The Deerslayer by James Fenimore CooperMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
There's a lot to like in this novel, and some people like it a bunch--more than I did--but there is a lot that disappoints, too. I enjoyed it well enough, and I admired some things about it, but most readers (IMO) would find it pretty unreadable.
I like the action and the connections to nature; I like the moments when the narrative supports a progressive, liberal attitude toward Native Americans; I like getting a feel for a particular time and place in our history; and I like encountering characters who are admirable and who behave according to their conscience. All of that is found here.
But I don't like it when the plot doesn't just stall, but stops; I don't like it when the narrative aligns with prejudice and racism; and I don't like it when the author repeats himself for the thousandth time. Not awesome.
As to the text's position on race, that deserves a little more attention. It feels like the author was caught between his head and his heart, and I think he should get a little more praise than blame for that, especially writing in the 1820's, 1830's, and 1840's. The reader can't help but see how he admires various tribes and Native Americans in general. You see how wrong-thinking characters (Hurry Harry and Tom Hutter) see Native Americans as wholly unlike them, as beings without value or rights, and consider their murder as praiseworthy, while right-thinking characters (the protagonist as well as Hetty in this novel) oppose hatred and unprovoked violence toward Native Americans and support the idea of considering them the same as anyone else. The author does make his Huron and Delaware characters prone to violence, even cruel--or at least, too comfortable with violence--but in almost every other way paints them in a positive light: courageous, inventive, capable, honest, and noble. And many of Deerslayer's best qualities come from his Delaware upbringing. I think these examples show us where his heart was.
He still put arguments in Deerslayer's mouth against white people marrying Native Americans and has him talk interminably about the different "gifts" of the two peoples as if they might be fundamentally different, maybe even going to a different afterlife. These parts, along with the vocabulary of "red man" and "savage" and the like, are very jarring. Such negative attitudes almost always emerge in dialogue, not in action, which is why it feels like faulty received wisdom or "common sense" is being repeated. That's why I believe he let his head overrule his heart at times, allowing the language of prejudice to remain in a story even though it clashes with ideals deeply embedded in the text.
Anyway, that's how I choose to see the matter, because in places, this novel is a strong argument (almost 2 centuries old) against racism and an argument in favor of protecting and preserving Native American communities as a moral imperative.
For an adventure novel, the pacing is slow, and Deerslayer preaches waaaaaay too often on the same handful of topics. He loves to philosophize about how men should behave, what women are like, what Native Americans are like, how white people are different, what is right behavior in this person as opposed to that person, and so on. Someone asks him a question, and then he goes off on the category of thought that the question proceeds from. Ugh. And Hetty, who is not as smart as her sister, is referred to as half-witted so many times, even by herself, that I wanted to shake the author. We know! We get it! Stop saying it!
Anyway, I counsel myself to be patient with these infelicities. I enjoy exploring the world he creates, and there are moments of genuine excitement and emotion that pay off the long waits. It's not as rich a meal as you get with other novelists, perhaps, but it's satisfying in some other ways. I won't lie, the death of an important character choked me up, so he did his job there.
In sum--it's flawed, but I kinda liked it. I'll read more, but I don't think I'd recommend it most people.
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I haven't read it in a very long time, but I seem to recall liking parts of it.
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