I rate The Last of the Mohicans 8/10
The first half was sufferably long-winded and dull, but by the second-half, the wordiness seemed quaint and charming, and I read with real interest and enthusiasm. This might imply that the action didn’t start until the second half, but not so. The entire thing was an action-packed-adventure-war novel. I believe that it was instead the characters that improved the reading experience as the book went on. Not that there were any new characters. Every major character was introduced relatively early on in the novel. Nor did the characters change or grow. Cora was firm and noble, Alice remained sweet and delicate, David was simple and honest, Hayward was a good, solid guy, Hawkeye was a man without a cross (whatever that means), Uncas and Chingachgook were loyal and strong, and Magua was cunning and evil from the first page to the last. But the characters perhaps became more dear to me as they demonstrated these traits again and again.
My mother mentioned the book seemed almost surreal, and I think she is absolutely right. The Associated Press is quoted on the cover of my Midden Classics Restored Text version of the book as saying “[Cooper] didn’t bring back the past, he imagined it, dreamed it, set down a vision of America that became real for millions.” The book does read more like a fantasy than historical fiction, at least so I think, though I have little experience with fantasy.
Cooper’s vision of the pre-American wilderness is otherworldly—a realm where the Indians have almost supernatural powers of cunning and resource in the wilderness that the Europeans can’t hope to attain (yet, somehow, Hawkeye, Uncas, and Chingachgook are able to thwart the mythical senses of the Hurons disguised as a bear or beaver, literally by wearing animal skins). Though the characters often reference the white men’s inevitable conquest of North America, Heyward, Cora, Alice, and David were sojourners in the Indian’s world through most of the novel. Hawkeye acts as a guide for the white travelers and the reader into the unfamiliar world. Cooper writes of the distinct Indian cultures with wonder, bewilderment, and even disgust that today would only be acceptable when writing of an entirely fictional people in a fantasy world. And perhaps Cooper was doing essentially that, by imagining the details of Indian life without any firsthand knowledge of the same.
Hawkeye repeatedly describes himself as “a man without a cross,” or “without a cross of blood.” There is sort of a fascination throughout the entire book with dividing people by blood. The whites are distinct from the Indians, the Delewares from the Maqua, I could go on if I had a better memory. The Indians would kill without a second thought simply based on tribal loyalties. I took the phrase “without a cross of blood,” to imply that Hawkeye had given up the bonds and burdens of race-based loyalty. Indeed, his closest and most trusted friends are Indians, yet he is willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of Cora and Alice. Then again, though Hawkeye freely admits he’s killed many Mingo, he would never knowingly kill a Delaware, suggesting he had substantially adopted the tribal loyalties of the Indians. There is some suggestion throughout the book of Uncas’s love for Cora, though it is unclear if Cora could ever requite the same. When Uncas and Cora die together, the implication taken up by the Indian girls and the reader is that the pair will overcome the cross of their color in the afterlife. Poor solution and dismal ending though it is, it seems to be the best Cooper can do.
I think this book provides plenty of fodder for thought and is worth the read, even if you have to skim the first several chapters.