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Last of the Mohicans Rifle

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Well I was told the first rifles where what John Bivins believed where period . and likley where as far as anyone could say . But the Producer said" No long ones" so someone made what the producer thought right. The Furniture maker sounds like Bivins. Mark Twain got it right but it is theatre in the end .

Film people throw money about like drunken sailors, I repaired a gas lamp needed for the next take of ' All Rivers run 'A steamboat Saga set in Echuca Victoria ', He asked me" how much?" I said oh 40$ be fine he said" No not enough " & gave me double . but as in all respectable shops the customer is allways right !. I took it .(One has to oblige!) . Rudyard
 
I have to agree with Mr. Twain as well, having read Last Of The Mohicans, The Prairie, and ATTEMPTED to read The Pioneers (this one made Moby Dick read like a book you can't put down). I finally gave up on The Pioneers and just jumped to the last pages. IMO, the movie was indeed better than the book. I found The Prairie to be the best of the three. YMMV...
 
As literary modernists, we struggle with the prose of James Fenimore Cooper or Sir Walter Scott. But, Cooper is like an American Homer. He defined the American hero, or perhaps more particularly anti-hero, as classically as Homer defined the ancient warriors and gods.

The Searchers is, effectively, a re-telling of The Last Of The Mohicans. Ethan Edwards (John Wayne in the Searchers) is essentially Hawkeye, and Martin Pawley (Jeff Hunter) is a composite of Chingachgook and Uncas. The American frontier moves west, but it’s still the story of a social outcast trying to rescue a captive. Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) in Dirty Harry is a loner with a big gun, risking his life to save captives. The frontier is urbanized, but it is the same story of a man with a gun, bringing freedom to captives. Every American literary hero (including Hawkeye) is simply the Deerslayer, by another name.

Cooper is worth reading, because he addresses the core of the American legend. At a time when Americans were still fighting Indians, he tells the story of a man adopted by Indians, and portrays Native Americans sympathetically. Natty Bumppo is a homely kid when first encountered in the Deerslayer, with nothing going for him but courage and a good eye. He earns the name Hawkeye, he doesn’t choose it for himself, and Cooper suggests that in America, courage and a good eye are all you really need to be not just a man, but a legend. The purpose of life, according to Cooper, is to earn your trail names. Your birth name doesn’t matter, because you didn’t earn it. Cooper implies that who you were and where you came from, is less important than the name you earn for yourself, and where you are going.

Hawkeye is the first anti-hero in American literature. At a time when most of his countrymen are institutionally religious, he is not. At a time when most Americans are living in small towns, or trying to “make something of themselves” by moving to cities, the Deerslayer can’t abide the confines of a town or village. Most of us are seduced by luxury and sexual beauty, but the Deerslayer won’t forfeit his personal freedom for a soft life or the love of a beautiful woman. (It bears mentioning that American heroes are always practically celibate. No active love interest in the Searchers, or Dirty Harry. Their beloved is always dead, and the hero doesn’t want a replacement or surrogate.)

The Deerslayer is a hero because he forsakes all those things that the rest of us want. “Freedom isn’t just another word for nothing else to lose”; freedom is the result or forsaking everything else to pursue your legend.

Cooper created the American hero, and however hard he is to read, it’s worth the effort. Reading the Leatherstocking Tales is sort of like muzzleloading. It’s not easy. It’s worthwhile. It’s not fast, it’s fun. It’s not the common taste, it’s an acquired one.
 
As literary modernists, we struggle with the prose of James Fenimore Cooper or Sir Walter Scott. But, Cooper is like an American Homer. He defined the American hero, or perhaps more particularly anti-hero, as classically as Homer defined the ancient warriors and gods.

The Searchers is, effectively, a re-telling of The Last Of The Mohicans. Ethan Edwards (John Wayne in the Searchers) is essentially Hawkeye, and Martin Pawley (Jeff Hunter) is a composite of Chingachgook and Uncas. The American frontier moves west, but it’s still the story of a social outcast trying to rescue a captive. Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) in Dirty Harry is a loner with a big gun, risking his life to save captives. The frontier is urbanized, but it is the same story of a man with a gun, bringing freedom to captives. Every American literary hero (including Hawkeye) is simply the Deerslayer, by another name.

Cooper is worth reading, because he addresses the core of the American legend. At a time when Americans were still fighting Indians, he tells the story of a man adopted by Indians, and portrays Native Americans sympathetically. Natty Bumppo is a homely kid when first encountered in the Deerslayer, with nothing going for him but courage and a good eye. He earns the name Hawkeye, he doesn’t choose it for himself, and Cooper suggests that in America, courage and a good eye are all you really need to be not just a man, but a legend. The purpose of life, according to Cooper, is to earn your trail names. Your birth name doesn’t matter, because you didn’t earn it. Cooper implies that who you were and where you came from, is less important than the name you earn for yourself, and where you are going.

Hawkeye is the first anti-hero in American literature. At a time when most of his countrymen are institutionally religious, he is not. At a time when most Americans are living in small towns, or trying to “make something of themselves” by moving to cities, the Deerslayer can’t abide the confines of a town or village. Most of us are seduced by luxury and sexual beauty, but the Deerslayer won’t forfeit his personal freedom for a soft life or the love of a beautiful woman. (It bears mentioning that American heroes are always practically celibate. No active love interest in the Searchers, or Dirty Harry. Their beloved is always dead, and the hero doesn’t want a replacement or surrogate.)

The Deerslayer is a hero because he forsakes all those things that the rest of us want. “Freedom isn’t just another word for nothing else to lose”; freedom is the result or forsaking everything else to pursue your legend.

Cooper created the American hero, and however hard he is to read, it’s worth the effort. Reading the Leatherstocking Tales is sort of like muzzleloading. It’s not easy. It’s worthwhile. It’s not fast, it’s fun. It’s not the common taste, it’s an acquired one.
Remember the time. For the most part it was upper middle class and above that read these novels. A book was an entertainment on long winter evenings. A pipe by the fire and a wine glass. It was dark e by six and you may not hit the bed till nine or ten if your a night owl. Books were expensive and you didn’t want it to be all over as soon as you opened the book. Melvil Dickens Hawthorn Scott needed to be wordy, very discriptive and heroes had to be full of moral values.
Nor could a book be a waste of time. One had to ‘get something’ out of the book. A moral lesson in what it took to be a good citizen or a good Christian.
In Gone with the Wind the ladies all have a sewing party while one of the ladies reads Dickens. This was how these ‘long boring tedious’ books were read.
Today we make them a chore. If we make it a chore it’s a bore. These books need to be enjoyed as they were written to be appreciated.
 
It's not that it's "boring". The basic story line is fine. It's just that the writing itself is positively dreadful. Natty Bumppo is a horribly irritating character, with mannerisms and patterns of speech that are like an ice pick into the brain. Not the type of "hero" I really want to follow. And one should not have to be bored to death with nothing else to do before you can enjoy reading a book.

I read two of them years ago. Last of the Mohicans, and one of the others, I forget the title, the one with Harry March and where he got his rifle. Actually, I'm not sure I managed to force my way all the way to the end of that one.

I guess none of which has anything to do with the movie rifle... :D


For our next class on overrated writers, we'll discuss Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. :p
 
Ok I will gladly give you Fitzgerald.... but Hemingway?????Old Man and the Sea Guy????? :p
Oh Stophel how could you?
Get them as audiobooks. Getting them read to you can be a lot more interesting then reading them


I was forced to read Old Man and the Sea in high school.. It was brutal. I still don't know what in the h--- a "movable feast" is supposed to be.

And I read well "above grade level". Perhaps my near-Rain-Man levels of autism prevent me from quite getting this "great literature".
 
Being forced to read something, especially in high school where the natural rebellion is in full swing, effects how you perceive it for sure..
I’m a big Spencer Tracy fan and so I might be prejudiced since I saw the movie before reading the book
 
I think it’s easy to play the critic, particularly with literature produced over a century ago. I would cut JF Cooper some slack. While some writers are easier reads then others, it’s the story, characters, and ability to paint a mental picture that succeeds and endures This has surely been the case with JF Cooper’s novels. They are classics. As a youth, I first read his works iver six decades ago....And am no less captivated by them today then I was back then. Coopers works and the resulting influence on film, and other promotions was clearly one of my initial motivations for a lifetime of muzzleloading interest and enjoyment. I suspect I’m not alone.....
 
While this going off topic I can see the discussions relating to Hawkeye and his rifle. Personally I like the older authors and their approach to the story line. Anyone read Edgar Allen Poe he is one of my favorite authors and a interesting fellow to research. I do believe authors of the time frame discussed were sort of like Hollywood today with there writing's some fact, some conjuncture and some entertainment the sole objective was to sell books. Good building with rifle and please do post pictures.
 
Reading one writer criticizing another from fifty years before can be entertaining, but let’s face it, Twian changed the world of popular fiction. This was now a world of Twain,Vern, Dumas, and the guy that wrote King Solomon’s Mines, I cant think of his name off hand.
We could have Cussler write the same the same thing about Twain, or Steinbeck.
 
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