What can I say that Mark Twain didn't? http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/hns..."Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in "Deerslayer," and in the restricted place of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record."And"I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that "Deerslayer" is not a work of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me that "Deerslayer" is just simply a literary delirium tremens."Twain's essay is so good that its almost worth reading the Deerslayer just to get all the jokes. The Deerslayer was the last of Cooper's Leatherstocking tales, but the first chronologically. It's an origin tale, just like that last X-Men movie. We get to see Deerslayer/Pathfinder/Hawkeye on his first warpath. We see his first kill. (He literally talks the man to death), how he comes across his famous rifle Killdear (He loots it from a dead man), and his first refusal of a woman's declaration of undying love. And just like in The Pathfinder, we get another shooting contest, and a whole bunch of really dumb, evil indians. (More Twain: "The difference between a Cooper Indian and the Indian that stands in front of the cigar-shop is not spacious.") The story goes nowhere--people get caught by Indians, people escape from Indians, then get caught again, then fight. (There are a couple of good fight scenes. When one main character is scalped alive, it's actually pretty exciting and surprising.)There's chunky dialog like this: "You are Hetty Hutter... Hurry Harry has told me of you, and I know you must be the child?""Yes, I'm Hetty Hutter...I'm Hetty; Judith Hutter's sister; and Thomas Hutter;s youngest daughter."(And people don't "say" things, they more often than not "ejaculate.")And this character, Hetty Hutter, is "feeble-minded." Cooper also describes her as "simple," "foolish," owning an "unsophistacted mind," or with a "mental darkness which, in a measure, obscured her intellect." Every moment this poor thing is on the page, Cooper reminds us how dumb she is. Cooper as a writer is not nearly as bad as Twain says, but in at least this particular case, trotting out his best-selling Natty Bumpo character for a fourth sequel (the second after Bumpo's death in "The Prairie") he's at his most long-winded and least-focused. The Deerslayer is the 19th century literary equivalent of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, or Police Academy 3: Back in Training.
I never read Cooper growing up so wasn't sure what to expect in reading this novel. What I discovered was a multi-layered text that did the following:Introduced Deerslayer, or Hawkeye as he is subsequently known (Hawkeye Pierce in MASH gets his nickname from him!). We see the maturing of this young woodsman who has lived among the Delaware Indians and is a sure shot with the rifle. At the beginning of the novel, he has only killed animals for food. Much of his development comes following a deadly encounter with an Iroquois where he takes a life in self defense, and contributes to the spiral of hostility between the whites and Iroquois.It is a novel exploring various conceptions of the humanity and spiritual status of native Americans, including their own self-conceptions as portrayed by Cooper.It is a religious tale, exploring various Christian notions of native American spirituality and chiefly of the piety of Hetty, the mentally impaired daughter of Thomas Hutter, the white trapper living in an island fortress on Lake Glimmerglass.Running through all this is an adventure novel as Deerslayer and his Delaware friend Serpent seek to rescue Serpent's betrothed from the Iroquois. They are joined by Hurry Harry who is enamored of Hutter's other daughter (an affection not returned and later given to only one other). The plot moves through a series of encounters, captures, releases or escapes to the climatic confrontation of white and Indian and its aftermath. In all, a long but good read!
What do You think about The Deerslayer (2004)?
I'd give 2.5 stars if I could. The entire story takes place around a lake. The fact the author could squeeze so many twists in one tiny setting was impressive, but all the characters were exaggerated stereotypes, and that annoyed me. The hero was a perfectly moral person. His retinue included the grumpy old man, the chauvinistic and close-minded jock, the jealous beauty queen, and a "weak-minded" girl. Man, I was going to drop the book if I heard about how the "weak-minded" girl was simple/dim/dumb one more freaking time.Anyway, the book was average. The adventure was timeless. The attitudes and character descriptions were not.
—Nathaniel
After reading "The Last of the Mohicans," it was good to go back and pick up this chronologically-first novel in the Leatherstocking Tales. It follows the adventures of Hawkeye (called Deerslayer at this point) and Chingachgook on their first warpath, as they seek to win back Chingachgook's betrothed from the Hurons who kidnapped her and to protect a white trapper and his two daughters.It takes about a quarter of the book for the plot to really pick up, but one comes to expect that with Cooper. Although "The Deerslayer" didn't tear my heart out the way "The Last of the Mohicans" did, it was still a splendid read and left me a little teary at the end - Cooper certainly knew how to tie his stories together, and then to tie those stories up.
—Abigail Hartman
Mark Twain: "Cooper’s art has some defects. In one place in ‘Deerslayer,’ and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record."I'll refer you to Mark Twain's essay "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses":Now I feel sure, deep down in my heart, that Cooper wrote about the poorest English that exists in our language, and that the English of "Deerslayer" is the very worst that even Cooper ever wrote.I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that "Deerslayer" is not a work of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me that "Deerslayer" is just simply a literary delirium tremens.A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are -- oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language.Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.i think that's a bit harsh. but this book was pretty bad.
—dead letter office
