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The Last of the Mohicans (Bantam Classics)
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Manufacturer: Bantam Classics
Author: James Fenimore Cooper
Publisher: Bantam Classics
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Our Price: $4.95
You Save: $ ( % )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Bantam Classics
Author: James Fenimore Cooper
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Average Customer Rating:
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The Last of the Mohicans (Bantam Classics) Description
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.2
EAN: 9780553213294
ISBN: 0553213296
Label: Bantam Classics
Manufacturer: Bantam Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 432
Publication Date: 1982-06-01
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Product Release Date: 1982-06-01
Studio: Bantam Classics
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.2
EAN: 9780553213294
ISBN: 0553213296
Label: Bantam Classics
Manufacturer: Bantam Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 432
Publication Date: 1982-06-01
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Product Release Date: 1982-06-01
Studio: Bantam Classics
Editorial Review of The Last of the Mohicans (Bantam Classics)
The wild rush of action in this classic frontier adventure story has made The Last of the Mohicans the most popular of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. Deep in the forests of upper New York State, the brave woodsman Hawkeye (Natty Bumppo) and his loyal Mohican fiends Cingachgook and Uncas become embroiled in the bloody battles of the French and Indian War. The abduction of the beautiful Munro sisters by hostile savages, the treachery of the renegade brave Magua, the ambush of innocent settlers, and the thrilling events that lead to the final tragic confrontation between rival war parties create an unforgettable, spine-tingling picture of life on the frontier. And as the idyllic wilderness gives way to the forces of civilization, the novel presents a moving portrayal of a vanishing race and the end of its way of life in the great American forests.
Customer Reviews of The Last of the Mohicans (Bantam Classics)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Great Adventure Tale
Review: I liked the book, Last of the Mohicans. I notice that many reviewers who gave it one or two stars are kids who had to read the book for an advanced English class or who saw the movie and decided to read the book. It is NOT an easy read (which is probably why many kids did not like the book), but I thought it was worth the effort. It was a little difficult keeping the characters straight at first because Cooper has several names for the key characters and switches between them freely.
My favorite character was actually one that I would guess is an outlier - David Gamut. His manhood is often insulted by Hawkeye, (Hawkeye calls David's pitch pipe his "tooting weapon" and he pokes fun of his useless profession of psalmody) yet David's bravery is no less than the heroes of the tale. Sure he can't shoot a gun (it would be against his principles anyway), but he sticks with the sisters when they are kidnapped by Magua and is able to come and go freely among the Indians as he is viewed by them as not having all of his mental faculties. He saves Uncas' life by secretly switching places with him and tells Hawkeye not to avenge his death should he die for the ruse. His moral character is higher, I believe, than the vengeful Indians and Hawkeye. While Hawkeye tolerates or even disdains David at the beginning of the book, I think he grows to like and even admire David by the end.
The plot was interesting to me and sure some of the language is convoluted and Cooper's vocabulary is admittedly far superior to mine. However, if you keep a dictionary nearby, you'll learn several new words and enjoy an exciting tale.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Noble Savage
Review: "The Last of the Mohicans" is a novel for the ages and its hero Hawkeye is a man who teaches life lessons with each page you turn. Many people believe that this novel has outlived its worthiness but once turn of the pages will reveal to the reader a world that is both savage and young, characters that are both civilized and savage, and a story that harkens back to the beginnings of the new world. Cooper's language is hard to swallow sometimes, and the movie is easier to watch, but the reader who settles into the pages of Hawkeye's life and world is rewarded with lessons about friendship, love, survival and the rite of passage that all people go through. It is a definite must read for both English and History classes as it explores the beginnings of this great country in which we live.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: "We Were Here"
Review: Since there are already over 100 reviews of this book and probably thousands have been written over the years, I'll do this one without benefit of book in hand, from memory and without a lot of details. It took me many years to get over the antiquated language barrier and to finally read the book. The classics are always harder to read than contemporary fiction, but sometimes it's worth the effort.
What tipped the scales for me and piqued my curiosity was watching the recent movie with Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Russell Means, and Eric Schweig, and realizing that this was a good story. Also, I'm very familiar with the setting in upstate NY: Lake George, Balston Spa, Glenns Falls, Scroon Lake, and surrounding area--at least as it is now, and it was fun imagining what it would have been like in those days, when the land was virgin, settlers could lose their scalps if they weren't careful, and the France contested with Britain for supremacy of the land.
The book wasn't a romance--at least not in the modern sense of the word--with love scenes and the like. But it was a romance in the old sense in that the three main characters; Hawk-eye, and the two Mohicans, were larger than life heroes; in the moral, physical, and spiritual meanings of the term. The elder sister Cora was also a well developed, strong willed and heroic character, which surprised me a little considering the age in which the book was written.
For me the most interesting character of the novel was Chingachgook's son, Uncas, who was the "last of the Mohicans," a noble race of American Indians, which formerly occupied the lands by the "salt lake," (i.e., the Atlantic Ocean), and were dispossessed and robbed of their lands and heritage by the original Dutch settlers and others. Uncas was a tracker extraordinaire, even better than the indomitable Hawk-eye in this respect. But he was young, inexperienced, and impetuous, which was eventually his undoing when he came up against the evil, and formidable Magua. But before he died, he was recognized as a king or great chief of his people, an heir apparent. So decreed the venerable Tamenund, a 100 year old patriarch and judge of the Delaware peoples, a related tribe to the Mohicans. This episode would have been difficult to write into an action movie, but it would have been great if it had been.
Another interesting character completely eliminated from both the 1934 and 1992 movies was David Gamut, a preacher psalmist, whose moral presence and as a comic relief, was an integral part of the novel.
All in all, this is still a book worth reading, if only to get a glimse of the way things were then and might be again.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: the last of the mohicans
Review: it is a very good book but the english that it is written in is different from the way we speak today. I enjoy the book and will recommend it to everyone looking for something that is good to read and to all children for their classes that require reading books.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Natty Bumppo: The American Tarzan
Review: Nathanial Bumppo, otherwise known as Leatherstocking, Deerslayer, and Long Rifle, is without a doubt the quintessential American version of Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan. To be sure, Cooper's frontier character saw print long before Burrough's creation did in 1912. This in no way invalidates the creation of ERB, but it does give more literary impact to a wholly American character who appears in what can only be defined, if one is truthful, as wholly flawed novels.
The five novels which feature Bumppo were written by Cooper out of sequence. This doesn't necessarily impair the fictive underpinnings of the stories themselves, but it does give rise to certain elements which writhe like a murky thread throughout the main arc.
We will, as expected, consider the best known, at least as far as the general public goes, work of Cooper, that being "The Last of the Mohicans" and examine just what makes this novel tick, and why you should read it.
Cooper believed that Indian culture must needs be crushed by the Anglo Saxon wheels of religion and technology. He saw no other way around this inevitability. Though he wasn't himself racist by the definitions which we adhere to today, he did have certain beliefs of superiority of his own culture which "dark-skinned" individuals had to bow down to. "Mohicans", with its poignant idea that there will come a time the "last" of this noble race will pass from the ken of men (that is to say the ken of White Men), has through this very self-same literary device carved for itself a spot of prominence withing American literature.
Not everyone liked Cooper's work. He was always viewed much more favorably in Europe than by home-grown American authors. Mark Twain famously savaged Cooper's work and the savagery resonates even to this day. Yet, something about the novels, especially "Mohicans" endures. Perhaps it is the idea of a race of men passing, the thread of virgin forests and pure lakes, the savagery of life on the frontier, the fog of war, the blood-curdling violence. Whatever the reason for its longevity, and Twain notwithstanding, this book endures. Thank God.
As one might expect there is very little of this book that is recognizable in the 1992 film remake of the same name. In fact, the film stole much of the story line which was rewritten in the 1920 silent film. In the modern film Hawk-eye, at the height of his powers, is taciturn to a fault but still capable of a normal sexual relationship. In the novel Natty Bumppo is not only naive sexually, he won't shut up, period. He discourses on everything, even to the halt of the action being described around him. Leaning on his rifle he has no problem detailing, to exhaustion, his opinion on events around him.
Another big difference, aside from the often awkward descriptions, stereotypes of women and just plain ignorance of Native American ethnicities, is the fact a major character dies in the novel yet is allowed to survive in film. I suppose this would come as a shock to someone who saw the movie first, but there it is. Cooper has no problem dispatching that which, if allowed to live, would intercede in the future life of Hawk-eye. Natty Bumppo must remain pure. He must be allowed to view and accept nature as a powerful motivation than the love of another human being. It is his past, it is his destiny. He is akin to the figure of Greek tragedy in this way. He has a duty to perform and he will accomplish it, but he himself cannot lose the connection he has to the pristine land he loves and calls home.
I highly recommend this book, though the new reader must approach it with a few caveats and not a little caution. Cooper is simply not that great a writer. I am not the first to say that nor will I be the last. Many of the passages go on far too long and the long-winded philosophies of Bumppo grate. Nevertheless, there is power here, along with pathos, grandeur, and yes, love -- though it's love on Bumppo's, and Cooper's, own terms.
Despite its many flaws this is a major American novel by any definition. If you like adventure, and don't mind a little (okay, a lot) lagging, I think you will enjoy reading "The Last of the Mohicans."
Review Summary: Great Adventure Tale
Review: I liked the book, Last of the Mohicans. I notice that many reviewers who gave it one or two stars are kids who had to read the book for an advanced English class or who saw the movie and decided to read the book. It is NOT an easy read (which is probably why many kids did not like the book), but I thought it was worth the effort. It was a little difficult keeping the characters straight at first because Cooper has several names for the key characters and switches between them freely.
My favorite character was actually one that I would guess is an outlier - David Gamut. His manhood is often insulted by Hawkeye, (Hawkeye calls David's pitch pipe his "tooting weapon" and he pokes fun of his useless profession of psalmody) yet David's bravery is no less than the heroes of the tale. Sure he can't shoot a gun (it would be against his principles anyway), but he sticks with the sisters when they are kidnapped by Magua and is able to come and go freely among the Indians as he is viewed by them as not having all of his mental faculties. He saves Uncas' life by secretly switching places with him and tells Hawkeye not to avenge his death should he die for the ruse. His moral character is higher, I believe, than the vengeful Indians and Hawkeye. While Hawkeye tolerates or even disdains David at the beginning of the book, I think he grows to like and even admire David by the end.
The plot was interesting to me and sure some of the language is convoluted and Cooper's vocabulary is admittedly far superior to mine. However, if you keep a dictionary nearby, you'll learn several new words and enjoy an exciting tale.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Noble Savage
Review: "The Last of the Mohicans" is a novel for the ages and its hero Hawkeye is a man who teaches life lessons with each page you turn. Many people believe that this novel has outlived its worthiness but once turn of the pages will reveal to the reader a world that is both savage and young, characters that are both civilized and savage, and a story that harkens back to the beginnings of the new world. Cooper's language is hard to swallow sometimes, and the movie is easier to watch, but the reader who settles into the pages of Hawkeye's life and world is rewarded with lessons about friendship, love, survival and the rite of passage that all people go through. It is a definite must read for both English and History classes as it explores the beginnings of this great country in which we live.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: "We Were Here"
Review: Since there are already over 100 reviews of this book and probably thousands have been written over the years, I'll do this one without benefit of book in hand, from memory and without a lot of details. It took me many years to get over the antiquated language barrier and to finally read the book. The classics are always harder to read than contemporary fiction, but sometimes it's worth the effort.
What tipped the scales for me and piqued my curiosity was watching the recent movie with Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Russell Means, and Eric Schweig, and realizing that this was a good story. Also, I'm very familiar with the setting in upstate NY: Lake George, Balston Spa, Glenns Falls, Scroon Lake, and surrounding area--at least as it is now, and it was fun imagining what it would have been like in those days, when the land was virgin, settlers could lose their scalps if they weren't careful, and the France contested with Britain for supremacy of the land.
The book wasn't a romance--at least not in the modern sense of the word--with love scenes and the like. But it was a romance in the old sense in that the three main characters; Hawk-eye, and the two Mohicans, were larger than life heroes; in the moral, physical, and spiritual meanings of the term. The elder sister Cora was also a well developed, strong willed and heroic character, which surprised me a little considering the age in which the book was written.
For me the most interesting character of the novel was Chingachgook's son, Uncas, who was the "last of the Mohicans," a noble race of American Indians, which formerly occupied the lands by the "salt lake," (i.e., the Atlantic Ocean), and were dispossessed and robbed of their lands and heritage by the original Dutch settlers and others. Uncas was a tracker extraordinaire, even better than the indomitable Hawk-eye in this respect. But he was young, inexperienced, and impetuous, which was eventually his undoing when he came up against the evil, and formidable Magua. But before he died, he was recognized as a king or great chief of his people, an heir apparent. So decreed the venerable Tamenund, a 100 year old patriarch and judge of the Delaware peoples, a related tribe to the Mohicans. This episode would have been difficult to write into an action movie, but it would have been great if it had been.
Another interesting character completely eliminated from both the 1934 and 1992 movies was David Gamut, a preacher psalmist, whose moral presence and as a comic relief, was an integral part of the novel.
All in all, this is still a book worth reading, if only to get a glimse of the way things were then and might be again.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: the last of the mohicans
Review: it is a very good book but the english that it is written in is different from the way we speak today. I enjoy the book and will recommend it to everyone looking for something that is good to read and to all children for their classes that require reading books.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Natty Bumppo: The American Tarzan
Review: Nathanial Bumppo, otherwise known as Leatherstocking, Deerslayer, and Long Rifle, is without a doubt the quintessential American version of Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan. To be sure, Cooper's frontier character saw print long before Burrough's creation did in 1912. This in no way invalidates the creation of ERB, but it does give more literary impact to a wholly American character who appears in what can only be defined, if one is truthful, as wholly flawed novels.
The five novels which feature Bumppo were written by Cooper out of sequence. This doesn't necessarily impair the fictive underpinnings of the stories themselves, but it does give rise to certain elements which writhe like a murky thread throughout the main arc.
We will, as expected, consider the best known, at least as far as the general public goes, work of Cooper, that being "The Last of the Mohicans" and examine just what makes this novel tick, and why you should read it.
Cooper believed that Indian culture must needs be crushed by the Anglo Saxon wheels of religion and technology. He saw no other way around this inevitability. Though he wasn't himself racist by the definitions which we adhere to today, he did have certain beliefs of superiority of his own culture which "dark-skinned" individuals had to bow down to. "Mohicans", with its poignant idea that there will come a time the "last" of this noble race will pass from the ken of men (that is to say the ken of White Men), has through this very self-same literary device carved for itself a spot of prominence withing American literature.
Not everyone liked Cooper's work. He was always viewed much more favorably in Europe than by home-grown American authors. Mark Twain famously savaged Cooper's work and the savagery resonates even to this day. Yet, something about the novels, especially "Mohicans" endures. Perhaps it is the idea of a race of men passing, the thread of virgin forests and pure lakes, the savagery of life on the frontier, the fog of war, the blood-curdling violence. Whatever the reason for its longevity, and Twain notwithstanding, this book endures. Thank God.
As one might expect there is very little of this book that is recognizable in the 1992 film remake of the same name. In fact, the film stole much of the story line which was rewritten in the 1920 silent film. In the modern film Hawk-eye, at the height of his powers, is taciturn to a fault but still capable of a normal sexual relationship. In the novel Natty Bumppo is not only naive sexually, he won't shut up, period. He discourses on everything, even to the halt of the action being described around him. Leaning on his rifle he has no problem detailing, to exhaustion, his opinion on events around him.
Another big difference, aside from the often awkward descriptions, stereotypes of women and just plain ignorance of Native American ethnicities, is the fact a major character dies in the novel yet is allowed to survive in film. I suppose this would come as a shock to someone who saw the movie first, but there it is. Cooper has no problem dispatching that which, if allowed to live, would intercede in the future life of Hawk-eye. Natty Bumppo must remain pure. He must be allowed to view and accept nature as a powerful motivation than the love of another human being. It is his past, it is his destiny. He is akin to the figure of Greek tragedy in this way. He has a duty to perform and he will accomplish it, but he himself cannot lose the connection he has to the pristine land he loves and calls home.
I highly recommend this book, though the new reader must approach it with a few caveats and not a little caution. Cooper is simply not that great a writer. I am not the first to say that nor will I be the last. Many of the passages go on far too long and the long-winded philosophies of Bumppo grate. Nevertheless, there is power here, along with pathos, grandeur, and yes, love -- though it's love on Bumppo's, and Cooper's, own terms.
Despite its many flaws this is a major American novel by any definition. If you like adventure, and don't mind a little (okay, a lot) lagging, I think you will enjoy reading "The Last of the Mohicans."