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.