Customer Reviews

The Prairie: A Tale (The Leatherstocking Tales)(Library Edition)

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I chose to read this series in chronological order and not the order in which they were written. This being the third to be written but last in order, I read this one last. I must say that I was surprised at how enjoyable a read it was seeing that the last two I read (The Pathfinder and The Pioneers) were pretty disappointing. This novel has excellent descriptions of the prairie setting and the characters involved without weighing the reader down with page upon page of needless descriptions or rhetoric. The story line was very well-conceived, plausable, and coherent; qualities which not many books can boast. Of course, this being the last book in the series, I was concerned about how the author would conclude the saga of Natty Bumpo. Not wanting to spoil anything, I must say that I was very impressed with the way Natty's character was handled. There is nothing worse than reading five or so books and having the author ruin them all by messing up the character at the end. No need to worry here. This novel pretty much has all the ingredients which make The Deerslayer and The Last of the Mohicans exceptional: indian warfare, revenge, some romance, the differences and similarities between Natty's and the American Indian's religious views and philosophy on life, and of course just some good ol' action. I would recommend reading this series in chronological order, but if you do have to skip one of them, The Pioneers can be that one and you would not really miss a beat.

This large, very elaborately written book is the first of the Leatherstocking tales Cooper wrote. It is, however, about Natty Bumppo's (aka Deerslayer, Leatherstocking, Hawkeye) final days. In this novel, he's more of a peripheral character, witnessing at least 2 other, very intriguing adventures.

The story is integrated in fantastic descriptions of the prairie; reading it you can almost feel the beauty and power of the unenslaved American wilderness.

James Fenimore Cooper's 1827 novel "The Prairie" is an epic adventure featuring two major plots, twelve major characters, and a cast of thousands. Set in the Great Plains shortly after the Louisiana Purchase (the Lewis and Clark expedition is mentioned en passant), "The Prairie" sets two Indian tribes, the Sioux and the Pawnee, against each other as well as two disparate groups of white travelers. Even though Cooper had reservations regarding Sir Walter Scott that writer's influence on Cooper cannot be doubted. (One of the characters in "The Prairie" is named Le Balafré, as is a character in Scott's "Quentin Durward", published in 1823.) On the other hand, Cooper's style foreshadowed Charles Dickens in many passages, particularly the powerful depiction of frontier justice in Chapter Thirty-two. The central section of the novel, with its siege of Ishmael Bush's encampment and the portrait of Bush's Amazonian wife Esther, seems to have affected Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls". There are two young heroines, one swoony and the other spunky; but there are several heroes, including Duncan Uncas Middleton, a descendant of characters from "The Last of the Mohicans", and Hard Heart, a Pawnee partisan. (Partisan is an obscure synonym for chief which Cooper uses throughout the book.) Then there is Cooper's most famous character Natty Bumppo, who had already appeared in "The Pioneers" in 1823 and "The Last of the Mohicans" in 1826. He was to figure twice more in the 1840's as a young man, but "The Prairie" describes his final days as a graybeard. The odd thing is he's never named -- he's simply called the Trapper. Evidently his Deerslayer days are over, though he's referred to as "venable venator" by the novel's comic relief character Obed Batt (or Dr Battius, as he pedantically prefers). One assumes that Natty had become such a popular character readers were not confused by his anonymity. At any rate, he carries the complicated narrative, partly because he communicates with both the whites and the Indians in their native languages. The narrative's flow is smooth and rapid, and "The Prairie" is a page-turner for a lazy afternoon or a long flight.

Third in the Leatherstocking Tales series, The Prairie finds Nathaniel Bumppo beyond the Mississippi as the encroachment of civilization pushes him further and further afield. There are five books to the Leatherstocking Tales. Cooper did not write them in chronological order. Accordingly, The Prairie relates the close of Bumppo's career among the Pawnee and Sioux of the Great Plains. As with The Pioneers, The Prairie starts slow and takes time to develop. Additional concessions must be made for a least one plot twist that tickles the limits of plausibility. It should be remembered, however, that the age and the romantic style of writing then in vogue permitted latitude today's novelists are not afforded. Be that as it may, once past this questionable plot development, it matters little for the book is that grand.

Sioux and Pawnee, contesting the plains, find Bumppo, a wagon train of shifty settlers, and a bee-hunting suitor caught between them. What follows is a historical novel which includes every ingredient required for a masterful yarn. Bumppo, in this case "the trapper", represents the ultimate antiestablishmentarian as he longs only for freedom and the space to enjoy it, despising the restrictions of polite society. It is a message that has not lost it's power. Indeed, James Fenimore Cooper, through the Leatherstocking Tales, exquisitely captures a period and place in a manner so evocative that the reader longs to range beside "the trapper" through thick and thin , through the length and breadth of the fledgling American frontier. Having read more than my share of historical fiction, The Leatherstocking Tales rate as one of the finest examples. The Prairie is no exception.

Fare thee well, Natty Bumppo.

'The Prairie' is the third of Cooper's Leatherstocking tales in order of publication and the final in chronological order. It is also the last of the original three books ('The Pathfinder' and 'The Deerslayer' were written much later). Here Leatherstocking - now referred to as the Trapper - is in his late eighties and yet still possesses some of the vitality of a hardened wilderness man.

The book seamlessly segues from 'The Pioneers' even though ten years have elapsed. Disenchanted by the spread of civilization, the Trapper crosses the Mississippi to escape its influence. At the start, Cooper's theme about the destruction of the American wilderness is woven into the narrative.

Unfortunately, the tight plotting Cooper displayed in 'The Last of the Mohicans' - the book he wrote before this one - is largely missing in 'The Prairie.' The plot takes a good 150-200 pages to get moving, and then it has some long lulls in between some rather interesting scenes.

In general, the book is pretty much what you would expect from Cooper - though he demonstrates in these five books that he is nothing if not inconsistent. The supporting characters in this book are rather more thinly drawn than even his usual work, so there's not a lot of empathy for the reader. For much of the book, I found myself reading just to find out the final fate of Natty Bumppo.

"The Prairie" piles a far-fetched mystery atop an implausible plotline, but there's something endearing about its sheer disregard for authenticity. The ultimate success of this installment of Cooper's Leatherstocking series is not in its realism--which is in short supply here--but in its comedy (often calculated but sometimes unintentional) and its social commentary.

Natty Bumppo appears again simply as "the trapper"; it's near the end of his life, and he has escaped his former residence in the Hudson Valley for the peace of the empty prairie. His tranquility is shattered by the arrival of an outlaw family of squatters, pursued by a young man--a bee hunter, no less--inexplicably and secretly following them. In quick order, the mysteries collect: a strange and beautiful young woman emerges at the edge of the family's outpost, a member of the family is murdered, and the stalker's interest in the family is not entirely clear.

There's an additional hanger-on, Obed Batt, M.D., whose character, it must be said, straddles the wrong side of the thin line between humor and silliness, between clever and cliche. Meant as a satirical portrait (think "absent-minded professor"), Batt is a "man of science" who is a bit of a bumbling fool and who, in an ongoing gag, mistakes his own beloved donkey for a wild and hitherto undiscovered beast. He intrudes the novel much like David Gamut, the equally exasperating psalmist in "The Last of the Mohicans."

Underneath the sarcasm and the satire and the silliness is Cooper's entire catalog of romantic idealism--the themes and lessons found in Cooper's other works. Natty is still the pioneering and rugged individualist escaping the encroachments of civilization; many of Natty's soliloquized sermons are conservationist pleas for the wise use of America's natural resources; and the Indians Copper idealized in the Northeast have been transplanted to the West. (The author's knowledge of the Great Plains was based on second-hand accounts and redrawn in the fields of his imagination.)

In spite of its fragile plot, facile characters, and (ultimately) futile homilies, "The Prairie" is rarely boring. But be warned: when the secrets are revealed, nine out of ten readers will react with a hearty "Oh, please!" (The tenth will have given up caring). But Cooper ultimately compensates the patient reader with one of the most poignant denouements in American literature.

This large, very elaborately written book is the first of the Leatherstocking tales Cooper wrote. It is, however, about Natty Bumppo's (aka Deerslayer, Leatherstocking, Hawkeye) final days. In this novel, he's more of a peripheral character, witnessing at least 2 other, very intriguing adventures.

The story is integrated in fantastic descriptions of the prairie; reading it you can almost feel the beauty and power of the unenslaved American wilderness.

The book arrived on time and in excellent condition as advertised. What more could you want?

This is the third in the five-volume series known as The Leatherstocking Tales. Here we catch up with Natty Bumppo (known here simply as 'the trapper') 10 years after the close of The Pioneers, as the end of his life approaches. He's left behind civilization of any kind, and seems to just want to be left alone, to live out his final days in peace and harmony. Not so fast, though, Bumppo! Along comes the family if Ishmael Bush, among whose troubles the trapper quickly gets entangled. From rescuing fair damsels in distress to facing down angry Indians, the ensuing adventure, while hardly seeming to ruffle the feathers of the unflappable Bumppo, is of the most-serious nature, with life and death on the line, and many depending on his skill and cunning.

To me, this book stands out as having some of the best supporting cast of any of the Leatherstocking tales. Paul Hover, Ellen Wade, Captain Middleton, Dr. Battius, Esther, Ishmael, Abiram White, and Hard-Heart are all strong and colorful characters that give this book some much-needed flavor. While they're not overly-developed (to say the least), as Cooper allows the readers' imagination to fill in many gaps about appearance and personalities, by the end of this book you'll really feel like you've got a handle on who these people really are, and what drives each and every one. Even Asinus and Hector come to be much-adored by the end of this book. To me, it is the characters that make this book a success, elevating it above some of Cooper's other work.

Like all of Cooper's novels, this one could have used a bit of aggressive editing, being longer than necessary, and at times downright boring. Of course, this mostly stems from his overly-pedantic writing, where he (as the narrator) and his characters (in their dialogue) talk in some of the most flowery and round-about manners to get across rather simple ideas. Almost as if Cooper was trying to prove something to his European critics, but maybe just a symptom of the Romanticist times. Either way, it makes this book fairly slow going, and will unfortunately discourage many readers. Really, the only one of his books that doesn't have excessively wordy descriptions is The Last of the Mohicans, and there is no surprise why that one has been the most popular.

I enjoyed THE PRAIRIE. Much better than THE PIONEERS, but not as good as THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Recommended for fans of the classics.

James Fennimore Cooper's five books known as "The Leatherstocking Tales" ( the Prairie is the last in the series) are some of the most exciting books I've ever read. I highly recommend