The Last of the Mohicans (The Leatherstocking Tales, #2) in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Nov 20, 2017 Donna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, historical-fiction

With several long car trips and a boring job stuffing envelopes in my schedule, I knew I needed an audiobook to get through the week. Having promised myself I would read "The Last of the Mohicans" before I read beyond book #1 of Sara Donati's "Into the Wilderness" series, when the title showed up as an audio download from the library, I knew it was time. I also had put the book on my "50 classics in 5 years" list (at which I failed miserably).

However, the biggest reason I wanted to read Cooper With several long car trips and a boring job stuffing envelopes in my schedule, I knew I needed an audiobook to get through the week. Having promised myself I would read "The Last of the Mohicans" before I read beyond book #1 of Sara Donati's "Into the Wilderness" series, when the title showed up as an audio download from the library, I knew it was time. I also had put the book on my "50 classics in 5 years" list (at which I failed miserably).

However, the biggest reason I wanted to read Cooper was that he and his books were mentioned by David McCullough in his book "The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris." I was surprised to read in there that by the time Cooper settled in Paris in 1826, he was "America's most famous author" whose books were in the window of every shop. "Not since the days of Benjamin Franklin had an American been so welcomed and liked...." p. 71

Natty Bummpo (Hawkeye), the hero of Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, is the ancestor of characters in the "Into the Wilderness" series as well as "The Gilded Hour" by Sara Donati. I enjoy books where authors extend a great story into another well-spun tale. Donati's books are highly recommended--even more now that I've read this one.

As some may know, my favorite genre is detective fiction and I was stunned to find elements of that genre here. Hawkeye's description to the British soldiers of how to track people in the wilderness and how to listen to the sounds of the forest are exactly like a great detective explaining the clues in a mystery (measuring the steps and characteristics of the persons they are tracking is exactly like Sherlock Holmes knowing the identities of 147 types of tobacco ash). A very long section near the end of "Mohicans" is a tribal council which resembles nothing else but a great courtroom battle.

I recommend this book to all, not only because it is an American novel of great renown, but because it is really a good story with romance, adventure, history, and a little bit of detection. ...more

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Aug 20, 2009 Cindy rated it liked it

Shelves: 18th-century, 2010, classics

Themes: race, nature, religion, war
Setting: 1750s New York/Canada region

This is one of those icons of American literature that everyone has heard about, but not everyone gets around to actually reading. I don't know why I had never picked it up before, unless maybe I read something of Cooper's in school and didn't enjoy it. But I decided to see for myself what it was all about.

Despite my expectations, the book was pretty easy to read. There were a few times when I skimmed through, especially tow Themes: race, nature, religion, war
Setting: 1750s New York/Canada region

This is one of those icons of American literature that everyone has heard about, but not everyone gets around to actually reading. I don't know why I had never picked it up before, unless maybe I read something of Cooper's in school and didn't enjoy it. But I decided to see for myself what it was all about.

Despite my expectations, the book was pretty easy to read. There were a few times when I skimmed through, especially towards the end, but there was a lot of action and the story was interesting. It is quite different from modern books in a couple of ways. First, the dialogue. Nobody speaks like that! In fact, I doubt they ever spoke like that! Usually it was just sort of one of those things you read and don't think about, but a couple of times it actually brought me back out of the story, especially when Hawkeye would use some dialectal spelling of a word which didn't need any spelling change in the first place. So that was sometimes disconcerting.

The other major shift is the whole 'noble savage' thing. See, it starts with these two sisters who are daughters of an English - well, Scottish major, who is defending a fort from some French soldiers and Indians. They want to travel from one fort to another to meet him. They get captured, and lost, and rescued, and then arrive and a bunch more adventures ensue. They are rescued by Hawkeye and his two companions, both Mohicans. Somehow, there's all this stuff in there that translates into Bad Indian versus Good Indian. It's all pretty dated. If you ask me, none of them were all that noble! What's with all the scalping and dashing babies brains out? But Uncas and his father, the two Mohicans, were certainly more the heroic type. I just have to wonder how much of this is romanticized, and I think the answer is, most of it. It was still a good story, but I think modern readers would find it a little hard to puzzle out. I was helped a lot by sparknotes.com and their reader's guide. 3 stars because it is a good story, but it's not really told in a way that I loved. ...more

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