The Leatherstocking Tales, Vol. 2: The Pathfinder / The Deerslayer

The only Cooper I have known over the past 6 decades was Gary Cooper. Until I read the first page of this marvelous novel, I had forgotten the long days spent in high school literature class. What a step back into history when the country was in its infancy and our fantastic nation was just beginning to reveal itself to our English and French settlers. Of course the Indians had tranversed the northeast for thousands of years before we landed and the manner in which we interacted with the "first Native Americans" is a story of untold cruelty and insensitivity.As an author, Cooper can take two pages to describe Pathfinder's rifle and most of a chapter to describe a log floating down a lake. But he does it in such a manner that leaves the reader in awe. His prose is powerful and provoking and his characters are developed in such a way that you feel you have known them all your life. Cooper describes the majesty of the woods and water and describes the ways and heritage of the Northeaster tribes with beauty and ease of understanding. These books were not written to become best sellers.They were written to reflect as a mirror the true nature of early America's nature, both shown in men as well as its land.Step back in time to the 1720's and later. Get a glimpse of what it was like to walk our virgin soil and survive in a minimalist manner. Learn about the good and the bad in all mankind. Know what true love really means and the emphasis of being a "crack" shot in the woods.As a suggestion, read Volume 1 of the Leatherstocking Tales then move on to Volume 2. The timing and the characters are developed in a chronological manner, so these wonderful tales will have more meaning when read as suggested. The most important advice I can give to my fellow readers is to read them regardless of which order you begin the adventure.

While Mark Twain was right - Cooper's style was atrocious, he beats anybody I have read when it comes to writing action sequences. You have to tune out the turgid dialog, but it is worth wading through his lame efforts at developing his characters to get to experience his description of the conflict between the British/Americans and the French in what would become upstate New York. I am a big fan of Patrick O'Brien but Cooper has him beat. I am sorry I waited 50 years to give him a try.

James fennimore Cooper was a post-Revolutionary novelist and wrote in the language and interests of the times. For a peek back into history and how the minds of the times thought about thier lives and the world around them, these novels are great reading. They will never lose interest as classic reading, and I would recommend them to young readers for a fascinating look back at the time when America was young.

Reading the Leatherstocking Tales in publication order, rather than in chronological order, helps one recognize and appreciate Cooper's growth as a novelist. The earlier novels were, to a certain extent, marred by prose so dense that the stories sometimes seemed to lose their way among the sentences. In the last two novels, which make up this volume, the style seems more assured and transparent, and a reader can more easily tread his or her way through a now-vanished landscape. An earlier reviewer mentioned the turgid dialogue -- an apt description; one can't imagine real people talking the way these characters do, even though they lived their fictional lives more than 200 years ago. Be that as it may, these last two novels in the cycle are better than the earlier three. Even so, however, concentrated effort will be required to get through them.

I recommend the Library of America publisher to anyone who loves reading. The books are so well designed and constructed. The size is perfectly comfortable and the quality of the paper makes me want to keep turning the pages. I enjoy having the books contain collections rather than single stories. I have been a fan of the Leatherstocking tales since my college days many years ago. If you enjoy stories about colonial America, give this a shot.

There is one, and only one reason to read Fenimore Cooper's books.That reason is so you can fully appreciate Mark Twain's critique of Cooper's writing.See:"Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses"[...]For this reason only I recommend to read this book or others by Cooper. It will have made all that pain greatly worthwhile.

The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer are great stories well told. Natty Bumppo (a.k.a. Pathfinder, Deerslayer and Hawkeye) is the archtypical American hero. He is brave, honest and selfless, yet still humble. He is a model for us all. Young people in particular should read about him as an antidote to the rampant braggadocio that too many modern "heros" exhibit.

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