I read it for an 11th grade American History class (we had a choice of early 19th century “historical” books to read). It was awful. The reading was a decent percentage of the quarter’s grade but all we had to do to prove we read the book was to answer a ten question quiz and get at least six right. I got only six right…which only caused the hatred to burn hotter. I still bristle at the memory. Hate to think what I’d think about it if I had flunked the quiz. About four years later, the Daniel Day-Lewis movie came out and I did somehow enjoy that.
However, later in the year I picked a real pearl off the late 19th century book list…Frank Norris’ The Octopus.
Frankly, the best part of Cooper was my high-school classmate’s parody of it (whose well-received in-class performance spurred the even better Billy Budd: the Musical, but I digress). Twain’s piece was the second-best part of Cooper. After that, well, the third-best part of Cooper is that it for all it’s cliches and wooden writing, at least it doesn’t add horribly failed attempts to be clever and relevant, like Dan Brown or Crichton.
Yeah, I’ve mentioned this around here before. I figured I should read it because it’s a classic and the movie’s sort of OK. When I bought it, the cashier at the bookstore told me that it was the worst book she had ever read. I should have listened to her.
Wish I still had it to quote directly, but the copy I used to own contained an apology stating that, though it was complete and unabridged, the spelling and construction had been updated for “modern” ears. By the look of it, that updating took it to about 1826, the year of its original publication, but as if it were written by someone fully literate, just not very good.
I don’t think Twain was making a joke about Cooper–on a couple of other occasions he wrote or spoke derisively of Cooper’s writing–but some of his work was definitely an intented parody of the sort of aimless, sprawling, stream-of-consciousness plotting that was common among earlier American writers. In particular Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which is often compared to and/or accused of being a broad recasting of Homer’s Odyssey, really bears more resemblence to the meandering tales of Cooper and his contemporaries, and Twain notes in the introductory notes that “Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.” (Nonetheless, there is in fact motive, moral, and plot, albeit buried beneath the meandering, seemingly simplistic narrative.)
In general, Twain typically aped and parodied previous writers in style, mannerism, and/or subject, including but not limited too Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, François Rabelais, Miguel de Cervantes, Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, and Jonathon Swift (and of course subsequently served as an inspiration to generations of novelests who succeeded him). He did so in a surprisingly sophisticated manner, given the seeming simplicity of his grammer and narrative structure; in fact, he made very sophisticated use of local vernacular and tradition to develop complex social satire and criticism, particularly in is later writings.
Regarding Cooper, yes, his prose is clunky, overwrought, implicitly bigoted, and often obtuse, and the plot merely a closeline on which to hang largely disjoint episodes with no real overall structure. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to levy this as a criticism, as this in no way distinguishes his writing from that of his contemporaries; one could make largely the same complaint of El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, although Cervantes is, IMHO, a much better writer and an intentional satirist. His prose was written in the style in which the reader of the day was accustomed to, and can’t be judged by modern standards any more than you would compare, say, C. S. Forester or Rudyard Kipling to Joseph Heller or David Foster Wallace, or even more traditional prosists like John le Carré.
Cooper is at his best when he is describing nature, and is a fair hand with action; his characterization, however, is lacking, and his research and verisimilitude of native culture is laughable. His worst literary since in my opinion is the continual reuse of the same plot gimmick or device (Twain’s criticism of the cracking twig always being where the plot demands) which tends to make the story repetitive. He’s certainly not the only writer–even of celebrated writers–to engage in this nasty habit; see J.R.R. Tolkien or Neal Stephenson (the latter of whom at least seems to have a self-deprecating sense of this) for examples thereof.
I read it (and the other novels in The Leatherstocking Tales) albeit in german. I liked them. (I was about 10 at the time)
But then I liked Karl May’s books too…(german writer, 19th century, never had traveled abroad, yet wrote extensively about his adventures in foreign countries) So what do I know?
As a child I read Karl May’s novels and enjoyed them. I read Last of the Mohicans also but didn’t like it as much as Karl May. But now this thread makes me want to take a second look at it to see if it’s really all that bad. At Barnes and Noble they have these small hardbacks that were on sale for $3.99 last time I was there (the series is called something like Barnes and Nobel small classics), and Last of the Mohicans was one of the choices.
Not the book. The movie was all “tension”, sneaking around while worried about every sound or shadow, or actually in a chase or fighting. Those are the parts I fast forward over on DVD’s.
We read Ishi, last of his Tribe in middle school, I think. It didn’t inspire me to continue reading stories about ultimate Native Americans as perceived by white folks.
I did read it in high school, and I suspect that book is one of the reasons so many people drop out. Cooper was of the class of writer who took great pride in density. The fact that there was, underneath all that rubbish, a fairly good story was incidental.
For those who have read and disliked Cooper’s prose, let me ask: have you read other early 19th century American works by authors like Irving, Hawthorne, and Emerson, and do you find it similar or dissimilar?
I’m wondering if there might be a general dislike for the prevailing prose style of the era, which is wordy, among other things.