Parked in Cooperville

Now that the holidays have far-too-quickly passed and I’ve entered a new semester both as prof and student, I have again taken up the task of reading for my comps. Since I began last year, I’ve made it through these titles.

Amis, Kingsley – Lucky Jim

Barth, John – The Sot-Weed Factor

Bradbury, Ray – The Martian Chronicles

Burney, Fanny – Camilla

Bunyan, John – Pilgrim’s Progress

Cather, Willa – My Ántonia

Chopin, Kate – The Awakening

Cooper, James Fenimore – The Deerslayer

Cooper, James Fenimore – The Pathfinder

Crane, Stephen – Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Stories

DeFoe, Daniel – Moll Flanders

DeFoe, Daniel – Robinson Crusoe

Fitzgerald, James Scott – The Great Gatsby

Hardy, Thomas – Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Heller, Joseph – Catch 22

James, Henry – The Portrait of a Lady

Kerouac, Jack – On the Road

Lewis, Sinclair – Main Street

McCarthy, Cormac – The Road

Richardson, Samuel – Pamela

Shelley, Mary – Frankenstein

Steinbeck, John – The Grapes of Wrath

Stoker, Bram – Dracula

Stowe, Harriet Beecher – Uncle Tom’s Cabin

After I finished reading the titles on the list that I had lying around the house, I started in alphabetically by author. I’ve reached the “C’s,” though as I mentioned in a previous post, it took me a few trips to used-book stores to locate anything by James Fenimore Cooper besides The Last of the Mohicans.

I just finished The Deerslayer (so named because protagonist Natty Bumppo took no pleasure in killing humans) and The Pathfinder (his nickname some years later). Now I’ve started The Prairie, in which Bumppo, now called “the trapper,” has passed his eightieth year. The whole series comprises The Leatherstocking Tales, and for a girl whose ancestors came across the plains in a Conestoga wagon, the stories offer hours of great story telling with particularly wonderful settings, well developed characters, and excellent dialogue. Cooper’s historical fiction has taught me so much about our country’s history and geography—historical fiction at its best.

Cooper died in 1851, and I find that I prefer works that predate 1900 to those written in the past century. For one thing, the older stuff contains more interesting vocabulary and turns of phrases.

This author also has much to teach writers wishing to develop characters’ faith views without resorting to preachiness. At this Cooper is a master.

So far Cooper wins the title of “Most Likely to Recommend to My Dad,” who reads vociferously and has probably already read the series.

Pretty awesome as homework goes. I can think of way worse ways to pass an afternoon.