Man, I TRIED it…but I couldn’t stay with it-just terrible reading. They say this novel was a sensation when it hit Europe (about 1840 or so?). Does it get better?
Me and **Mark Twain ** say This Novel Sucks.
If you want some tricky mid-19th century American literature that delivers, try Melville’s The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade.
For the Straight Dope, read Twains Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses. And at the time, Cooper was considered one of America’s greatest writers.
From the link:
What the hell? I either really have to read this tale or avoid it…
I liked Last of the Mohicans. <shrug> I mean, it isn’t the same as reading something from the last twenty years, but then, neither is reading anything by Dickens.
I’ve read it, years ago. I recall liking the Daniel Day Lewis movie more. Much more.
I’ve read it, and I enjoyed it. Though it does take a while to get up to speed, what with Cooper’s habit of not telling you a character’s name until five chapters after he’s introduced.
And I still maintain that Twain’s essay on Cooper’s literary offenses was a joke, since most of the things he complains about are equally true, or more so, of his own writing. Which doesn’t make Twain’s writing bad, either.
I’ve read it twice, and I liked it. I also read the Deerslayer. I also liked Silas Marner and the Scarlet Letter, but wasn’t much impressed by the Great Gatsby. It takes all kinds.
I had a religious experience and became a born-again Christian for two years to mentally escape the fact that we were reading “Deerslayer” in English class. True story.
I read it after receiving it as a gift in junior high. I assume I made it thru, as I do remember liking it. My older sister went nuts for the whole series a few years later, when she was in late high school/college.
I read the Deerslayer in 7th grade. I couldn’t tell you much more than that. I never saw Last of the Mohicans movie, but it’s one of the traditional family stories that my mom, dad and aunt all went to see it, sat through the whole thing, then turned to each other en masse and said, “that was crap, wasn’t it?”
-Lil
I slogged through it and “The Waterwitch”. Both were dreadful and boring.
I would not choose to read another book by him.
Jim
I’m not even sure what that means, but I swear that is the best one sentence book review in the history of literature.
While I’m tempted to ask for the longer version, there’s simply no way it could touch the perfection you’ve got already, so it’s probably best to let that stand.
This is what one editor had to say about cooper when a judge allowed parts of his books to be read to the jury during a lawsuit in 1841:
Many moons ago. I don’t remember much, if anything, about it.
Well, I did have a religious experience that led to a brief bout of Christianity.
The exact moment was in fact in Mr. Goodman’s English class, where the giant green book with the tiny text held a treasure trove of horrors. What was on my mind was my now ex-summer-girlfriend. I just remember feeling great despair and pessimism, and then suddenly felt a sense of great clarity, which occupied me for some time afterward.
Of course this was October, and thoughts of my ex had not really troubled me that much in the intervening time. So I think what was really going on was that my mind was willing to do something, ANYTHING, to get away from “The Deerslayer”, the worst piece of shit I have ever forced myself to scrape my eyeballs across.
Anything I’ve read by Dickens was much more readable than Last of the Mohicans. I made my way through it but was unimpressed.
I read Deerslayer and Last of the Mohicans. I’d bought the whole series, but didn’t really feel like going any further with it, so I bookcrossed the rest. I didn’t hate the books, they were a little tough, I felt like continuing the story was going to be worse than letting it end with LotM.
Deerslayer was fucking awful. It just was.
It was a while ago, but I remember liking the Last of the Mohicans. I didn’t like it enough to re-read it though. I’m a reader, don’t get access to that many English language books, so I tend to re-read a lot of books.
I read The Deerslayer, but as I was sitting down to read LotM, someone snapped a twig, and I ran away.
The Deerslayer didn’t make my day, but I didn’t think it was terrible. As a mindless adventure story, I can see how it would have been the “Star Wars” of its day.
What I really can’t stand from that period is anything by Hawthorne.