The Prairie: A Tale (1827)

It is a curious fact on his death-bed Franzy Schubert was asking for the latest Cooper novel (in German, of-course): such was the power of Cooper's art, at-least in those days. But It is hard now to imagine the era in which Cooper was the common property and a shared focus among millions of readers around the Northern Hemisphere. Of-course, his perspective on American life was beginning to reveal its inadequacies decades ago, and satires like Mark Twain's shredded his style and psychology almost as long ago. Even so, he will always be regarded as an American classic. That being conceded, to read his work today is to enter a very unfamiliar world, and ultimately one in which is is still harder to find permanent values and interest than it is to find distressing and incomprehensible incidents, motivation, and behavior. With the benefit of time, we can see that no matter how much he tried to be a great American writer, his goal was closer to being a great epic writer who happened to use the themes he knew best, namely American ones. I rather suspect it is this epic style and sweep, rather than the lure of American exotica which may have drawn Schubert. Anyway, peace to all of them, and of-course to old Natty Bumpo. For the record, sundry latter-day commentators nothwithstanding, the Ishmaelites of this book have very little to do with the astonishing Nineteenth-century migratory folk-group of the same name.. ( )

The concluding volume of the pentalogy The Leatherstocking Tales is a much better book than The Pioneers. I found it moved along very well, and was consistently attention-holding. While the story is somewhat fantastic, it does have exciting events which come one right after another--in contrast to The Pioneers, wnich was pretty dull for long stretches. The trapper--Natty Bumppo--is sententious in his old age, but still a handy man to have as a friend on the western prairie. I am glad I have read, finally, these Cooper works. ( )

The last of the Leatherstocking Tales shows Natty Bumpus as an old man wandering the Prairie. Written in 1827 it was the last of the series but the second written. It shows that even at this early time there were those that saw that a way of life was ending. The spread of settlements west were bringing an end to woodsmen type of American, a lifestyle, and a philosophy that would not be seen again. ( )

Probably the most readable of the Leatherstocking Tales. Provides a retrospective to the series. Natty is an Old Man now. The reader is given a sense of completion.

Set in the immense landscape of the Great Plains, The Prairie (1827) addresses many questions raised by the penetration of the American west: the displacement of the Indians, the destruction of nature, and the creation of a just society both ordered and free. Natty Bumppo, a man now in the autumn of his days, is the spokesman for the conservation of the natural environment. But as his physical prowess wanes he is ultimately unable to thwart the despoilers. In this, the last in the series of five Leatherstocking Tales, Cooper resolves the issues of The Pioneers and The Last of the
Mohicans, but at the same time eloquently suggests that humility, self-control, reverence for God, and respect for nature are tragically lost on the prairie.