James  Fenimore  Cooper

THE CRATER,
OR,
VULCAN'S PEAK.
A TALE OF THE PACIFIC

1847
 
 BiblioBazaar. 2006. 436 pages. Paperback.
Electronic reprint of an 1881 New York Edition.

ISBN-10: 1426447558

Reviewed by Patrick Killough

-- (1) As a straight-forward shipwreck survival novel a la ROBINSON CRUSOE or THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON, it is very slow.

-- (2) As an adventure yarn full of sea chases, pirates, evil natives, it lacks the detail and energy of other Cooper sea adventure tales.

-- (3) As Plato-Lite telling how a ideal community is built up step by step and then destroyed by the growing hubris of its inhabitants, it is no REPUBLIC and its islands are no Atlantis.

-- (4) As commentary on the political decline of the USA in the 1840s: rule by gossip-ocracy of the press, tricks such as party caucuses by which minorities make themselves majorities on paper, and more, THE CRATER is perhaps at its most convincing. But these contemporary political points are largely pulled together only toward the end of a curiously long "shaggy dog" story, or perhaps even a cosmic joke of sorts, a bit of a precursor of G. K. Chesterton's 1904 THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL.

-- (5) Cooper gives much right-on attention to religion, both organized/formal and personal/heartfelt in THE CRATER. The very young (in 1796) hero Mark Woolston (pronounced Wooster, as Cooper insists) becomes increasingly religious early as the number of his seafaring companions shrinks. He finds God everywhere and is not slow to fall to his knees to say so.

Later, as "Governor" of his island colony, Woolston sanctions only one minister of the Gospel, an Episcopalian like himself. The Quakers, Presbyterians and others subordinate to Woolston grumble about vestments, incense, prayers read from texts, etc. but they passively accept the arrangement.

Later yet, when several more uninvited ministers appear among them, along with a lawyer and a printer, the colony's doom begins to appear inevitable. This dimension of religious variety as it weakens a  nation politically might have been predicted by such early modern European rulers as the Tudor monarchs: Henry VIII, Mary and Elizabeth.

"Men is men, sir, and you can get no more out on 'em than is in 'em" (Ch. 4).

"... Mark was unanimously chosen governor for life, the law being the rule of right, with such special enactments as might , from time to time, issue from a council of three, who were also elected for life. ... Human society has little difficulty in establishing itself on just principles, when the wants are few and interests simple" (Ch. 15)

-- the teenage romance of Mark and Bridget and their marrying in harbor aboard the Rancocus without parental knowledge;

-- seamanship of a high order and in great detail;

-- minutiae of surviving on a barren rock, and Mark's not always successful efforts to stay in good health;

-- Mark's growing closer and closer to God within the framework of his inherited Protestant Episcopalianism.

Thus far the basic story line.

-- introduce Americans of the temperate zone to the challenges and promises of life in the tropics;

-- imitate Plato in the REPUBLIC and create an ideal little state in his imagination;

-- apply Aristotle's theory of the evolution and decline of ideal governments;

-- draw sententious "morals" from a narrative, after the fashion of Aesop;

-- instruct readers in the elements of seamanship;

-- probe white/non-white intercultural interactions (Pacific islanders);

-- limn ideal Christian marriages and woman's total personal fulfilment in marriage, service to husband and children, and on and on.

* * * * 

Examples:

-- As narrator, Fenimore Cooper, activist  member in New York of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA, grumbles about the Tractarian Movement led in 1840s England by John Henry Newman. Nobody understands those Tractarians, not even the authors themselves! (Ch. 1)

--  Novel's hero, the later "Governor" Mark Woolston, begins as a conventionally devout Episcopalian, thanks to family tradition. But he reacts to his being stranded on an uncharted, recently upheaved (uphove?) set of volcanic islands with increasing personal piety. He prays often, fervently and finds God in creatures all around him, especially the stars. (See in particular Chapter 12.)

--  Mark's older companion is a Quaker and the two men learn to pray together while continuing to prefer their individual sects.

-- Cooper as narrator scatters every 50 pages or so forebodings of doom based on Mark, the Captain of the Rancocus and, later, the colonists possibly not paying enough attention to God's will and prerogatives. Are they, for instance, tempting God's wrath by selling trade trinkets to natives 400 miles south in order to buy sandalwood to sell to Chinese who will make incense to worship forbidden idols? 

-- The will of God is real but subject to interpretation.


-- When one generation disobeys God, succeeding generations, if they themselves adhere to evil, are liable to heavy punishment in this world, not only in the next. (See Chapter 19)

-- Five preachers in the Colony are four too many. For they make colonists fight over things like vestments, memorized prayers, predestination and duties to rulers. Religious quarrels made the colonists "self-righteous."

-- THE CRATER's final two pages (Chapter 30) show Mark and Bridget down through the decades remembering the colony's history and what made it go right and then go wrong:

Pros:  How to build from scratch a new Eden and a model political nation.

Cons:  Long. Slow. Too many topics: adventure, vulcanology, politics, religious sectarianism, romance, whaling, tropics.

The Bottom Line:  Plato, Aristotle, Aesop and Machiavelli meet Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson. A yarn heavy with political and economic theorizing: how to create an ideal government and what destroys it.

characters of the novel:

Robert Betts, Bigelow, Teresa Bigelow, Bright, Mary Bromley, Bill Brown, Charlton, Captain Crutchely, Dickinson, Dido, Dighton, Dunks, Edwards, Harris, Dr. John Heaton, Hillson, Rev. Mr. Hornblower, Johnson, Jones, June, Ooroony, Ooroony [the son], John Pennock, Peters, Petrina, Phoebe, Saunders, Socrates, Thomas, Unus, Waally, Walker, Warner, Warrington, Joan Waters, Martha Waters, James Wattles, Abraham White, Wilmot, Dr. Woolston, Abraham Woolston, Anne Woolston, Charles Woolston, Mark Woolston, Dr. Yardley, Bridget Yardley.