The Pioneers (Leatherstocking Tale)

The cover illustration would be from “Deerslayer” and has nothing to do with this story other than both events occured on the same lake many years apart. It is a great story but not an action book like the others in the Leatherstocking series. It is more a commentary on civilization encroaching upon what was once wild and free and destroying it by wiping everything out. You see that in the mass shooting of pigeons (which would be the now extinct Passenger Pigeon) and massive amount of fish hauled that went to waste. Nattp Bumpos character is the voice of reason and conservation vs unrestricted encroaching civilization. Take it for what it is and it is a great read. Chronologically it is number 4 in the Leatherstocking Tales.

My main purpose in posting this review is to warn readers that the drawbacks of scanning literature into digital form are all too evident in this edition of The Pioneers. Cooper writes a good deal of the characters in their own dialect which evidently was beyond the ability of the scanning program to decipher (and obviously no one proofread). After reading several chapters on the Kindle I got the book out of the library and discovered it was much easier to follow without the scanning mistakes. A couple of examples: the Frenchman Mr. Le Quoi says, "Je vous remercie, Monsieur" which the digital version prints incomprehensibly as "Jevausraner cie, monsieur". It's not just the French that gets mangled. The axeman, Kirby, says the "sugar was likely to be scurce this season" a dialect version of "sugar will be scarce" which the digital version prints as "sugar was likely to be source this season" which again is incomprehensible. There are many such examples which makes reading the digital version beyond challenging. I don't know if there are other digital versions which are carefully compared to the original and corrected when they go astray but this is certainly not a readable version.

I believe this was written first in the series but is fourth in the series. Kind of a court drama mixed with the outdoors.

Classical Cooper work, it can't be beat. The state of New York is expanding, and the make up of the classes is expounded on. This is pioneer budding New York with the wilderness slowly turning its great land holdings into a people orientended land. This is the land our forefathers knew.The story isn't just about land, its about the people that inhabit it. Our hero is a Long Rifle. A man that was part of the landscape long before people were settling it. The times are changing and he has taken a young man under his wing, one with his own abilities. They both hold a secret known only to themselves.The cast of characters besides our two hero's, include the Squire, the Dr., the Squires black male servent, and of course a young woman, and many others. From the gracious living of the upper class, to the world of our heros, which is the forest, you won't want to put this book down. The events and lives of people in that century, cutting into what had been wilderness is covered, as only Cooper can.

The historical information abt the initial settlement of the country by Europeans after the French explorers, Lafayette who discovers Lake Huron and Marquette who discovers the Mississippi.

Moves kind of slow in the beginning but picks up as it goes on. You can definitely tell when it was written.

I like this book for the issues and tensions it underscores, but I would say that it's a rather heavy read since it is a "descriptive" tale. It takes a while to reap the rewards of reading this book.

called a classic for a reason

This is the fourth in the series of Leatherstocking Tales of Natty Bumpo. Unfortunately, it barely involves the main character. Instead, the novel is concerned with the lives of the people of a small town. Natty lives with his friend Chingachgok in a rundown hut in proximity to the town but still far enough so idle visitors do not encroach on his home. It is really only towards the end of the novel that you start to find out more about him and the kind of character he has. Given that Cooper first wrote this novel followed later on by the others it is strange since the other novels concentrate strongly on Natty and his character.It is readable but only as a part of the whole series, as a stand alone novel it drags a bit.

アメリカ文学の古典としてのちの作品に多大な影響を与えた作品、Leatherstocking Talesの第１作であり、アメリカ文学におけるromanceとmythを確立したと言われている。文明と未開の対立を通して、人間のあるべき純粋な姿と精神の高潔さを描き、開拓時代のアメリカの姿が美しい自然とともに生き生きと描写されている。現代の英語とは違って古い文体ではあるが、慣れてくると読み通すのにさほど苦労しない。むしろ、１８世紀後半当時の英語がその登場人物とともに眼前によみがえるような気がしてくる。アメリカ文学を学ぶのであれば、必読の作品である。