I. For bn.com

The Prairie (The Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading Series)
by James Fenimore Cooper, Steven Frye (Introduction)
    •    Publisher: Barnes & Noble Books
    •    Pub. Date: May 2006
    •    ISBN-13: 9780760779071
    •    Sales Rank: 48,688
    •    433pp

Name of Reviewer: Patrick Killough (actively comparing Cooper and Sir Walter Scott)

Reviewer's Rating of THE PRAIRIE  * * * * *  FIVE STARS

Title of this Review: 500 Miles West of the Mississippi in 1804

THE PRAIRIE begins in 1804, 500 miles west of the Mississippi River and ends there a year later. The land now belongs to the USA, after the purchase of Louisiana.  Rogers and Clark are exploring farther north. 
 
Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo, aka Hawkeye, Deerslayer, Pathfinder and other evolving names, is 87 years old. He no longer thinks of himself as a hunter but as a simple trapper of furs and hides. He runs afoul of a crude family led by Ishmael Bush, all rugged individualists like himelf. They are traveling with an eccentric medical doctor who is also a naturalist exploring new flora and fauna. They have kidnapped, without the doctor's knowledge,  the beautiful daughter of the richest Creole in newly purchased Louisiana. Natty throws in as an ally of various parties:  her army Captain fiance who is on her trail, a wandering bee trailer and a large band of benign Pawnees to see justice done. 

In the process of setting free two women unwillingly with the Bushes, Natty and allies skirmish with thieving Sioux who set the prairie on fire to trap the rescuers and the  two young women, including the refined niece of one of the rascally group. In the end, the paterfamilias of the Bush family squatters does rough frontier justice to all parties, including imposing a brutal death sentence on his wife's brother who had killed their eldest son.   

Read THE PRAIRIE for its description of an American west in which white men were still rare, and for the final months of Natty Bumppo, a haunting figure who catches much of the pioneering American spirit that made America America. The writing is vivid, memorable and the history of the frontier is of seminal importance. -OOO-
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 II. For amazon.com

The Prairie (Paperback)
by James Fenimore Cooper (Author)

Product Details
    •    Paperback: 404 pages
    •    Publisher: IndyPublish.com (January 30, 2006)
    •    Language: English
    •    ISBN-10: 1421984962
    •    ISBN-13: 978-1421984964
    •    Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
    •    Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
    •    Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
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Reviewer's Rating of Cooper's THE PRAIRIE  * * * * *   FIVE STARS

Title of this review:  "Now you shall see fire fight fire!"

Otherwise unrelated lives briefly intersect on vast rolling, nearly empty western plains newly added to America by the Louisiana Purchase. None of the 30 or fewer white people portrayed is this far out west for the reason an average pioneer would be there: a straightforward wish for ownership of new and better inexpensive farming and ranching land.

Cooper's 1827 novel THE PRAIRIE begins in autumn of 1804, 500 miles west of the Mississippi River. The largest  white group in the tale consists more than 20 persons under the leadership of Ishmael Bush, a man in his fifties. In addition to several covered wagons and a few cattle, Ishmael's entourage includes his Amazon wife Esther, several oversized adult sons and a number of minor children. Mrs Bush's brother, Abiram White, the tale's greatest villain and the one who set it in motion, is of the group, as is Doctor Obed Battius, taken along good-naturedly by the Bushes for his medical skills, though he is there primarily as a naturalist collecting new specimens. Ellen Wade is an 18-year old orphaned relative befriended by the "squatters" as the author styles the Bush group. She is sworn to secrecy about the illegal presence among them of 16 year old Inez de Certavallos, kidnapped daughter of the richest creole in Louisiana. Abiram White is an experienced kidnapper who had persuaded a reluctant brother-in-law to seize Inez and eventually extort a ransom for her. The family has long lived on the fringes of frontier society and has no love for the law.

The group soon meets Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo, a lean but fit man closer to 90 than 80, not ever to be parted from his long rifle. Pursuing his kidnapped fiancee Inez is U.S. Captain of artillery Duncan Uncas Middleton. By coincidence Natty Bumppo had served as a scout under his grandfather in the French and Indian War. Also keeping an eye on the Bush party is a hunter of wild honey, the bee trailer Paul Hover, who holds secluded lovers' trysts with Ellen.

The story is about efforts by Captain Middleton, Natty, Paul Hover and Dr Battius to free Inez and Ellen from the Bushes. These efforts are complicated by several run-ins with marauding Sioux Indians on the war path far from home, by friendlier contacts with Pawnees hostile to the Sioux and by rising enmity between Abiram White and the oldest of his Bush nephews, resulting in the death of the latter, proven to be by a rifle ball bearing the mark of Natty Bumppo on it, a mystery never cleared up to my satisfaction.

The Sioux first rob the Bushes of their animals then later form an alliance of convenience against the rescuers of the girls. Natty starts a counter fire and he and he and his new friends survive a prairie fire set against them by the Sioux. Natty proves himself a pioneer American professional, a "danger manager." He kindles a flame with gunpowder from his rifle pan.


Natty and allies are joined by Hard-Heart, famed young war chief of the Pawnees, who survives the fire wrapped in a buffalo hide. Ultimately, the Sioux are routed by Pawnees after Hard-Heart slays in a duel in the middle of a stream Mahtoree, chief of the Sioux. A year later Natty dies full of years in the Pawnee camp, and we see that Hard-Heart has married Mahtoree's wife.

This is a well written yarn. The mystery of how Natty's rifle ball killed the Bush son is intriguing. There are discussions of culture and religion: notably the unsuccessful efforts to convert Captain Middleton to his fiancee's Roman Catholicism. The tale has escapes, chases, romance, jealousy, avarice, murder and rough justice when the murderer is finally uncovered. Nature descriptions abound. The almost featureless, unfriendly prairies are repeatedly compared to the open seas so familiar to mariner James Fenimore Cooper. A rollicking good read. -OOO

Reviewer's suggested tags:  natty bumppo, louisiana purchase, counterfires, sioux, pawnees, james fenimore cooper

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III. For epinions.com

Title of This Review: The American Frontier in 1804
by aohcapablanca, Jan 06 '08

James Fenimore Cooper (1789 - 1851) was a younger contemporary of Sir Walter Scott, who had created the historical novel genre. Following in the master's footsteps, Cooper was called with considerable justice "the American Scott." In one respect, however, Fenimore Cooper advanced beyond Scott. For he made one man the hero of or a central figure in five novels, the so called Leatherstocking Tales.

Libraries abound with articles about the significance of the creation of Cooper's imagination, Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo. At various stages in his very long life Bumppo is styled Deerslayer, Hawkeye, the Pathfinder, la longue carabine and other names. He stands in some almost mystical way for all illiterate but worldly wise and morally upright Americans raised on the fringes of society, never at ease in towns or with women and under pressure to move on when "civilized" people grow too thick on the ground.

THE PRAIRIE is set far west of the Platte River and even farther from the Mississippi. It is the autumn of 1804 and Louisiana Purchase lands are now being moved into by white Americans who are no longer required by Spain to convert to Roman Catholicism.

Natty Bumppo has been living alone by choice out on the prairies for ten years. He is 87 years old, physically fit and alert but his eyes are dimming and he is no longer a sure shot hunter, just a trapper of furs. He keeps a wary eye out for Sioux Indians, whom he regards as utterly treacherous. He speaks the languages of many native Americans of the plains, including that of the Pawnees, hereditary enemies of the Sioux. But by and large he minds his own business and the Indians leave him alone.

One day he encounters a westward bound wagon train of more than twenty persons, mainly adult and minor children of its slow-minded leader Ishmael Bush. There is a mysterious cargo in one of the covered wagons. Only slowly do we learn that it is Inez, a kidnapped young woman, being held for eventual ransom. Her fiance, a U.S. army captain, is now close behind on her trail. Also interested in the party is a collector of wild honey, who has a romantic eye for Ellen, a young niece of combative Mrs Bush.

Sioux drive off the Bush pack animals and capture Natty, the captain, the bee trailer and a medical doctor/naturalist who tags along with the Bushes. Adventures multiply and include escapes, torture, a duel between Indian chiefs, a prairie fire which Natty, fighting fire with fire, overcomes, stampeding buffalo, jealousy, murder and more. Over and over Natty and the freed girls are close to escaping either the Bushes or the Sioux. Once the very heavens seem to conspire against them: the first snowfall of the season betrays to the pursuing Indians their otherwise invisible path through the tall grass .

James Fenimore Cooper was a sailor before he was a novelist and he wrote lovingly and convincingly of similarities between the rolling prairies and the featureless open sea. Like Columbus, Cooper was also a student of the winds:


THE PRAIRIE is the ancient hero's last hurrah, far from the east coast of his birth and the forests and Moravian missionaries of his boyhood. He talks too much, reminisces when he should be alert for Sioux, laughs silently to himself, but is content. For he had lived according to his lights as a second Adam in an Eden ruined by sins other than his own. -OOO-

Pros:
The last hurrah of Cooper's most unforgettable character. White and Indian cultures contend for supremacy.

Cons:
There is more conversation and description of nature than action. Dialog is sometimes stilted.

The Bottom Line:

Understanding Natty Bumppo: Pathfinder, Deerslayer, marginalized illiterate living on the margins of Indian and European culture, goes a long way towards understanding the history of the ever rolling American frontier.

Overall Product Rating:
   * * * * * Excellent

Recommended:
Yes

01/06/2008
Revisited 04/05/2008

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