Shannon Costello

A dearth of interesting useless fiction in the house has forced me to turn - even on my sick-bed - to literature.  

I had some trouble with this work because of a long lapse between my reading of the first and second halves of the novel.

Cooper has his own lapses, however, which place a severe strain on my credulity.  The plot only makes sense because Lionel, implausibly, does not recognize his father, whom he has not seen in 15 years, since he was ten.  Lionel disappears with Ralph at one point, without explanation to the girl he has just married.  This is immediately after the death of a mutual relation.  The deserted bride is left to discover her grandmother’s body all by herself.  

Cooper was greatly concerned with the historical nature of this novel- his descriptions of the opening battles of the Revolutionary War were carefully researched.  In that sense I am sure he did what he wanted to do.  Lionel is a Boston-born loyalist, a major in the British army.  I thought Cooper could have profitably exploited that tension a great deal more than he did.  

Question:  Is the language inconsistent in the following quote (pg 403):  ”…proceed with thy tale; you confine it to friends”?   

I am glad I read the book.  I still hope to get through all of Cooper’s novels some day and this story was entertaining enough.  The book made me laugh in spots.  I especially enjoyed Captain Polwarth’s devotion to food.  But I’m afraid I also laughed a bit at Cooper’s expense when I thought about what Mark Twain could have written about this novel.  (Think “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences.”)  The story plods doggedly along, the characters always speaking the same way, whether in crisis or the drawing room.  

I’m very sorry to be (perhaps) pretentiously critical of a great American author, but I can see why this is one of his more obscure novels.