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3.16 AVERAGE
3.16 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Now I understand why Cooper is often called America's first great novelist. This story and (most) of its characters are beautifully crafted. He does not shy away from the depravities of war and of all those involved. While so many other portrayals of Native Americans that I've read place them in that oxymoronic position as the noble savage, Cooper attributes to many of them true dignity. Even the strength his female characters possess is impressive. And of course, you can't beat his use of gothic landscape that is so uniquely American.
Holy shit this was insufferable. Imagine Tolkien's pacing but with ZERO redeeming qualities. Never been so displeased with a required reading.
Wow, I didn't know so many people have such venomous thoughts about this book! Sure, it took a little to get into the meat of the actual story for me, and the writing was rather dense, but I think all the esoteric language (I had to stop repeatedly to look up words) slowed down my otherwise frenetic pace. The story confused me at first with who was who and the numerous nicknames all bear, so that at one point I had to reference an earlier chapter, but by the end, I found the underlying plot and emotion were well-conveyed by the author and I sympathized with the characters (at least, when I could understand them ;) There is a remarkable amount of descriptive language at the cost of much dialogue, but in my humble opinion after reading books with some sub-par dialogue, one can less easily go wrong with adjectives, so probably a safer bet by Mr. Cooper. Also, many of the characters tend towards silence and stealth, so this decision is slightly more understandable. Considering I can't remember the plot very well a few months after having read it, I should likely give the whole book a re-read (as well as the rest of its trilogy). Confusing naming practices notwithstanding, the characters and their personalities have stuck with me, particularly the central group of Hawkeye, Uncas, Heyward, and Cora. Pretty dense classic, though enjoyable (and sad!) by the end. Though I say it about most books, worth a read!
I really struggled with this book, and this is coming from an honors student. I was bored to death with Cooper's lofty descriptions of everything, not to mention I never did find out who the main character was... If the writing had been more to my liking, I might have enjoyed it more. Thank goodness it's over.
It's a really, really hard read, so I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't like to be challenged while reading. Requires a bit too much effort and patience.
You know, it reminded me of those old western adventure comics that I used to pick from the shelves of boy relatives. I quickly changed them to Batman and Superman. Like I did with this one, quickly changed to another book (I'd been reading it for days but I never made it through halfway). It was just too boring for me to handle. A more engaging story and the message would have come across better, too.
This is a classic of the adventure story genre, but it does not come without problems. Personally, I could not get into the story that well because of the style of language used. It was a wee bit boring, to be honest. I did not mind how people, natives, and women were described, after all James Fenimore Cooper has written this book in another era, so this was something I expected. I could enjoy the plot, but the style of writing made this difficult at times. 3 out of 5 stars
First, the part with no spoilers: For anyone used to modern writing, this book is very dull. I listened to it on CD while driving and even that got tiresome. There's no way I could have made it through reading (in fact, I tried once and got to about page 2).
The narrative is extremely episodic (I kept wondering if it had originally been written in installments, like for a newspaper format) with convenient cliffhangers one atop another. The language is like a more repetitive, but equally dense, Shakespeare with less character development. And the author stops every so often to talk about how his story relates to New England landmarks that you'd have to live there to get.
The women in the novel are pure stereotypes of the sexism of their age. One spends half the book fainting and weeping. The other one spends pretty much all the book offering to sacrifice herself. The heros are unfailingly perfect (in the view of what the author deems admirable). They never miss a shot, they always appear in the nick of time, they seemingly need to eat & sleep about 10% as much as everyone else, and they cling tenaciously to ideals of duty and honor that more or less require them to be single-minded killing machines. The "bad guys" are unfailingly greedy, childish, vicious, bloodthirsty, vengeful poor shots who exist simply to be destroyed (with some exception for Magua- see below). A little relief is offered by David Gamut, the hilariously pious and lucky goofball who miraculously stumbles through the novel unhurt.
So, there, I didn't like it. I think if you're a historian of the time period, it has something to offer. It's historically interesting for the moral & political viewpoints of the characters, and the way they interact socially.
Now, on to the *SPOILERS*. While I didn't like the book, I did love the 1992 film, and I spent the whole time listening to the book thinking about how the two differed. For those who might be interested, I share those differences here:
CORA MUNRO in the book is a victim-in-waiting. She flashes her eyes a lot and tosses her head haughtily, but she's practically begging to be sacrificed and get her eternal reward. In the movie, since Hollywood requires heterosexual romance, at least one of the sisters had to end up with a man. It makes sense that they chose Cora and killed off Alice instead. Cora is a much more relatable heroine for our feminist age. They upped her defiance suitably by inventing her talking back to the men around her, and even killing a warrior! That would have never flown in an 1826 novel. Madeleine Stowe's portrayal was ravishing, capturing the sultry nobility of the character from the novel and giving her that extra feminist oomph that's called for in a modern re-invention.
ALICE MUNRO in the book is utter baggage. She actually spends a good portion of the book being carried around because she's so overwrought that she can't even stand. Yet this kind of wilting-flower syndrome is exactly what 1826 audiences liked in their females. She is rewarded with escaping the woods, sobbing her way back to England to marry the rich, doting husband that saved her so many times, and finding the gentle happiness that is intrinsic to her nature. The 20th century likes its women more fiery, so the moviemakers decided to kill off wet-blanket Alice instead of Cora. But even in this, Alice is given more agency than either of the sisters in the book, and Jodhi May's performance in her death scene is one of the most breathtaking jobs of acting I've ever seen.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL MUNRO is pure duty in the book, flawlessly loyal, truthful, and honorable. The voice actor for the CD I listened to decided on an annoyingly heavy Scottich burr, but aside from that the character was a cypher. With one exception: in a bizarrely out-of-place side story, Colonel Munro tells Alice's admiring Major Heyward that she was born on some Caribbean island or something. Maybe it's an allusion to her being half-black? I couldn't quite make it out. I'm sure in 1826 it was some politically-charged admission that gave the character depth. For the movie, they made the bold and unexpected choice to have Munro greusomely murdered by Magua halfway through. I kept waiting for this to happen in the book and was shocked to learn that originally Munro was allowed to travel back to the UK and die of a broken heart. That's a big change, and I can't help but think that fans of the book were upset at such a huge invention for the movie, although it certainly gave Magua added menace from there on out.
MAJOR DUNCAN HEYWARD has a story that is also greatly changed from book to movie. In the novel, he's a typical white-guy hero. Not as silent or flawless a warrior as the natives, but otherwise a lockstep soldier who bows to every convention and tows every line. He is rewarded for this with his dreamed-of wife and inherited riches. In the movie, he gets an even more horrific death than Munro, and I'm really curious as to why. Is he burned to death to expunge the moviemakers' white guilt? Is he an acceptable target in adventure movie tropes because he's not as effectively macho as Hawk-eye? It's clear that he's eliminated to remove one leg of a love triangle (which didn't exist in the book), but there are less horrific ways to do it. The threat of burning to death is brought up in the book, so I can see where the thought arose, but to actually go with it was gutsy. Maybe because the scalping is removed from the movie, this was a way to show the brutality of the frontier without stomach-churning gore?
DAVID GAMUT is so delightfully out of place in the novel that he relieves it of its ponderous pomposity from time to time. Why was he removed from the movie? Maybe they were scared evangelicals would be pissed off about the corniness of his absolute faith. Maybe a movie so focused on heroics and romance had no place for humor. Maybe a movie so focused on everything being beautiful couldn't figure out how to represent a guy that's described over and over again as goofy-looking. Maybe they thought movie audiences couldn't keep all the characters straight and just eliminated the most out-of-place one. Maybe they found it too difficult to incorporate his constant singing without the movie seeming like a musical.
MAGUA in the novel gets a backstory for his treachery, complete with a backful of scars ordered by Munro. He also gets a nickname based on his ability to talk his way into and out of situations. He's considerably more sympathetic. The movie went for full-on "bad guy" with no understanding of what led him there. But Wes Studi's artful portrayal saves the character from where the writers banished him. His acting is so spot-on in portraying the commanding hurt, noble pride, & simmering, skillful threat of the character that his expressions were constantly in my mind as I listened to the book. The movie also eliminted his leering sexual desire for Cora. In the movie he's given Alice as his potential wife instead, and displays no physical interest in her. I thought it was interesting that an 1826 level of titillation was removed for a 1992 Hollywood film. Is sexuality more acceptable, so giving him this lust wouldn't be so scary as it was back then? Or is even scarier, threatening to get a more censorous movie rating if it's portrayed? Are we even less comfortable with inter-ethnic desire than we were back then? Or are we more sensitive to men of color being condemned as monsters for desiring white women?
HAWK-EYE is the worst in the novel. You want to get the entirety of his character without having to read the book? Here you go: "I'm better at fighting than any other white man, but not quite as good as Mohicans. My entire life revolves around my gun and I think any man who lives differently is a fool. I hate the Mingos. I like the Delawares. I believe that white and red men both worship the same obvious God." He says these things over and over and over again. It's soooo boring. Thankfully the movie had him talk a lot less. They also invented some motivation about him advocating for the frontier settlers against the royalist soldiers. A complete invention on the part of the moviemakers, but it gives him some moral development beyond eternal blood feud.
CHINGACHGOOK is pretty much the same between the novel and the movie, only with him murdering unwitting guards & scalping people removed from the movie. 20th-century audiences have a hard time rooting for someone who scalps. Russell Means did a great job portraying the character as written.
UNCAS- Now here's a character whose story arc is so radically changed, and in a way that must have been infuriating to any Native American viewers. In the book he goes through the typical 19th-century-adventure-story reveal where he's discovered to be some sort of secret native royalty. He's more or less worshipped by the Delaware tribe and then personally leads the great, final assault against Magua and his allies. In the movie, he gets no such adulation. He gets to personally chase Magua only because he's after the girl (in the movie Alice rather than Cora), and then he gets killed by Magua in singlehanded combat. That's it. No regal commanding of troops. No sobbing throngs. No magnificent funeral. He's just pushed over a cliff after being chopped up. Makes you wonder if the 19th-century Adirondacks were less racist than 20th-century Hollywood.
MONTCALM has a little more time in the novel than in the movie but is elegantly portrayed in both as a smooth-talking, duplicitous gentleman courtier in the French model. Patrice Chéreau did a great job.
TAMENUND has a large (and somewhat long-winded) role in the last part of the novel. For the movie, this is reduced to a walk-on cameo. Mike Phillips does a magnificent job with it, but really? Really Hollywood? Why not just make this movie only with white actors and mention the natives as off-screen plot points? In the novel, the Delaware people come across as having complex political organization, an understanding of what has befallen them, and (admittedly highly romanticized) deep spirituality. The portrayal in the movie is more like a band of Neolithic foragers with unexplained sadism. I did like that the movie gave the women of the Delaware a little bit of closeness to the great Sachem and a little more spitfire in standing up to Hawk-eye entering their camp.
Finally, let me just say that the idea of Hawk-eye sneaking into the Huron camp in a bear costume, and fooling them all up close and personal, is just so hilariously ridiculous that there is no question as to why that was cut from the movie. Someone may need to do a comedy version of LOTM someday, and that bear costume will be put to good use.
The narrative is extremely episodic (I kept wondering if it had originally been written in installments, like for a newspaper format) with convenient cliffhangers one atop another. The language is like a more repetitive, but equally dense, Shakespeare with less character development. And the author stops every so often to talk about how his story relates to New England landmarks that you'd have to live there to get.
The women in the novel are pure stereotypes of the sexism of their age. One spends half the book fainting and weeping. The other one spends pretty much all the book offering to sacrifice herself. The heros are unfailingly perfect (in the view of what the author deems admirable). They never miss a shot, they always appear in the nick of time, they seemingly need to eat & sleep about 10% as much as everyone else, and they cling tenaciously to ideals of duty and honor that more or less require them to be single-minded killing machines. The "bad guys" are unfailingly greedy, childish, vicious, bloodthirsty, vengeful poor shots who exist simply to be destroyed (with some exception for Magua- see below). A little relief is offered by David Gamut, the hilariously pious and lucky goofball who miraculously stumbles through the novel unhurt.
So, there, I didn't like it. I think if you're a historian of the time period, it has something to offer. It's historically interesting for the moral & political viewpoints of the characters, and the way they interact socially.
Now, on to the *SPOILERS*. While I didn't like the book, I did love the 1992 film, and I spent the whole time listening to the book thinking about how the two differed. For those who might be interested, I share those differences here:
CORA MUNRO in the book is a victim-in-waiting. She flashes her eyes a lot and tosses her head haughtily, but she's practically begging to be sacrificed and get her eternal reward. In the movie, since Hollywood requires heterosexual romance, at least one of the sisters had to end up with a man. It makes sense that they chose Cora and killed off Alice instead. Cora is a much more relatable heroine for our feminist age. They upped her defiance suitably by inventing her talking back to the men around her, and even killing a warrior! That would have never flown in an 1826 novel. Madeleine Stowe's portrayal was ravishing, capturing the sultry nobility of the character from the novel and giving her that extra feminist oomph that's called for in a modern re-invention.
ALICE MUNRO in the book is utter baggage. She actually spends a good portion of the book being carried around because she's so overwrought that she can't even stand. Yet this kind of wilting-flower syndrome is exactly what 1826 audiences liked in their females. She is rewarded with escaping the woods, sobbing her way back to England to marry the rich, doting husband that saved her so many times, and finding the gentle happiness that is intrinsic to her nature. The 20th century likes its women more fiery, so the moviemakers decided to kill off wet-blanket Alice instead of Cora. But even in this, Alice is given more agency than either of the sisters in the book, and Jodhi May's performance in her death scene is one of the most breathtaking jobs of acting I've ever seen.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL MUNRO is pure duty in the book, flawlessly loyal, truthful, and honorable. The voice actor for the CD I listened to decided on an annoyingly heavy Scottich burr, but aside from that the character was a cypher. With one exception: in a bizarrely out-of-place side story, Colonel Munro tells Alice's admiring Major Heyward that she was born on some Caribbean island or something. Maybe it's an allusion to her being half-black? I couldn't quite make it out. I'm sure in 1826 it was some politically-charged admission that gave the character depth. For the movie, they made the bold and unexpected choice to have Munro greusomely murdered by Magua halfway through. I kept waiting for this to happen in the book and was shocked to learn that originally Munro was allowed to travel back to the UK and die of a broken heart. That's a big change, and I can't help but think that fans of the book were upset at such a huge invention for the movie, although it certainly gave Magua added menace from there on out.
MAJOR DUNCAN HEYWARD has a story that is also greatly changed from book to movie. In the novel, he's a typical white-guy hero. Not as silent or flawless a warrior as the natives, but otherwise a lockstep soldier who bows to every convention and tows every line. He is rewarded for this with his dreamed-of wife and inherited riches. In the movie, he gets an even more horrific death than Munro, and I'm really curious as to why. Is he burned to death to expunge the moviemakers' white guilt? Is he an acceptable target in adventure movie tropes because he's not as effectively macho as Hawk-eye? It's clear that he's eliminated to remove one leg of a love triangle (which didn't exist in the book), but there are less horrific ways to do it. The threat of burning to death is brought up in the book, so I can see where the thought arose, but to actually go with it was gutsy. Maybe because the scalping is removed from the movie, this was a way to show the brutality of the frontier without stomach-churning gore?
DAVID GAMUT is so delightfully out of place in the novel that he relieves it of its ponderous pomposity from time to time. Why was he removed from the movie? Maybe they were scared evangelicals would be pissed off about the corniness of his absolute faith. Maybe a movie so focused on heroics and romance had no place for humor. Maybe a movie so focused on everything being beautiful couldn't figure out how to represent a guy that's described over and over again as goofy-looking. Maybe they thought movie audiences couldn't keep all the characters straight and just eliminated the most out-of-place one. Maybe they found it too difficult to incorporate his constant singing without the movie seeming like a musical.
MAGUA in the novel gets a backstory for his treachery, complete with a backful of scars ordered by Munro. He also gets a nickname based on his ability to talk his way into and out of situations. He's considerably more sympathetic. The movie went for full-on "bad guy" with no understanding of what led him there. But Wes Studi's artful portrayal saves the character from where the writers banished him. His acting is so spot-on in portraying the commanding hurt, noble pride, & simmering, skillful threat of the character that his expressions were constantly in my mind as I listened to the book. The movie also eliminted his leering sexual desire for Cora. In the movie he's given Alice as his potential wife instead, and displays no physical interest in her. I thought it was interesting that an 1826 level of titillation was removed for a 1992 Hollywood film. Is sexuality more acceptable, so giving him this lust wouldn't be so scary as it was back then? Or is even scarier, threatening to get a more censorous movie rating if it's portrayed? Are we even less comfortable with inter-ethnic desire than we were back then? Or are we more sensitive to men of color being condemned as monsters for desiring white women?
HAWK-EYE is the worst in the novel. You want to get the entirety of his character without having to read the book? Here you go: "I'm better at fighting than any other white man, but not quite as good as Mohicans. My entire life revolves around my gun and I think any man who lives differently is a fool. I hate the Mingos. I like the Delawares. I believe that white and red men both worship the same obvious God." He says these things over and over and over again. It's soooo boring. Thankfully the movie had him talk a lot less. They also invented some motivation about him advocating for the frontier settlers against the royalist soldiers. A complete invention on the part of the moviemakers, but it gives him some moral development beyond eternal blood feud.
CHINGACHGOOK is pretty much the same between the novel and the movie, only with him murdering unwitting guards & scalping people removed from the movie. 20th-century audiences have a hard time rooting for someone who scalps. Russell Means did a great job portraying the character as written.
UNCAS- Now here's a character whose story arc is so radically changed, and in a way that must have been infuriating to any Native American viewers. In the book he goes through the typical 19th-century-adventure-story reveal where he's discovered to be some sort of secret native royalty. He's more or less worshipped by the Delaware tribe and then personally leads the great, final assault against Magua and his allies. In the movie, he gets no such adulation. He gets to personally chase Magua only because he's after the girl (in the movie Alice rather than Cora), and then he gets killed by Magua in singlehanded combat. That's it. No regal commanding of troops. No sobbing throngs. No magnificent funeral. He's just pushed over a cliff after being chopped up. Makes you wonder if the 19th-century Adirondacks were less racist than 20th-century Hollywood.
MONTCALM has a little more time in the novel than in the movie but is elegantly portrayed in both as a smooth-talking, duplicitous gentleman courtier in the French model. Patrice Chéreau did a great job.
TAMENUND has a large (and somewhat long-winded) role in the last part of the novel. For the movie, this is reduced to a walk-on cameo. Mike Phillips does a magnificent job with it, but really? Really Hollywood? Why not just make this movie only with white actors and mention the natives as off-screen plot points? In the novel, the Delaware people come across as having complex political organization, an understanding of what has befallen them, and (admittedly highly romanticized) deep spirituality. The portrayal in the movie is more like a band of Neolithic foragers with unexplained sadism. I did like that the movie gave the women of the Delaware a little bit of closeness to the great Sachem and a little more spitfire in standing up to Hawk-eye entering their camp.
Finally, let me just say that the idea of Hawk-eye sneaking into the Huron camp in a bear costume, and fooling them all up close and personal, is just so hilariously ridiculous that there is no question as to why that was cut from the movie. Someone may need to do a comedy version of LOTM someday, and that bear costume will be put to good use.