Cold and Freakishly Depressing Mountain

SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN OR READ COLD MOUNTAIN, I WOULD ADVISE AGAINST READING THIS. ALSO, PLEASE DON'T SPOIL THE MOVIE FOR ME, AS I'VE ONLY READ THE BOOK SO FAR.

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I finished the book Cold Mountain a while back. [I am almost always several years behind in reading books on the best-sellers lists. I knew I wanted to read this book before I saw the movie though (several years behind on movies, as well). I can't stand seeing a movie and THEN reading the book, b/c I cannot get the images from the movie, images imagined and created by someone else, out of my head. And not that writers and directors don't do a fine job of bringing a best-seller to life in film. I just prefer to conjure up my own images.]

Anyway...I didn't know much about CM other than it was about the Civil War. And long lost love.

I swear to G, every freaking chapter ended with either someone dying, or with an animal dying. More often than not, it was an animal dying.

Most often, it was out of necessity. CM dude was a rebel army deserter (sounds yellow, but makes more sense if you understand the history of the civil war and how things were for the south at the end of it. I did not begrudge his being a deserter). He was "walking" his way back to Cold Mountain of the Appalachians, and had to kill animals to survive. Understandable. Still, I'd rather not hear the gory details of it all.

Even if you can forgive the "killing animals for food" theme, there are plenty of animals that die for no good reason. Like mother bears accidentally diving off the side of cliffs, leaving baby bears behind. And then CM dude thinking that he could take baby bear as a pet, and getting all sentimental about it before shooting baby bear in the head.

Or goat mountain woman having many goats for pets, which she used to live off of, which is all fair and good. But they describe it something like this (paraphrased):

And a goat walked up to goat woman and starting nudging her, and she stroked it's beard and scratched it's ear (all content like it was a pet cat or something), before she breaks its neck or stabs it or whatever so she can eat it.

And all kinds of turkeys and horses and other animals are killed, too.

The book as whole was depressing. Every chapter ended for me in a bad way. The first time someone or something died, I was upset and cried like I would in any other book as it usually only happens once or twice in books I read. But as every chapter ended like that, I kinda got used to it. By the later chapters, I could tell what the end of the chapters were going to come to, and I'd think, "well...here we go again" and then, "great! another animal/person was killed. Great!"..close the book...go to sleep...a disturbed sleep.

There is no way a book like that can end on a good note. And the f-er tricks you into thinking it will end on a good note, and it doesn't.

So you think CM dude is killed in the end, but you don't know for sure. At that point I thought, knowing this author and the way things have gone thus far, he had to have died.

The beginning of the next chapter leads you to believe he's alive for a second. I thought this about the author:...aw...what a softie. After all that darkness, he brings us a good ending after all. Aw.

But in fact, he was talking about someone else. He wants you to THINK he's talking about CM dude (whose name is Inman), but really, he was talking about someone else. At that point, I thought, "that f'er. I KNEW he'd have to make this a bad and depressing ending" Sure, the leading gal Ada ended up having his kid, after his death, but so what.

But the darkness makes sense, too. The American Civil War was not a cheery, upbeat time, as no war really is. It's a horrible place to be...both for the people fighting in the war, and for the people at home waiting for them, and for society. The book was very well written and very well representative of the time. I did not expect it to be a happy-go-lucky story, or that it should have been called Warm Fuzzy Mountain....although I did think it was going to be more of a love story and that they'd end up together. I also could have understood the darkness of war without hearing about all the animal killings.

Overall, although it was a good book, it's just not my preferred genre. Now, I don't necessarily like only upbeat books....but I don't know...survival and depression and animal slaughtering are just not things I like to read about on a regular basis.

Another thing was that I could not identify with Ada at all. I just didn't like her character, or at least I didn't understand her, or on the most basic level, did not see much of myself in her. That didn't make her a bad character, but I do like books where I can understand and relate to the main character, or see some of myself in them. I know it's selfish and narrow-minded, but it's not really. There are many fictional characters I enjoy reading about who are nothing like me, yet I understand them, or I see a little of myself in them. I saw little of myself in Ada.

I will still watch the movie though, as it will be interesting to see how well the movie follows the book, or how they butcher the book, as is usually what happens in movies, both out of necessity and out of a need to please the public. I wonder if they'll have him die in the end (please don't tell me). I did hear that they did in fact focus more on the Hollywood-type and expected type of love in this movie than they did in the book.

Knowing what I already knew about the movie, I unfortunately could not help but think of Jude Law and Nicole Kidman while reading the novel. Without having seen the movie, I would say that Jude Law was a good match for the role (of course, I am a fan of his...), as well as Natalie Portman (fan of hers, too, and yes I've seen Closer). Renee Zelweger (fan), too, although I had originally pictured Renee's character as a black woman for some reason..but once I figured out that it was the character that Renee played, I can see it.

I did not imagine the character that Phillip Seymore Hoffmann played looking like him, but I didn't have a good grasp of what that character looked like while I was reading, so I can now see PSH being good in that role. Donald Sutherland is sufficient as Ada's father, but I think any patriarchal character actor could have filled that role. Can totally see Giovanni Ribisi playing Junior...I think he'll be damn good as that.

It's Nicole Kidman that I don't like as this character. She doesn't seem right for this role, and I'm tired of her taking all the good roles just b/c she is Nicole Kidman. I am very picky about accents, and if I detect an inkling of an Australian accent, I won't like it.

Still, I can't judge it until I see it. Nicole Kidman is an excellent actress, as much as I criticize, and quite frankly, she had me at To Die For. She's one of those ultra famous ones that I really don't want to like, but that I secretly do like.

I'll update once I see the movie.

Comments on a play..

My husband and I went to see an interesting play Saturday: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Claude Marat by the Marquis De Sade. See if you can follow this: It was supposed to be De Sade's play, that de Sade wrote to be acted out by the inmates of the asylum in which he was committed in the 18th century. But really, the play was written by a 20th century playwright; he wrote it as if it was de Sade writing it. To make matters more confusing, the play we were watching was supposed to be acted out by modern inmates in a modern asylum, but they were pretending to be the 18th century inmates. So it was a play within a play within a play.

So the whole time, I thought it was supposed to be de Sade and Marat and Charlotte Corday (Marat's murderer) actually as inmates in the asylum....but really they were just inmates pretending to be those characters. Actually, they were inmates pretending to be those inmates pretending to be those characters.

It was so weird...it was in a smaller theater where you sit very close to the stage, the seats wrapping around the stage. The whole thing was set up as if you were in a real insane asylum. As we waited in line to enter the theater, a girl walked around yelling at everyone to turn their cell phones off b/c the inmates will go nutso if they ring. Cute.

Then they only let us in one at a time. After they beckoned me, I walked up to the door, away a bit from the rest of the line, and had to wait for the door opener to get some queue that it was okay to enter...then they open the door, say you can go in, and close it behind you (the door having these loud bam! and clicking noises as if really asylum doors). Next you wait in a waiting room for a sec, and another guy sprinkles holy water or something on the wall and lets you in. Crazy!

The theater was almost full when I walked in, so I just waited for my husband by the door. All of the "inmates" were mostly naked (they had flesh colored undies on) and were lined up, stoic and expressionless, against the back walls of the theater, behind the seats.

So my husband and I ended up in the front row (I think everyone else was too chicken to take those seats, so we didn't have much of a choice. Some of the inmates were at our feet half of the time), and when the play started , all of the inmates ran up on stage and starting hastily wrapping themselves in this gauze like stuff, and then the play began.

I could go on and on, but I'll just say the play was really good...and eerie...and interesting. There was a lot of groping and sexuality about it (being it is supposed to be about de Sade, after all).

The guy who played Marat had a fantastic body. OMG. He was half-naked too... just a beautiful physique. He was also a great actor. His voice inflection reminded me of Ralph Fiennes. The guy who played de Sade was an excellent actor, as well, but not as great of a body. He was thin...which I imagine de Sade to be tall and thin. Actually, I've looked it up, and he ended up being quite obese in his older age. I'm not sure how old he was supposed to be in this play. Charlotte Corday was also very good, and and quite attractive and appealing as an actress. Most of the other actors could really look in to doing some Body for Life. :)

When the play was over, the "inmates" stripped down out of their gauze wraps, ran off the stage, and lined up against the wall again, except this time, they were facing the wall with their backs to us. That was even freakier than the beginning. It reminded me of the Blair Witch Project.

And like the end of the BWP when I saw it in the theater, the audience just sat there in the end not knowing what to do. So we all just awkwardly clapped...but the actors stayed in character and never came back to bow or any of that. It just got all quiet, everyone sat there for a couple of seconds, and then we started quietly filing out of there. Cool.

(btw...I wish I would have let my cell phone ring. No one's did. I wonder if they worked it in the play to actually go berserk if one started ringing)