The Last of the Mohicans: Part of the DNA of American Fiction

While reading my copy of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans I found between the pages a bank deposit slip of mine from 1986. So I know I must have read this copy before — the binding shows some wear — or at least reached about the midpoint and left a book marker there. But my memory of the contents is limited. The truth is, I read it through the lens of the 1992 film, curious to observe the deviations, of which there are many. In fact the Daniel Day-Lewis vehicle is pretty much all deviation, although a damn fine flick.

Despite the fact that the events printed in 374 pages of paperback could have been condensed to about a third that amount, I thought the story held up well. In fact, I think the story held up so well that it continued to influence American fiction at least through the mid-20th Century. Samuel Clemens may have derided Fenimore Cooper, but there’s no denying he read him.

The Last of the Mohicans is the second (chronologically) of the Leather Stocking Tales, though the third published. On my shelf (still, I believe, unread after decades of gathering dust) is The Pathfinder, the fifth published, but the third chronologically. I am listening to The Deerslayer, the first chronologically, though the fifth (and last) in publication order. The Leather Stocking Tales recount the life and exploits of Nathaniel (Natty) Bumppo, aka The Deerslayer, Hawkeye, La Longue Carabine, etc. He is a distinctive character, the Ur-American frontiersman.

Hawkeye, and the Leather Stocking Tales continued to influence American writers for hundreds of years. Or that’s how I see it. Natty Bumppo makes an appearance in the vast forest of the Commonwealth of Letters in John Myers Myers’ essential, don’t-miss novel Silverlock . I can’t help but see the fingerprints of Fenimore Cooper in Robert E. Howard’s Beyond the Black River. Replace Natty Bumppo with Conan, the Huron’s with the Picts, the English fort with the Aquilonian. No, there is no strict one for one analogue in any of the elements, but the works do resonate harmoniously with each other. The literary heredity seems clear to me. Louis L’Amour, in his Sackett novels, references Fenimore Cooper’s work, having one of the Sacketts (William Tell Sackett, if my memory serves) comment positively on one of the novels. (I can’t help but wonder how much of L’Amour’s depiction of Indians derived in some form or another from Cooper’s descriptions of the methods, mores, and habits of the Northeastern tribes. And I also wonder about Cooper’s accuracy from a historical and anthropological view. But I’m straying from my thesis.)

Look, I won’t lie to you. The dense descriptiveness, the prolix redundancy, the soliloquies, and all the other baggage of early nineteenth century literature did slightly hinder my enjoyment of what is, at its heart, a taut, tragic adventure tale. But that heart remains. I’m at the midpoint of The Deerslayer. If I can judge the rest of the series from this perspective, I’d hazard that they are all variations on the same story. So I rather doubt I’ll read all five novels. But I don’t regret having spent time with Mr. Cooper. And I’d wager that a second hand, third hand, or at even further remove, I’ve spent much more time with him. As you probably have as well.

Before you jump right into the Leather Stocking Tales, why not give something of mine a try? The Semi-Autos and Sorcery series is a book shy of Cooper’s pentalogy, but don’t let that stop you.