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The Pathfinder (The Leatherstocking Tales, #3)

James Fenimore Cooper,

Thomas Berger (Afterword)

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Apr 26, 2018 Werner rated it really liked it

Published in 1840, this was the second-to-last of the Leatherstocking Tales to be written, though in terms of the series' internal chronology, it's the third. Protagonist Natty Bumpo ("Pathfinder" is another of his many nicknames) here is in his late 30s. The French and Indian War is still raging; Cooper gives the date only as the late 1750s, but it's after the events of The Last of the Mohicans, which is set in 1757, so 1759 would probably be a best guess. Our setting here is on and around Lake Published in 1840, this was the second-to-last of the Leatherstocking Tales to be written, though in terms of the series' internal chronology, it's the third. Protagonist Natty Bumpo ("Pathfinder" is another of his many nicknames) here is in his late 30s. The French and Indian War is still raging; Cooper gives the date only as the late 1750s, but it's after the events of The Last of the Mohicans, which is set in 1757, so 1759 would probably be a best guess. Our setting here is on and around Lake Ontario, the easternmost of the Great Lakes, which then and now formed the northern boundary of the western part of New York. English civilian settlement at this time didn't extend to the lake, but the British army maintained a fort on the southern shore, at the mouth of the Oswego River. When the book opens, we find two men and two women near the lake, headed for this fort; and they soon meet Natty and a couple of other men, sent from the fort to see them safely in. But even if they reach that haven safely, in this wartime wilderness environment, their adventures will be far from over!

Cooper's literary vision, prose style, and the general strengths of his writing here are comparable to what's exhibited in The Deerslayer, the series installment that I just read before this one. My rating for The Pathfinder is a star lower (I'd have given four and a half stars if I could), in order to give the 1841 novel pride of place, and as a reflection of the fact that the moral conflicts here aren't as marked. The vocabulary is also more challenging for an early 21st-century landlubber, since the voyages of the cutter Scud on the lake form a definite link to Cooper's sea stories, and often incomprehensible nautical terminology is very much in evidence in those passages. (Interestingly, as a young man, Cooper went to sea as a common sailor on a merchant ship, and then served as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy, during part of which time he was stationed on Lake Ontario, and became very familiar with the locales described in this novel.) But my enjoyment of the book was certainly comparable! Indeed, the more I've read of Cooper, the more my admiration for his literary artistry has grown.

While Cooper has conventionally been faulted for his characterizations, I would say that those here are drawn with a skill and sharpness certainly equal, if not superior, to those of many contemporary and later novelists. Charles Cap, in fact, is a character almost Dickensian. Mabel Dunham, to be sure, is not an action-heroine type; she's psychologically incapable of violence, a trait that reflects Cooper's idealization (to a point) of traditional conceptions of "femininity." And there are here, in his narration and in speeches of some characters, statements about female character and capacities that caused some eye-rolling on my part; Cooper imbibed some common attitudes of his day. But these aren't intended as put-downs, and his sexism has its limits: Mabel is described as "Spirited, accustomed to self-reliance," and she can say (and demonstrate) that "I am not so feeble and weakminded as you may think." James Russell Lowell to the contrary, she's not "sappy" nor "flat." The most vividly realized character here, of course, is Natty himself; and the more familiar I become with his portrait, as Cooper draws it in the course of the several novels, the more I agree with a Goodreads friend who commented "Natty rocks!"

This novel also has a stronger romantic (in the small-r sense) theme than most of those in the series, and even a kind of romantic triangle, unusual for Cooper. Readers averse to this kind of thing should consider themselves warned. (Of course, this is strictly clean romance, with nothing sexually suggestive about it!) But although I don't usually like a triangular plot element, it wasn't off-putting here; it just made for some psychological and dramatic tension, which is a good thing. Although the mystery genre as such didn't exist in 1840, Cooper makes effective use of a mystery element. (I suspected one aspect of the denouement of this, but nowhere near the whole of it.) The reading level, in terms of style and vocabulary, is definitely adult, or for teens/kids who can read at an adult level; it's not quick and easy-flowing, and if you don't like 19th-century diction elsewhere, you won't like it here. The speech of educated characters can sound stilted to our ears; but it's actually realistic for the way people of their class spoke in the 18th century, and Cooper does a good job of varying dialogue according to the backgrounds and speaking styles of the characters. He's also not averse to killing off characters you like; this happens in every Cooper novel I've read, so it's wise to be prepared for it. (Deathbed scenes are quite a staple in 19th-century literature; the one here has strong, and to me commendable, Christian gospel content.) Treatment of Indian characters is balanced and fair, and we have good examples of cross-cultural friendship.

The New American Library edition that I read has an 8 1/2 page Afterword by Thomas Berger, which has some interesting thoughts and information, but isn't always as illuminating as Berger probably thought it was. A perhaps better afterword is the general comment about Cooper's work from another American literary giant, William Cullen Bryant: "...the examples Cooper has given in his glorious fictions, of heroism, honor, and truth, of large sympathies between man and man... shall live through centuries to come...." ...more

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