, love and survival; and this makes for a great story no matter how you spin it. The characters of Ada and Ruby trying to make a working farm out of one that is near ruin, Inman trying to get home on foot, injured, and evading the Home Guard, and Frazier’s descriptions of the beautiful Smoky Mountains almost had me fully embracing this book. As I read, I found myself cheering for Inman to get home safely, and that would still have been my hope, except for the thought, “Wait a minute. He’s a deserter.” He’s just abandoned the men he signed up with and promised to fight beside. Who cares if he has a “love” at home that he feels stronger about then he does about this war. Who cares if he thinks that his Commander and Chief made a mistake or that it is an “immoral war” (now where have we heard that before); he could have stayed home in the first place or fought for the other side. The justification for his desertion fell a little flat for me. Still, I thought Frazier did an outstanding job developing this story, and that from a true story about the thoughtless killing of some Scottish immigrants by the controversial Confederate Home Guard. If you don’t already know that “war is hell” then read this book and it will help you in your assessment. For those of us who already know that what goes on in men’s hearts is better left there, then best leave Cold Mountain and pickup your warm and fuzzy’s like Little Women and The Secret Garden. I might need a dose of those before I trek back up the mountain.
