Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 14:26:43 -0400
From: shawn wilbur <swilbur-AT-wcnet.org>
Subject: Re: nomadology (book)




Heather Glaisyer wrote:

> snip
> The essay on the Ishmaelites in
> "Gone to Croatan" fascinated me, but aside from rereading James Fenimore
> Cooper's "The Prairie," which features some version of their story, i've
> never followed up much.
>
> H
> Um........personally, shawn-I wouldn't give any weight to a single word that
> dude had to say about anyone............
> H

Cooper's take on things generally lined up with his conservative politics,
which he made explicit in the "American Democrat" essays. And he always used
historical facts as a background for his mix of adventure and social
commentary. The thing about Cooper is that, whatever his historical
embroiderings may have been, he was sensitive to key social conflicts,
particularly those central to the debate about what could constitute an
"American" identity and culture. His tendency is to come in on "the wrong side"
(from my point of view) - and, of course, some of his more action-oriented
prose is fairly awful - but he still wrote a number of pretty interesting
novels.

There's no percentage in reading Cooper's novels as history - but they are
themselves part of an interesting history.

-shawn