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The Prairie (Leatherstocking Tales, #5)

James Fenimore Cooper

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Apr 18, 2016 Werner rated it liked it

Shelves: classics, historical-fiction

Note, Oct. 28, 2024: I've added an update below, to share a changed perspective on one point.

Taking place in the then trackless expanses of the Louisiana Purchase territory, somewhere about 500 miles west of the Mississippi, in 1805, this novel is actually set in Cooper's own lifetime, as was The Pioneers. (In 1805, the author would have been in his teens.) I've classified it, somewhat loosely and inaccurately, as "historical fiction" in order to keep the series together on my shelves. At the op Note, Oct. 28, 2024: I've added an update below, to share a changed perspective on one point.

Taking place in the then trackless expanses of the Louisiana Purchase territory, somewhere about 500 miles west of the Mississippi, in 1805, this novel is actually set in Cooper's own lifetime, as was The Pioneers. (In 1805, the author would have been in his teens.) I've classified it, somewhat loosely and inaccurately, as "historical fiction" in order to keep the series together on my shelves. At the opening of the book, series protagonist Natty Bumpo is now 87 years old, frailer and less keen eyed than he used to be, and reduced to trapping rather than hunting. He's still independent and self-reliant, though, and has come out onto the Great Plains, forsaking his beloved forests, to escape the inroads and depredations of dubiously-"civilized" settlement. But his tranquil solitude, which already has to be shared with not-necessarily-friendly Indians, is rudely disturbed at the outset by the arrival in his neighborhood of Ishmael Bush and his redneck clan, driven out of Kentucky for squatting on land to which they had no claim, and looking for more land where they can do the same. Other newcomers follow in their train, setting up a tale that involves kidnapping, murder, Indian warfare, and some chaste romance.

Published in 1827, this novel has more affinity, stylistically and in terms of craftsmanship, with other early Cooper works, especially The Last of the Mohicans, than with the more mature works of the early 1840s, The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder. It's not as polished, and the tendency towards dialogue that's unrealistically ornate and wordy, which is so marked in The Last of the Mohicans, is really noticeable here too. (Though again, as in the latter book, the character with the most ridiculously pompous dialogue is intended as comic relief; would-be naturalist Obed Bat --okay, we'll humor him and say "Dr. Battius," though his doctorate is most likely self-awarded!-- functions here like his predecessor David Gamut.) Likewise, there are plotting problems: the motivation for one key plot contrivance is unclear, and maybe dubious; the logistics of Paul Hover's wild honey trade, in this situation, don't ring true; and Capt. Duncan Uncas Middleton (grandson of Duncan Heyward!) would probably not have been permitted by his superiors to have left his command and taken some men to chase off into the prairies, regardless of his personal incentive. Coincidence is used implausibly in a couple of places; and I felt that some of Ellen Wades' actions were out of character or contradictory. (It's true that many real-life people in this era, unlike today, actually took giving their word or swearing an oath seriously, even if it subsequently proved inconvenient; and there are other 19th-century novels that also extol this --correctly, IMO!-- as a virtue. But I don't think a commitment exacted forcibly has the same moral status, especially if it's against the interests of an innocent.) A few of the characterizations are not particularly sharp (though some of them are, not least Natty's).

That said, though, I still liked the novel. Cooper's literary vision, here and in the other novels of the series, is very much of a piece. The storytelling is vivid, full of incident, and in many places genuinely suspenseful. (Exciting action is one of the author's strengths.) He deserves credit here for a portrayal of Native Americans which is realistic and balanced, not a racist hatchet job; their warlike attitudes and sometimes grisly accompanying behaviors, male chauvinism and use of duplicity as an (in their view) legitimate tactic of war are recognized, but so are the more laudable aspects of their culture, and individuals of the race display the full gamut of moral possibilities, from contemptible to very admirable. (We also have, in the person of Inez, a Roman Catholic character who's sympathetic rather than demonized; and while Cooper is himself clearly a Protestant, he doesn't treat Catholicism invidiously, in the way that many Protestants in the much less ecumenical 1820s undoubtedly would have.) For much of the novel, I was inclined to fault him for having some characters know something they apparently couldn't have; but this is actually not the case, as is explained to good effect near the end. Finally, there are some scenes here that are extremely moving, in one way or another, ranking in emotional power among the author's best.

Oct. 28, 2024 update:
In the review above, commenting on Ellen Wade's faithfulness to an oath, I wrote "It's true that many real-life people in this era, unlike today, actually took giving their word or swearing an oath seriously, even if it subsequently proved inconvenient; and there are other 19th-century novels that also extol this --correctly, IMO!-- as a virtue. But I don't think a commitment exacted forcibly has the same moral status, especially if it's against the interests of an innocent." But my thinking on that subject evolved, and three years later I added a comment sharing my changed perspective. Since most people who read reviews probably don't read the comments, I've decided it makes better sense to copy-and-paste it as an update to the actual review, and to delete the comment.

I've grappled, off and on, with the moral issue posed there ever since I read Treasure Island as a seven-year-old kid; it's posed in other novels as well. My shift of opinion has been a gradual evolution, not a grand epiphany; but I have to say that by now, I've come to feel that a given word/oath does have moral status, regardless of the "duress" issue. We either have a word or we don't; engaging in moral casuistry to carve out exceptions would basically mean that we don't. For all that the older morality of the 18th and 19th centuries and before seems naive and hokey in absolutizing one's given word, I now think they were unto something important.

Nonetheless, rather than delete that part of my original review, I'm going to let it stand as I wrote it, but put this contrasting perspective down as an update. That's because our response to the issues in books we read, and our ongoing reflections about them, are part of a conversational process --sometimes a conversation with ourselves-- and showing the record of our evolving thinking is part of the process. It's a testimony to our continuing engagement with books we read, that doesn't stop when we close a back cover and type up a review. ...more

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