The Pathfinder

This book is the first in the "Leather Stocking Tales" series by Cooper. It has been considered a classic ever since it was written more than 200 years ago. The story is an exciing one of a very young man, Pathfinder, raised by Indians and in White Men's schools as well, on a government assignment in what appears to be the Ohio territory.Most of the action occurs on a lake in the middle of wich a pioneer and his two daughters have built their home which can be reached only by boat or canoe.With the French and Indian War looming, Pathfinder and a friend carry a message of warning to far out homesteads. But they are stopped at the lake. The pioneer and the friend decide to attack what appears to be a non-aggressive Indian encampment on shore simply because they are there and hated.The two men are clumsy and are captured. Pathfinder who paddled them ashore but did not join their scalp hunting venture escapes, and plans to go back and rescue the men--but is engaged in his first hand to hand do or die battle first. The Indian he kills renames him "Hawkeye" before he died.And it is the youngest, mentally disabled daughter who actually rescues her dad and the handsome and reckless friend.Chingachgook, Pathfinder's best friend, joins the group and tells them his love has been captured by this same group of Indians.The rest of the book follows the attempted rescue of the Indian Maiden, the arrival of soldiers from a near-by fort, the seductive ways of the older daughter of the pioneer.Although this is an accurate depiction of severl AmerIndian attitudes such as the polite and gentle treatment of the Indians of the Mentally chalenged young lady who comes to plead for her father, or Chingachgook's family heritage as pondered by Pathfinder, and the mind set of the white invaders as well, such as the pioneer and friends deciding to go scalp hunting among what appears to be peaceful Indians for no other reason than that they are Indians, this is not an easy book to read.The modern writer could write this same story, keep the tension and excitement in tact and do it in 1/4 the pages of this book. The flowery language that Pathfinder uses, for instance, with the Indian who attacks him and later renames him would have gotten him killed before he could have finished a sentence. And that is the problem with this book for modern readers.Much of the book purports to be Pathfinder's thinking to himself. The flowery language there might be acceptable as an example of how people thought and spoke in that time, but it is hard to get through. The description of the cabin is so detailed that it takes pages that could have been done in a paragraph and would have if written today.The resolution of the book, and the denoument of each character, including the supposed ending up of the Pioneer's eldest daughter, is easily followed and understood. As I said, the story is exciting and indictive of the mores and attitudes of the times in which it was written. To read the book to find out this type of thing would be a useful endeavor. To try to read it for enjoyment or relaxation is a waste of effort.

I found this a terrific story: exciting, instructive, humorous, sad, awe-inspiring. The descriptions of the forest were wonderful. It has a lot of nautical terms, and paints a vivid picture of the fort in Oswego and Lake Ontario.

I grew so tired of Uncle Cap so quickly that I was hoping the Mingos would quickly scalp him; and it was quite apparent that the 3, 4 or 5-timed married Quartermaster Lieutenant Davy Muir had an unsavory hidden agenda, while it was equally apparent that Jasper Eau-douce and Mabel Dunham would wed - all of which was presented in an enjoyable though sometimes tedious read!

James Fenimore Cooper has a gift for getting the reader involved in his stories, this book is no exception. I had a difficult time putting the book down as I wanted to see what happened next.

Book claims to be illustrated to secure a higher price point, but there are no illustrations, not even simple pressed calligraphy, within the text.

These are wonderful books to read, the pathfinder is the third in the series. Written in the early 1800s these novels take you back in time. With great characters and adventures, love and war.

If a reader wishes to know something or something more about Romanticism in America's Romantic age, read The Pathfinder and almost any of Poe's short stories. If one also wishes to read American literature of the highest water, look beyond Cooper and Poe to Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville and Mark Twain.

“The Pathfinder” is third in chronological order of the “Leatherstocking” tales, although not the third written. It is set in western New York in 1759, at the height of the French and Indian War, when the area around Niagara Falls and western Lake Ontario was still largely a vast, uncharted, sparsely populated wilderness (except by Native Americans) and the English struggled to maintain a few isolated frontier outposts against the aggressive attacks of the French and their Iroquois allies (warning: the French are portrayed as heretical, godless Papists and their Native allies are called “Mingos” and seen as merciless savages out to harvest scalps, which probably portrayed popular views among the English settlers at the time).In spite of the dense and often turgid prose (it’s hard to believe that even in the mid-18th Century people would converse in such a stilted and loquacious fashion, but one must remember that when the book was published—1840—writers were often paid by the word and many novels, as with those of Dickens at this time, appeared first in serial form in newspapers), what sustains this novel is that it is a mixture of small-scale wartime action (guerrilla warfare, if you will), cloak-and-dagger intrigue, and almost-soap-opera-like interplay between the several major characters—all set against the overwhelming, unspoiled natural background of river, forest and lake and the “sense of wonder” the author is always at pains to convey about it, along with a wistful regret about the changes seen, even then, between that time and his own.Pathfinder (Leatherstocking, Hawkeye, Natty Bumppo) is an almost deus-ex-machina personage who is sometimes a bit hard to credit in the way he embodies so many virtues—honesty, innocence, moral purity and incorruptibility, faith in God, strength and resolution of will, steadfastness of purpose, stoicism in the face of adversity—as well as supreme skill with his trusty rifle Killdeer. Here, for the first time, he exhibits emotional vulnerability as he falls in love with Mabel Dunham—an unlikely pairing, as he is old enough to be her father—and eventually yields her to Jasper, admitting to himself in tragic-hero and perhaps chivalric fashion that he is a solitary man whose place is in the forest at the side of his Delaware companion Chingachgook (the Last of the Mohicans) and that Nature is closest to his heart.Mabel embodies 18th- or 19th-Century virtues of the ideal woman—innocent, pure, submissive to the wisdom and will of the men in her life—and at the same time wise beyond her years, able to take charge when necessary, strong-willed about whom she will or won’t marry, not entirely happy with the typical woman’s (expected) destiny, at least as men saw it, of wife and mother, although finally accepting of it for her father’s sake.The secondary characters (Cap, Jasper, Lundie, the Sergeant, Quartermaster) are not as well developed and are somewhat tediously predictable—or even sometimes comical—in their attitudes and actions, mainly because their function is to help flesh out the true natures of Pathfinder and Mabel as they provide elements of intrigue and sometimes comedy. At times (as with Quartermaster) it is a bit overdone, even to the point of tedium.Overall a fascinating period piece, if one can overlook the obtuse writing style and sometimes exaggerated and stereotypical characterizations. But if the book’s purpose was to familiarize 19th-century readers with a perhaps-insufficiently-known period of their country’s history and to hold up the cardinal virtues (and, admittedly, prejudices) as they were seen in that day, it must have succeeded admirably—the book sold well and along with the other Leatherstockng Tales helped solidify the author’s place as one of America’s most popular 19th-century writers.***** review by Chuck Graham

This novel is more intriguing written by one of the most important American writers , James Cooper . Amust try book for all literature lovers and book worms.

The Pathfinder is the third in the series of Leatherstocking Tales about Natty Bumpo (previously called Deerslayer as a young man and Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans). This time Natty is in middle age, no longer a young man but still a fit and vigorous one. His task is to guide the daughter of Sargeant Dunham as well as her uncle, Mabel Dunham and Captain Cap. He continues to guide for the British army during the seven years war. After surviving the first journey to bring young Mabel into the arms of her father he and his friend Jasper Western are told to see how the land lies in one of the "thousand islands" in Lake Ontario. Gradually he falls in love with Mabel although there is some understanding that Mabel has interest in the much younger Jasper. So, it is a tale of unrequited love and loss. It also turns around the story from Deerslayer where the young woman Judith had fallen for Natty although he did not love her. The wheel turns as they say and it is Natty's turn. The ending when Mabel decides for Jasper is heart breaking and well written. Not as powerful as The Last of the Mohicans but it still holds the reader. A good read.