Customer Reviews

The Leatherstocking Tales, Vol. 2: The Pathfinder, or, The Inland Sea; [and] The Deerslayer, or, The First War-Path (Library of America)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Cooper is too good to be true! I love reading his books because he creates such beautiful pictures while he binds you to an imaginative story line. His stories bring you to the battlefront and into the very mind of the hero.

This book has a beautiful format. It is very useful. I do recommend hardback editions thus allowing you to pass on your treasures to further generations. James Fenimore Cooper demands immense reverance from attentive readers. No library should be without this book.

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.

Excellent, high-quality binding, paper and typeface make this volume a joy to handle and read. The classic Leatherstocking Tales have never looked better. The time line and notes help place the readings in historical perspective.

The American frontier comes alive with Natty Bumpo and the Leatherstocking series. And, the Library of America does it right. The Library has broken the five tales down into two parts and wowee for them.

Great series that EVERY American should read...

The Deerslayer:
It took me most of my life to finally read the Leatherstocking novels. Cooper's tale of love, war, beauty, strength and human frailties introduces us to the world of the early Eastern American frontier, and to a unique individual named Nathaniel Bumppo, who was so unshakable in his integrity that we suspect Cooper had subliminally drawn a portrait of the man he himself would liked to have been, had all things been perfect.

Rather than merely a tale of adventure, or of the wars between the tribes of Delawares and Hurons, who both in turn are determined to keep the white usurpers at bay, it is an unlikely romance, whose undercurrent runs as deep as the waters of the beautiful, remote lake upon which the story unfolds for the first time, "the Glimmerwater".

The main characters are 'Floating Tom' who has constructed what he believes is a floating fortress far out into the middle of the lake, protected from attack on all sides by the water, anchored by pilings driven into the lake bottom. This is the abode of Old Tom, who is of uncertain background, and of his two daughters, one strikingly beautiful in the outward sense of female loveliness, Judith; and one who has been graced by an inner serenity that touches all who know her eventually; she is Hetty, mildly retarded, whose mind is simple and untouched by worldly concerns, yet able to function in a far more practical way than can first be imagined. The character of Hetty is one that grows on the reader; at first she is discounted, then slowly, she begins to emerge as the rock on which a good measure of their strength depends.

The girl Judith, has had a past which by the standards of the day is questionable. Her reputation is cleverly revealed to Deerslayer (Natty Bumppo)by his friend, "Hurry Harry" - another woodsman, who in subtle jealousy endeavors to drive away any competition by uncouth words and suggestions. He is the opposite of Deerslayer; and in Deerslayer Judith knows she has never seen a man quite like him, nor does she want to let him leave the secluded woodland without her. He is attracted to her beauty; but he is a spirit of the forest, and that, even more than the wariness he holds against her, keeps him at arms length.

Many events unfold; the Deerslayer is scheduled to meet his Delaware warrior friend on the shores of the lake which is the reason for him being there to begin with; his is a rendezvous to aid in a revenge-taking. The betrothed maid of the Delaware boy has been kidnapped by the Hurons, and he has pledged to find and rescue her. There are scenes of danger and of skirmishes; the descriptive passages that skillfully paint a mental image of the tranquil, isolated lake and it's forest boundaries are truly splendid. We are reluctant witnesses to two new burials on the lake where two of the people we have come to know reunite with the mother who has passed long before; it is a scene apart from any I have read before or since.

The Pathfinder:
This story is reminiscent of the one the movie "The Last of the Mohicans" was patterned after to a degree. In it, the Deerslayer, still in possession of the rifle "Kildeer" that was given him in gratitude long before by the beautiful free spirit, Judith of the Glimmerwater, is older now, and his natural talent as a woodsman has been fine tuned to an uncanny degree. He again keeps a rendezvous in the forest, this time to meet and deliver safely the daughter (Mabel Dunham) of a military officer to a remote fort where her father is stationed.

The adventure along the river is taut with suspense; they are tracked by a war party determined to slay all of them before they reach their destination. The trip along the river rather than over the trails where ambush awaits, is the cautious game plan of the Deerslayer and his Delaware companion, who at one point, as the enemy is closing in, secure their canoes and charges beneath a bank overhung with foliage, and cleverly place cut branches to perfect the hiding place till the danger is past.

They arrive at their destination; but safety is never to be counted on in such a wilderness, and the Fort is but a clearing to be defended if they can, rather than a safe haven to take refuge in for long. The girl, Mabel, is instantly taken notice of by almost every male within it's walls, as might be imagined; but Sargeant Dunham is keenly impressed with the depth of character he knows to be lying beneath the buckskin raiment's of Deerslayer, and wishes him to become the husband of his daughter - that he might know she is well taken care of by a competent man who is also remarkably unlike most of his peers.

The author, James Fenimore Cooper, indeed is possessed of a sensuous side mingling with wild and the wooly. It is a vividly evident element in both of these wild, free tales of the native land, of the people who live together there under an uneasy truce - where a truce is present at all; and the perils of the secretive forest trails come alive under his pen.

His prose was often difficult to read, in keeping with many of the authors of his time, but the enjoyment was surely there, and so was his talent as a storyteller. The imagination is meant to be absorbed slowly, if one is to take full measure of what he is all about. He gave us his innermost clue as he said it best himself in his "preface" remarks: "There is a separate class of readers - which are addicted to taking things as they are offered, and of understanding them as they are meant. Should any of them reach the end of the book and fancy the time spent not entirely thrown away, the circumstance will afford its author sincere gratification." I count myself among those.

FWIW, the Library of America has done a splendid job in gathering together the James Fennimore Cooper frontier epics. These Classics have endured through the ages for some very good reasons. So if you have a romantic soul mingling with a quest for woodsland adventure from the safety of your favorite chair, these old books may do it for you.

This is the first of James Fenimore Cooper's books that I have read and I had a hard time putting it down. His writing is not only exciting, but is also historically correct. Wish I would have been introduced to him a long time ago. I'm looking for
Vol. l published by the Library of America. I look forward to reading more of Cooper. I highly recommend to anyone who doesn't like to waste time and at the same time "learning" something.

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.