The way I progressed through James Fenimore Cooper's The Pioneers was unique. It took a lot of effort and various strategies for me to get this book finished, but I did finish it. Long ago, I stole the entire Leatherstocking Tales (five paperback copies by varying publishers) from my parents' attic. I originally tried reading The Pioneers about two years ago. After 200 pages, I flat-out gave up. A full year and a half later, I felt bad about quitting it because I wanted to at least get through one-fifth of the series. I ended up finishing it pretty quickly after that.The funny thing about The Pioneers is that the first half is like the literary equivalent of a series of Norman Rockwell illustrations. But not one of those great Norman Rockwell illustrations that makes you want to go back in time and hug your parents when they were five years old: more like one of those hokey, totally phoney ones that makes you despise an entire decade. This book is like a 1790's version of that feeling. There's a chapter covering each of the following, and more: sleigh rides, taverns, church, and turkey shoots. If that turkey shoot chapter doesn’t make you hate American village life in the 1790's, I don't know what could.The backbone of the entire Leatherstocking Tales (so I’ve read) is Natty Bumppo, who appears in The Pioneers as a militantly hermetic grumpy old man. He’s a real character. The more we get to know Natty Bumppo, the more interesting the book becomes. There is virtually no conflict in the first half of this book (which is probably why I put it down), and not a lot of Natty either, but there are little hints as to what sort of conflict is brewing: Bumppo is hosting a mysterious young man in his shack; in the first chapter or so, this mysterious young Romeo is shot accidentally by our hero, the Judge, and despite all of the Judge’s attempts to reconcile, the young man seems to resent him. The real main character in the book is actually the Judge’s daughter, who let’s just say is about the same age as the young stranger.After that shooting, as I’ve said, the book pretty much goes nowhere for the next few hundred pages as the above-mentioned Norman Rockwell illustrations take place. Cooper wanted to write a book that showed what his childhood was like, but he really blew it (no offense). I hate to give up on a book halfway through, but after countless boring chapters about how quaint upstate New York is, with hardly any plot development, I picked up something else.But before this review ends on a tragic note, let me tell you why I feel so lucky that I picked The Pioneers back up and finished it!If I remember right, the first chapter I read on my revival of this book was the one in which a tree almost falls on our heroes during a sleigh ride. It’s by far my favorite chapter of the book, and also by far the stupidest. It provided me with one of my favorite quotes I’ve read all year, spoken very solemnly by the Judge: “The sudden falling of trees ... are the most dangerous accidents in the forest, for they are not to be foreseen, being impelled by no winds, nor any extraneous or visible cause, against which we can guard.”It’s soon after the falling tree chapter that the book actually becomes genuinely interesting instead of just stupidly funny. Basically what happens is that Natty Bumppo takes things over. The fact that Cooper wrote four more books with this character seems to back up my opinion that the first half (in which Bumppo is a secondary character) is crap, and the second half (in which Natty Bumppo suddenly becomes the main character) is awesome.The second half of The Pioneers does tend towards some of the same problems as the first half—silly nostalgic depictions of pioneer life and narrow escapes from danger—but it presents an epic conflict between man and wild. It’s established early in the book that the Judge represents society (both literally and figuratively), while Natty Bumppo is sort of like a representative of the great outdoors. He lives in a shack; he only eats what he catches himself; and he likes to build things. I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll just say that a very thoughtful, well-written clash between these two forces plays out in the latter half of this book. It goes from being as hokey as anything I’ve ever read, to genuinely moving. Except for the quote about falling trees, my favorite passage—a passage which Cooper was clearly conscious of how good it was, as it becomes quite caught up in itself—is when Natty Bumppo tells the young stranger of the most beautiful place he knows of.Bumppo represents freedom, nature, and independence. To the reader, the Judge is a protagonist; but to Bumppo, he is a villain; he represents the lazy interdependence of society, the ignorant customs of townsfolk, and the destruction of nature. The Judge does not evoke these characteristics himself, and in fact he greatly admires Bumppo and everything he stands for. Since the Judge can’t be our antagonist, Cooper thoughtfully invents a couple of lawyers about three-quarters of the way through the book. The Judge’s ignorant brother, Richard, is opposed to Bumppo throughout, but Cooper clearly doesn’t want to go so far as to make him the villain, and gives his personality various niceties.The Judge’s daughter, Elizabeth, is technically the main character of this book; but really, she just serves as a foil to Bumppo’s heroics, and as an open-minded neutral party to the book’s central conflict. Sadly, Elizabeth never has much of an impact on the events of the book; nor on the opinions of her foolhardy elders. She is perhaps more clear-headed than anyone else in the book, but she seems to be meant to represent innocence (i.e., getting into dangerous situations).The Pioneers is VERY far from achieving what I would call “greatness”. However, it’s not nearly as bad as some of the other Goodreads users seem to think. Some of the characters are thin, and much of the book is a lot like those pictures of little kids skating and going to church that they put on jigsaw puzzles. However, I not only enjoyed the second half of this book, but I think it has significant literary and historical importance. It’s among the few American novels to have survived its era; and as boring as parts of it are, and whether you care or not, those parts do serve as a portrait of what living in an American village in the late 18th century was like; and having grown up in that environment, Cooper is obviously a trustworthy source. Furthermore, The Pioneers shows us that some form of environmentalism existed back in the day. Natty Bumppo may kill more animals in a month than most modern hunters could kill in a lifetime, but he wants to protect the environment from wasteful, clumsy townspeople. He wants to do this so there’ll be enough animals for him to kill… But, still, he’s a good guy.I still have four books left to read in the Leatherstocking Tales, but I’m greatly looking forward to the rest, because I already sense that Natty Bumppo is one of the great characters in literature.
I've heard say of a certain book, a great American classic that captures the paradoxes and attitudes of the American frontier, and after explorin' this here text from the east end of the front cover across its wide open plains, mountains, rivers, valleys, woods, wolves, and the seventh circle of hell, to the western boundaries of the back cover's oceanic shores, glimmering with the hope and wonder of completion, I find myself still more partial to the British texts than before embarking on this treacherous 456-page trek, during which I was diverted by all of the extratextual wonders, and enact the unlawful violence of fifty Templetons upon that which Cooper wrought, than ever before.If you can stagger your way through that sentence, then maybe you will enjoy Cooper.Having said that, I will now proceed to summarize the plot. Natty Bumppo, also called about fifty other names, is an iconic frontiersman who kills wildlife sparingly, lives in isolation from Templeton's residents, and, much like the hero of the Grecian/Roman Epic, always appears at the last minute to save the damsel in distress or say something witty. Conversely, the Templetonians, captivated by the wealth of the land, engage in all sorts of wasteful behavior, including the frequently anthologized "pigeon scene." Judge Temple is given the task of maintaining the balance between law and morality, which is continually broadsided by Natty's resistance to the former and the failure of the town's residence to uphold the latter.While it does portray the tension between law and morality well, and while it does capture the attitudes of the day, I found the prose an utterly dull trek. Portrayal after portrayal of nature was given, whereas little attention was given to certain matters between characters; conversations that occurred behind closed doors are left to the imagination of the reader. My theoretical for this is simply that the focus of the novel was not human interaction but the portrayal of frontier life, along with all of its difficulties and dilemmas.Additionally, I find myself frustrated by the text's prejudicial attitudes (likely an unjustifiable point since the modern day idea of freedom is quite anachronistic) and by the sheer coincidence and melodrama. The prose was like walking through a swamp in lead shoes; it was heavy, and often too verbose (for example, it takes 70 pages to get Oliver, who has just been shot by Judge Temple, to a place where the bullet can be removed, and shortly after the doctor shows up and makes the first incision, the bullet simply falls out). Oliver was by far one of my favorite characters... until he revealed his true identity, which eliminated his fascinating ability to tread across the boundary between civilization and a frontiersman's selfhood. Now, I just find myself frustrated with the text's typical happy ending and at a loss to predict how contemporaries of this era received the characters: was Hiram Doolittle despicable to them? What about Natty Bumppo and his hubris?Left without these answers, I give the novel a (generous) two stars and reaffirm my own personal bias towards British literature, which likely provided much of the bias that went into this review. Nevertheless, I enjoy people to read Cooper who are interested in a fictional portrayal of a real place and who are interested in the American frontier.Best of luck on the read. It is a long and slow-paced one.
What do You think about The Pioneers (2000)?
If one can read books promiscuously, as I was reassured in graduate school that one could, I read all five of the books in this series like a complete whore, giving myself entirely over to the story - loved all five. A word of caution, however: They were written in a different order than the chronology of the narrative. Imagine my disappointment at the Deerslayer's death at the end of the third book out of five. The order that the author produced them:The PioneersLast of the MohicansThe PrairieThe PathfinderThe DeerslayerThe order of the narrative (Thanks for the assist with this, Dave):The DeerslayerLast of the MohicansThe PathfinderThe PioneersThe Prairie
—Aaron Cance
I'd give the first 300 pages of this book 2 stars (or maybe even 1.5), but then it was like Cooper suddenly realized he may want to actually sell some copies so he put in a plot line and some action. After that point I would give it 3.5 stars. By the end I really wanted to go on to read the next book just to find out the backstory on the characters.This novel is not for the faint of heart. I can't tell you how many times I almost gave up. The pacing is VERY leisurely, and there are a lot of tangents and long descriptions. If you're looking for an adventure story this is not it, but if you want to develop a vivid picture of characters and scenery, give it a try.
—Colette
My first Cooper, and, as I found out midway through, probably not the best one to start with. It's the first tale featuring Leatherstocking, but he's actually a relatively minor character in the book, which is set in 1793. The opening scenes, in which the Templetons, representing civilization, encounter Leatherstocking and Chingachgook, both in their 70s, are fantastic. Unfortunately, whenever these two characters are absent, the book screeches to a halt. Lots of description and unfunny comic business fills the next 200 pages, but then Cooper brings back Natty and the last of the Mohicans for a rousing and moving finale. It's far from a perfect book, but I am glad I stuck with it, and am looking forward to reading his other, "better" books.
—Mike
