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Miniatures Adventure => Pikes, Muskets and Flouncy Shirts => Topic started by: MatrixGamer on 28 January 2013, 05:07:25 PM
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I just got done reading James Fenimore Cooper's book the other day. I'd never actually read any of his stuff before. I only knew what Mark Twain said when bad mouthing it. Thought it would be a good idea to see what it really said.
Well... Can't say it was the best book I've ever read. Interesting though. All the tropes of Indians and brave frontiers men are there along with a lot of religious weirdness. Neat to see where all these stereotypes come from. Cooper did to the "Western" what Sir Walter Scott did to Highlanders.
It is interesting how the 1992 movie follows the story Cooper wrote - except that they totally change who the hero is and who lives and dies. Cora is the one killed by Magua. Duncan lives and marries Alice. The Scotsman lives and Hawkeye is absolutely not the romantic hero.
The writing is turgid so I can't recommend the read. I see that even more clearly now because I started reading Herman Melville's book "Typee" SOOO much better written. I'd recommend people stay with the movies. They're great!
The last of the Mohicans will return for me though - I'm going to run a story telling game version of it at the Seven Years War Association convention in South Bend IN the first weekend of April. This is a great little con if you've never been.
What do you think about Cooper's books? Have they given you any inspiration?
Chris Engle
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I didn't really enjoy Last of the Mohicans. It was dull and stupid. This is a rare occasion where the film is much better than the book.
I read another one and enjoyed it a little more, can't remember whether it was The Pathfinder or The Deerslayer, though. It had a house on a sort of raft on a lake, if that helps. I was so into the genre at the time that I sort of forced myself to enjoy it, if that makes any sense: doing my best to enjoy the story in my imagination despite the writing, rather than because of it.
On the whole I like Melville much more.
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The film inspired me but the book ..... ugh! Fortunately I saw the film first. :)
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I remember the BBC series shown back in the late 60's/early 70s that was filmed in the lake District. That was my first encounter with last of the Mohicans.
I very much enjoyed the 1992 film, which inspired me to revist the book, which I struggled to read. I have one of the other books;The Deerslayer which belonged to my grandfather, but I have not read it and probably never will.
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Book's shit. BBC series and 90s film are great. I have the BBC series on DVD and it's still good to watch.
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I read Pathfinder when I was 10 years old. Been fascinated by Native Americans ever since... should start at some point painting FIW minis that I have for some nice skirmish setting.
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First I saw the german Version of the Pathfinder-Stories (4 Parts) in the german television. They were first shown in 1969 as a 4-part-series. Then I saw this great movie in 1992 in the cinema - it is a great movie. But on DVD it s not as impresive as in cinema.
Never read the book, I'm not a fan of "ancient" writers. My teachers tortured me with goethe, schiller and the rest of the "great german writers" and drove me into Lovecraft, Poe and Cornwell.
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The 1992 version ranks for me as one of the all time great films, it never fails to inspire me. I agree about the difficulty reading "ancient" authors, though i'd love to read at least a couple of the Leatherstocking tales.
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The problem is not the age of the work. I've read plenty of 19th Century literature and enjoyed it.
The problem is Fenimore Cooper.
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I dont know, Ive tried to read the Unabridged "Count of Monte Cristo", as well as "Don Quixote", and could not get very far into either.
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I think "don quixote" is the failed trial to make a long version of a short story. I tried this book and never reached the middle. And the movies of DQ are also borring. Maybe the problem is, that I'm not spanish.
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... I'm not a fan of "ancient" writers. My teachers tortured me with goethe, schiller and the rest of the "great german writers" and drove me into Lovecraft, Poe and Cornwell.
Fenimore Cooper and Poe were contemporaries, though. So it isn't the 'ancientness' or otherwise that bothers you.
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the book idd is pretty poor. Love the film!
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Fenimore Cooper and Poe were contemporaries, though. So it isn't the 'ancientness' or otherwise that bothers you.
Maybe you are right...
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Being quite an advanced reader, I've had the book since I was quite young in the early 60s. Despite many attempts, I've never got beyomd the first few pages, even as an adult. I much preferred the likes of Treasure Island or King Solomon's Mines, which I also got given at a similar age.
Don Quixote is OK. I managed an abridged form of it back in the 60s and have read it in full since. It's not the period of the writer it's the ability which turns me on or off.
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I've read through the whole series a few times and love 'em. It certainly is a different style and some of the plot points probably stretched the limits of believability even back when they were written, but I still enjoy them. You can't beat the 1992 movie version, though!
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I enjoyed the book when I read it at age 12, having just seen whatever serial they showed on PBS. Weirdly, I tried to read King Solomon's Mines last year and couldn't make it through more than half.
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How strange. I find Rider Haggard a million times more readable than fussy old Fenimore.
Just goes to show that we're all different. :)
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I read H Rider Haggard ("She") earlier last year. It was an okay read - kind of like a travel book for half of it - then silly an unbelievable - but still infinitely better than Cooper. I loved Dumas when I read Count of Monte Cristo as a teenager back in the 70's. I've even read a little Schiller (his history of the 30 years war) which was not bad so it is not all 19th century writers.
I'm going to order my Eastern Indians tonight. I can trot them out for 1811 skirmishes in the future. My family was out here in Indiana then and had a hand in it.
I wish Cooper were more readable. The subject matter is wonderful - it's just the words that suck.
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Count me in...having read the childrens versions a couple of times, I recently decided to try reading the original. It's sitting at 5% in my Kindle...
The movie is quite fantastic (Daniel Day Lewis being one of the finest, true actors today). Great film, mediocre book thus far. I've read plenty of old books, but Cooper is...eh.
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I agree with Plynkes, the book is dull
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Don Quixote is OK. I managed an abridged form of it back in the 60s and have read it in full since. It's not the period of the writer it's the ability which turns me on or off.
I must be strange... I read the complete Don Quixote when I was about 12 or 13 or so and while I haven't had the urge to re-read the thing in full anytime recently (I think I may have read it a second time in my later teens or early 20's? Can't quite recall), I loved it. Don Quixote was a seminal event in my reading.
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I was just talking about Last of the Mohicans with a buddy today.
Both of us agreed it was a fantastic film and that it was really cool that the hero was a Native American.
Is Magua in the book anywhere as interesting as the character in the film?
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I must be odd because all the negativity about FC has intrigued me and I will be on the look out for a copy of LotM from now on, first shopping expedition will be at Vapnartak in York on Sunday.
J.
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I was just talking about Last of the Mohicans with a buddy today.
Both of us agreed it was a fantastic film and that it was really cool that the hero was a Native American.
Is Magua in the book anywhere as interesting as the character in the film?
Magua is very prominent in the book. He's called "le Reynard Subtile" (the subtle fox) and he is EVIL but also just a slimy little shit that you want to die - which he does.
The movie is so much more sympathetic to the Indians - the book sets the stage for all the stereotypes we have about natives - right down to calling Indian a chief. Pretty much a racist skreed.
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Remember, you set yourself up for disappointment when you judge people from the past (Cooper) by today's morals and standards. We are all products of our times.
That said, I did a paper in grad school comparing the movie to the book, with the theme of how we portray our heroes says something about us. Witness Day-Lewis' romantic hero, and compare it to the original Hawkeye. He had about as much use for women as a doily. Today, though, true men must have that softer side that appreciates women...or at least that is what our image of heroes says.
I enjoyed the books, but would not say their writing style is as relevant today. It is sad, in a way, how many works are slowly becoming less accessible to us. If you think about it honestly, is Shakespeare even written in the same language we use today? No. It doesn't mean we shouldn't take the effort to read and appreciate the works of the past.
I can certainly sympathize with folks who had a tough time wading through Cooper's prose. Once you get used to it, though, it isn't so bad. To true fans of the period, I say it is worth giving the whole series another try...
Mike Demana
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Interesting you bring up Shakespeare in comparison to 19th Century works. For my O-Level English (a school exam for 16-year-olds) I had to study Shakespeare and Dickens. While I enjoyed them both, I found Shakespeare a hell of a lot easier to get to grips with than Dickens, despite the fact that he is much further away from us in time.
I liked A Tale of Two Cities a lot, I loved it in fact. But it was much more of a struggle for 16-year-old me to read and understand than, say Romeo and Juliet or Richard II.
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Cooper was writing in the style of his time. I don't hold that against him. They delighted in talking around things. They required you to think to figure out what they were saying. Dickens is the master of this. What was the government office? The Office of Circumlocution? That says it all.
Shakespeare was comparatively more direct.
Movies and TV make us value much more direct story telling. When a show switches camera angles every second or two how can you not get use to REALLY fast transitions?
This is a fun thread. I really appreciate the intellectual caliber.