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THE PIONEERS:
or THE SOURCES OF THE SUSQUEHANNA: A DESCRIPTIVE TALE (1823) by James Fenimore Cooper, Robert E. Spiller (Afterword) Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Pub. Date: March 1964 ISBN-13: 9780451525215 448pp Edition Description: Reissue Reviewed by
Patrick Killough
(1) For Amazon.com Reviewer's Rating of Cooper's THE PIONEERS* * * * * FIVE STARS TITLE OF THIS REVIEW: When preachers enter the wilderness, game grows scarce. It is Christmas eve 1793 in Central New York's pioneer village of Templeton. Although only seven years old, Templeton boasts of 50 structures, two lawyers, a doctor and a sampling of tradesmen and farmers. The town sits at the lower end of Lake Otsego and timber abounds, though the recent settlers cut it down without a thought for fuel and farmland as if it would last forever. Most of the native American Indians have moved west, having sold their land to the King, who then lost it to the successful American rebels. But title to local lands flows from an old Royal grant. And there is a shadow on the claim of the town's richest man, Judge Marmaduke Temple to own the many thousands of acres that he is systematically selling off to immigrants of many ethnic backgrounds. Before the Revolution the Judge had a school friend, son and heir of a well off English military officer, Major Oliver Effingham. This friendship made the Judge's fortune. Came the war, however, and the friends fought for opposite sides. The Judge's side won and the Englishman lost all. The Judge then bought up his onetime friend's lands at auction. Was this greed or deliberate protection of his friend's interests? Read the novel to the end through many mysteries and twists and find out! The Major, who lived in Connecticut, disappeared in the fog of revolutionary war, leaving a son Edward and grandson Edward Oliver. A "mysterious" young stranger arrives on the lake. He calls himself Oliver Edwards and he lives in a cabin with another white man, Natty Bumppo, a man of 67 and an even older native American Christian called variously Chingachgook, Big Serpent and Indian John. On Christmas eve, this trio is out hunting a deer. Judge Temple in a sleigh is driving his teenage daughter home from years of study in New York City. The Judge shoots at a fleeing deer, as do Natty and Oliver. Oliver's shot kills the beast, the judge's misses, hitting Oliver in the shoulder. But when the sleigh's team bolts, Oliver saves the party from danger, including his beautiful daughter Elizabeth. Has this plot beginning caught your attention? Then read on. For some initially unclear reason relating to land title, young Oliver obviously hates the judge who hires him as secretary. Later Natty and Indian John kill a deer out of season. The law puts Natty in the stocks and then in jail. But he escapes with the help of his two friends. And through thick and thin affection grows between Oliver and Elizabeth. The novel raises questions about who owns America: God, the Indians, the Dutch, the English, friends of the Indians like Natty? Civilization arrives in the form of Templeton (today's Coopertown where author James Fenimore grew up). Civilization brings law and order but also personal power, so much that it can be abused. In the end injustice forces Natty to leave and head for the western prairies. He has seen too many changes, too much loss of space to stores and churches. He says to Reverend Mr Grant: "... I see, times be altering in these
mountains from what they was thirty years ago. ... Heigh-ho! I never
know'd preaching come into a settlement but it made game scarce,
and raised the price of gunpowder." (Ch.
XII)
But readers who trust in God are rewarded when at least partial justice is done by story's end to everyone's claims to properties and rights. THE PIONEERS did for tourism to the Finger Lakes of New York what Sir Walter Scott's LADY OF THE LAKE did for the Trossachs of Scotland. Fenimore Cooper's novel is a salute to old multi-national New York just before Puritans wandering in from Massachusetts put their homogenizing stamp on an easier going culture. -OOO- TAGS: natty bumppo, indian john, chingachgook, marmaduke temple, lake otsego Dallas, Texas 01/02/2008 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- (2) For epinions.com Title of this review: An American Adam has his fill of Eden (Jan 03 '08) Pros First and arguably finest of five Leatherstocking Tales. Sir Walter Scott without a glossary! Cons No maps of central New York. Unhurried plot. Milder adventuring than LAST OF THE MOHICANS. The Bottom Line Read THE PIONEERS before its sequels and prequels among Cooper's five Natty Bumppo novels. See an early American frontier taking self-confident shape. Learn how the USA became the USA. Full Review THE PIONEERS is set on the lower end of Lake Otsego and in and around the seven year old (in 1793) fictitious settlement of Templeton (inspired by Cooperstown, founded by James's father William). The novelist grew up and spent half his lifetime in Cooperstown. So he was writing fiction rooted in life. The plot is about the effort by impoverished, young Edward Oliver Effingham to reclaim lands around Lake Otsego that had once belonged by Royal grant to his grandfather, British army Major Oliver Effingham. Initially the young hothead is introduced locally by a pseudonym, Oliver Edwards. A few months earlier he had simply appeared on the scene and moved in with the 67-year old white hunter "Leatherstocking" (Natty Bumppo) and his companion "Indian John" in their small, primitive cabin across the lake from Templeton. Those two had fought under Major Effingham, whom admiring Indians styled "the Fire-Eater." The old, senile Major, thought to have simply disappeared seven or so years ago, had been brought to Lake Otsego and cared for by Natty Bumppo. The current owner, by purchase of confiscated Loyalist lands sold at auction, of the old Effingham tract is widowed Judge Marmaduke Temple. He had been a school chum of the Major's son and they had been business partners, only to choose opposite sides during the revolution. The tale begins on Christmas eve 1793 as the Judge brings his teen-age daughter Elizabeth back from school in New York to live with him and manage his household. THE PIONEERS moves leisurely along until October 1794 to resolve the property issues. The formal justice of the frontier town of Templeton proves more than the Leatherstocking can endure. He is put in the stocks and then in jail when he lays hands on a magistrate trying to enter his home with a warrant to search for a deer slain out of season. And Natty Bumppo, Leatherstocking, introduced in this first of five novels about him, then moves out 500 miles west of the Mississippi where he will die aged 87 in Fenimore Cooper's THE PRAIRIE. I was struck by Cooper's lucid sense of how the future grows from past and present. He also makes me aware of a scene's temperature. Thus the home of Judge Temple is rapidly warmed by a wasteful wood burning fireplace in its great hall to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, although outside it is zero degrees. James F. Cooper is also in synch with today's interest in healthy lifestyles. More than any contemporary writer I know he draws attention to how characters breathe and what this reveals about them. Thus Richard Jones, the judge's cousin, reminds him of the "good death" of his uncle after the Revolutionary War battle of Brandywine. In effect, that soldier "breathed himself into the pain" of his mortal wound, a technique recommended by today's breathing experts for such events as childbirth or a visit to the dentist. "... he died as easy
again as any other man in the regiment, just from knowing how to hold
his breath naturally. Few men know how to breathe naturally." (Ch. V)
Cooper emphasizes that the Glimmerglass area of New York was a multi-national melting pot in 1793. Characters include a German, a Frenchman, an Irish woman, an Indian and others. Not long after, Puritans from Connecticut and Massachusetts would pour in to central New York State and much of the early variety would disappear. Cooper, unlike for example Mark Twain who satirized him savagely, was sympathetic to Indians and their justified resistance to white usurpations. Cooper, through his character Natty Bumppo and others, also lamented the mindless stripping of the forests and minerals of New York by white pioneers. The author makes it clear why illiterate but Christian men like Leatherstocking prefer to worship God in virgin woods, lakes and prairies rather than in settlement churches. When preachers enter a settlement, Natty says, game grows scarce and the price of gunpowder rises. (Ch. XII) The novel has its mysteries, elements of a detective story, young love, westward expansion of the frontier and a cast of men and women each with an individual slant on the meaning of the giant world-historical forces rolling over them. There is also competitive shooting, male bonding, danger from wild cats and a realistic forest fire. There is much to relish in THE PIONEERS. Natty Bumppo, one scholar says, is a pioneer American "professional" -- a professional, that is, of danger and how to manage it. THE PIONEERS is arguably the first "Natty" novel what a reader new to Cooper should tackle. It is clearly written, presents a short but adequate historical backdrop and shows a Leatherstocking far less wordy and tedious than in THE DEERSLAYER and THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. By way of background and disclaimer: I am beginning a year or so of immersion in James Fenimore Cooper, "the American Sir Walter Scott" after nearly two years with the latter. James Cooper (1789 - 1851) was 18 years Scott's junior. They met one another in Europe and Cooper continued and developed the historical novel genre created by Sir Walter. THE PIONEERS (1823) is Cooper's third novel. Readers who have first read and enjoyed Scott will feel at home in the eleven Finger Lakes nestled among the region of the novel's subtitle, "THE SOURCES OF THE SUSQUEHANNA." It abounds in the same love of nature as Sir Walter's long poem, "The Lady of the Lake." -OOO- -OOO- Recommended: Yes =-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= (3) For barnesandnoble.com Here is how your review will look Reviewer: Patrick Killough (patrick@thekilloughs.com), a beginning student of Cooper, January 3, 2008 Reviewer's rating of THE PIONEERS: * * * * * FIVE STARS Title of this review: American rugged individualism makes its case. If you haven't already opened a book by James Fenimore Cooper (1789 - 1851), is his third novel THE PIONEERS (1823) a good place to begin? I think it is. This leisurely yarn is about a very precise frontier area of New York State from December 1793 to October 1794. The dominant whites who people the region of the eleven Finger Lakes are thinking of themselves as Americans, or at least North Americans, and no longer as transplanted Europeans. The 50 buildings of the 7-year old village of Templeton self-consciously and with total consciousness of righteousness transplant features of British life hundreds of years old: reformed Christianity, lawyers, a court, a rich landed squire, a preacher, a shopkeeper, a woodcutter, an estate manager and on and on. When such towns are created, they strike a blow at the libertarian, almost anarchic natural philosophy of 67 year old, six foot tall Nathaniel 'Natty' Bumppo, a backwoodsman hanging on as long as he can stand encroaching 'civilization' of Templeton just across Lake Otsego. The lone remaining representative of the tribal Delawares/Mohicans who had sold this land to the King of England is Indian John aka Chingachgook aka the Big Serpent. It is no surprise that the whites drive out the Redskins. But why do they so repel a Moravian educated but illiterate white Christian such as Natty Bumppo? Civilized daughters cause many an independent hunter and trapper ultimately to settle down in towns. Why and how does Natty, the Leatherstocking, resist their charm? Other tales are told of Templeton and its wealthy landowner/developer Judge Marmaduke Temple. He was raised Quaker and seems an honest, loyal man. But did he acquire his vast holdings only by cheating his school chum and monetary backer, the Tory Colonel Edward Effingham, to do so? If so, then he faces the vengeance of the Colonel's recently appeared son -- veiled by the pseudonym Oliver Edwards. This angry young Achilles has moved in with Natty and Indian John, followers of his grandfather, the old Major, in the French and Indian War. Young Edwards/Effingham saves the Judge and his beautiful teenage daughter from a potentially deadly sleighing accident on Christmas eve 1793 and is taken into the Temple household as the Judge's secretary. A series of American eccentrics move in and out of the main plot, most well intentioned, but a couple having more than a little scoundrel about them. All are credible and worth our getting to know. The white settlers of Templeton destroy the abundant Glimmerglass timberlands with barely a thought. The judge renders 'impartial' but stupid justice to the Leatherstocking over a deer taking incident. Judge Temple spares Natty the lash because of his advanced age but humiliates him by time in the stocks and in jail. Natty burns down his decades old cabin rather than let officers of the law enter it against his will. At story's end, the judge has acquired a hotheaded son-in-law. The old injustices of land claims are resolved to everyone's satisfaction. Indian John has died as a pagan, not a Christian, and Natty Bumppo has had it with civilization. He will die in his late 80s fighting Sioux 500 miles west of the Mississippi in the novel THE PRAIRIE. Over and over in the five Leatherstocking tales, Nathaniel Bumppo is presented as a new purely American kind of professional: a danger manager. Whenever perils of the wilderness or Indians threaten his civilized neighbors, Natty's pre-eminence is readily conceded, even by experienced British and American military officers. Read THE PIONEERS and get a sense of the often mysterious cultural and historical currents which have made Americans Americans. -OOO- Also recommended: -- Sir Walter Scott: WAVERLEY, THE LADY OF THE LAKE, THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN. -- Sinclair Lewis: MAIN STREET, THE GOD-SEEKER. -- James Dekker: JAMES FENIMORE COOPER: THE AMERICAN SCOTT. -- http://external.oneonta.edu/cooper/writings/plots/walker-pioneers.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Revisited 02/25/2008 Black Mountain NC http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/cooper_pioneers.html |