But this Cold Mountain ...
... is no recluse - no drop-out, his dearest wish is to drop in, to lubricate with the oil of enlightenment the sullen wheels of social progress.
Torn to pieces by savage Gods, almost completely disembowelled by heroic Amazons, an indestructible Kamakase, a long-time lover searching for what might have been, he is, never-the-less, still unsure whether or not he is, in fact, an optical illusion, an unstable mirror-image of a relatively unattractive nobody, or simply a disreputable old bum.
He is no Alice but he has been through the looking-glass (more than once).
So he dances his cosmic dance carrying his little light, just like any one of us.
Jack Coulthard 2011
Cold Mountain
COLD MOUNTAIN is the character central to this body of fictions. He is a PERSON, taking his name from the place where he lived, Cold Mountain, which has become a name, also, for a state of mind.
He, HAN-SHAN in Chinese, was a Chinese poet, hermit and philosopher and is believed to have lived in China in the 800s.
He can be seen as an Everyman, a drop-out, and as a Zen teacher, these are the roles in which Jack Coulthard pictures him.
As Cold Mountain is held, by some, to be a reincarnation of the BODHISATTVA Manjusri (the future BUDDHA) he belongs in any time and any place and is consequently the ideal protagonist.
There are published translations of his poems by BURTON WATSON (1962) and GARY SNYDER (1958).
Jack Coulthard's Writings of
Cold Mountain
- The Cold Mountain Show
- 1974, Pantomime - The Cold Mountain Story
- Long Version, 1983, Short story - The Cold Mountain Story
- Short Version, 1984, Short story - Cold Mountain Colouring Book
- 1989, Comic strip
