This has ambitions to be an American Odyssey, telling the tale of a Confederate soldier, Inman, who travels to return to his love Ada at Cold Mountain. I admit there's just about no literary affectation I hate more than the fashion a la Cormac McCarthy to omit quotation marks. Frazier, when he marks off dialogue at all, does so with dashes and it jarred me out of the story every time he did it. It's a technique that screams to me, "Lookit, Harold Bloom, aren't I special?"
It's to Frazier's credit that the narrative flowed well enough, with some pretty shapely prose, I continued on, instead of dropping this fast the way I did with the last book with this technique. On page 12 though I hit Strike Number Two, when in describing the battle of Fredericksburg, I hit a rather muddled point of view where it isn't clear if Inman overheard Generals Longstreet and Lee or was just told what they said. I did smile when I first met Ada, and her struggles against an obstreperous rooster.
However, the style meant I could never sink into the story. Now, there's nothing more intrusive than many a style of omniscient I've loved or second person, yet I have loved novels that have used those techniques, but Frazier never clicked with me despite some lovely phrasing. I know many do love this novel though, which was a bestseller, so unless you're as allergic as I am to the technique, this might be worth a try.
