Cold Mountain was definitely an interesting book to read over this summer. I may not have enjoyed this book as much as I did Hillary Jordan’s Mudbound, but I was still able to understand it. The book centers around two characters, Inman and Ada. With the first few chapters being a lot of exposition, the book can seem a bit hard to get through, but once you are finished with those, the book picks up and you are whisked away into Inman’s journey. I thought that the telling of the story from two different points of view was a clever way to tell this story. Just like Mudbound, seeing the story unfold from the eyes of the main characters helped me to establish a personal connection with the characters. We are able to go on this journey with Inman through his eyes.

My thoughts on Inman have been very confusing from the beginning of the book. He starts out as an injured confederate soldier in a hospital. He seems to be very social with the people around him. When he sneaks out the window, this socialness continues with the strangers he meets on the first part of his journey. Not only does he go through his physical journey but he goes through a mental journey as well. He must deal with issues of morality that he had not come across before the war.

Ada on the other hand seemed like a person who hasn’t had to think for herself in a long while. It seems like after the death of her father, Monroe, she has no idea of how to take care of herself. She has no clue how to survive on her own. She is so used to being told what to do by her father, she is lost until Ruby Thewes helps her to get back on track. Now Ada listens to what Ruby says and relies on her to help her to survive. After so many years of obeying and getting support from her father, she has become submissive in nature, hard as she may try to fight it. Throughout the book she is faced with decisions that due to her submissiveness and indecisiveness frustrate her. Although she is frustrated, these decisions strengthen her own ideals and help her to not be so compliant with everyone around her.

Overall, I was really dissatisfied with this book. There was some good and bad in it but seeing Inman and Ada grow throughout their journeys has been really interesting to read about. That was the good part. The bad in this book was that it took an extremely long time to read and it took a long while before anything actually sucked me into the book.

Mudbound has now become one of my favorite books. With every word, Hillary Jordan captivated me to the point where all I wanted to do was read for hours on end. I felt as though I connected with each of the characters in one aspect of their life. I have felt lost like Jamie, stubborn like Henry, misunderstood like Ronsel, and I’ve felt the longing for something more like Laura. Now obviously it hasn’t been to the same extent as some of these characters. I’ve never had to live on a farm or suffer discrimination because of my race, but in little ways I would like to think that I can relate to all of them. Jordan did manage to make me feel particularly connected to one character.

Jamie, as for many others, was my favorite character. Although he had some major flaws, his charm managed to win me over in the end. The fact that one of the first things we learn about Jamie is that he wanted to become an actor pulled me in and made me a fan right off the bat. When he was quoting Shakespeare to Laura and she referred to him as a Puck made me laugh out loud. The sad thing about Jamie is that he has this pit inside of him that he can’t get out of. This pit is foreshadowed by Pappy’s grave at the beginning of the novel. Jamie couldn’t climb out of it to save himself the same way he can’t climb out of the pit inside himself. The dreams he has are just as depressing and self-demeaning.

“In the dream I’m alone on the roof of Eboline’s old house in Greenville, watching the water rise. Usually I’m ten…I jockey the house, riding it north into the oncoming flood while the water urges me on in its terrible voice. I don’t speak its language but I know what its saying: it wants me. Not because I have any significance, but because it wants everything. Who am I, a skinny kid in torn britches, to deny it? When the river takes me I don’t try to swim or stay afloat. I open my eyes and my mouth and let the water fill me up. I feel my lungs spasm but there’s no pain, and I stop being afraid. The current carries me along. I’m flotsam, and I understand that flotsam is all I’ve ever been. ”

This is the type of man that will put others before himself without question, even if it means he ends up hurting himself in the process. When Jamie came back from the war, he came back with an emptiness within him. Of course Jamie is not the only character with emptiness inside. Laura was definitely left feeling empty after her miscarriage. Florence felt the emptiness when she thought her son had died and even after her son had returned alive from the sawmill, that emptiness was not filled, at least not completely. Emptiness is definitely one of the main themes throughout the book. Like so many people, Jamie thought he could fill his emptiness with alcohol.

“Whiskey was the only thing that kept the nightmares at bay. After the accident I knew Henry, Laura, and Pappy were all keeping a close eye on me, so I was careful never to have more than a couple of beers in front of them. I did my real drinking in secret. I had bottles stashed everywhere— on top of the outhouse, out in the barn, under a floorboard on the front porch— and I always carried a tin of lemon drops to hide the smell on my breath. I never got falling-down drunk, just maintained a nice steady infusion throughout the day. A lot of it I sweated out. The rest I put to use. I was the designated charmer of the household, the one responsible for keeping everybody else’s spirits up. To play my part I needed booze.”

Jamie’s emptiness came from a very dark place. The things he’d done were horrifying but they had to be done. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. I think we can learn something from Jamie’s emptiness though. We can learn how not to handle situations the way he did. From this entire book we get a glimpse into the people of that era and the cultural differences and similarities compared to today. We know that even today in 2016 there is still racism and persecution. If we cannot accept tolerance and acceptance, then we end up just like Pappy, and no one wants to be like Pappy.

I am Noah. I was born in Virginia and lived there till I was about six years old. Then my family moved to West Virginia.

I can’t say that I don’t like being from West Virginia. I mean, it’s become my home. I barely remember living in Virginia and what I do remember is spotty at best. In Virginia, I do remember living in a townhouse. It was across from a field that had horses that I would feed after I came back from preschool. That is one of my only memories of Virginia. After we moved it was time for me to start school. I went from Rosemont Elementary to Eagle School Intermediate, then Spring Mills Middle, and finally Spring Mills High.

Throughout my years of school, I’ve always been a little socially awkward. Not bad enough to prevent me from having friends but enough to where I will laugh when no one else is or not know how to keep a conversation going leaving the person I was talking to with an awkward silence. I have definitely improved since middle school (middle school was the worst for me) and now I can proudly say that I can indeed keep a conversation going!

I am also definitely classified as a nerd. Just a couple of my favorite shows and movies include the entire Harry Potter series, Supernatural, Doctor Who, Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Preacher, Kingsman Secret Service,  anything Marvel related, some DC stuff, and a lot of really old shows like Twilight Zone or Land of the Lost. And not only am I a nerd, I’m a musical theatre nerd! That means I love musicals like Les Miserables, Music Man, Guys and Dolls, Sweeney Todd, The Sound of Music, a lot of Disney stuff, Peter Pan (not the Disney one), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Into the Woods, Book of Mormon, Catch Me if You Can, Shrek the Musical, Wicked, Hamilton, and The Adams Family just to name a few.

So yeah! That’s me! I’m very excited to start my senior year and I look forward to being in AP Lit!

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