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A review by romankurys
The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper
4.0
What am interesting read was The Spy! Since I read classics in the order in which they were published, I didn't expect what I got after "Precaution".
A pretty good tale of personal struggles during the time of America becoming independent from Britain. While I originally rated the book as a solid 3, I ended up with a 4 star rating simply because I have learned more about US history from reading this, then I have from going to school.
Admittedly, I never liked history as a subject, so partially it is my fault, but I simply enjoyed learning history more through a tale rather then a compilation of dates and events I would have to study and remember.
It did take a bit of getting used to the general language in which the book is written, but the same could be said about any classic, so you just expect to have a dictionary link handy already before starting this as well as expecting sentence structure and grammar to be very different as well. So something to expect before hand. This will not be a very fast paced read, even will feel at times like not even really fully English.
Now, the rest of it was very enjoyable, Fenimore Cooper did a good job with characters and pace of the tale, and as always it was just enjoyable to see the "old school" customs and the subject of one's honor described first hand.
Given that I work in NYC and commute from home by train, it made this tale a bit more special since the areas he's describing and where the action occurs I pretty much pass through every day, so I found myself pulling out Google Maps while on the train and looking for specific place he's describing as the train moved through the general area. That was actually pretty awesome!
Also, I definitely thought Harvey Birch was a real person and scoured the Internet looking for some more info on him to find that I wasn't the only one fooled, or maybe not fooled. We'll never know I suppose.
A sign of a good book is me getting attached to characters, and feeling a bit sad as the pages ran out, but such is life. Well done, Fenimore Cooper, well done!
Roman
A pretty good tale of personal struggles during the time of America becoming independent from Britain. While I originally rated the book as a solid 3, I ended up with a 4 star rating simply because I have learned more about US history from reading this, then I have from going to school.
Admittedly, I never liked history as a subject, so partially it is my fault, but I simply enjoyed learning history more through a tale rather then a compilation of dates and events I would have to study and remember.
It did take a bit of getting used to the general language in which the book is written, but the same could be said about any classic, so you just expect to have a dictionary link handy already before starting this as well as expecting sentence structure and grammar to be very different as well. So something to expect before hand. This will not be a very fast paced read, even will feel at times like not even really fully English.
Now, the rest of it was very enjoyable, Fenimore Cooper did a good job with characters and pace of the tale, and as always it was just enjoyable to see the "old school" customs and the subject of one's honor described first hand.
Given that I work in NYC and commute from home by train, it made this tale a bit more special since the areas he's describing and where the action occurs I pretty much pass through every day, so I found myself pulling out Google Maps while on the train and looking for specific place he's describing as the train moved through the general area. That was actually pretty awesome!
Also, I definitely thought Harvey Birch was a real person and scoured the Internet looking for some more info on him to find that I wasn't the only one fooled, or maybe not fooled. We'll never know I suppose.
A sign of a good book is me getting attached to characters, and feeling a bit sad as the pages ran out, but such is life. Well done, Fenimore Cooper, well done!
Roman