Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences: Difference between revisions

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# That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. But the ''Deerslayer'' tale [[Shaggy Dog Story|accomplishes nothing]] and [[No Ending|arrives in the air]].
# That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. But the ''Deerslayer'' tale [[Shaggy Dog Story|accomplishes nothing]] and [[No Ending|arrives in the air]].
# They require that [[Story Arc|the episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale]], and shall help to develop it. But as the ''Deerslayer'' tale is not a tale, and accomplishes nothing and arrives nowhere, the episodes [[Wacky Wayside Tribe|have no rightful place in the work]], since there was [[Filler|nothing for them to develop.]]
# They require that [[Story Arc|the episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale]], and shall help to develop it. But as the ''Deerslayer'' tale is not a tale, and accomplishes nothing and arrives nowhere, the episodes [[Wacky Wayside Tribe|have no rightful place in the work]], since there was [[Filler|nothing for them to develop.]]
# They require that the personages in a tale shall be [[Shaped Like Itself|alive, except in the case of corpses]], and that always the reader shall be able to tell [[Dull Surprise|the corpses from the others]]. But this detail has often been overlooked in the ''Deerslayer'' tale.
# They require that the personages in a tale shall be [[Shaped Like Itself|alive, except in the case of corpses]], and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often been overlooked in the ''Deerslayer'' tale.
# They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall [[Law of Conservation of Detail|exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there]]. But this detail also has been overlooked in the ''Deerslayer'' tale.
# They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall [[Law of Conservation of Detail|exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there]]. But [[Flat Character|this detail also has been overlooked]] in the ''Deerslayer'' tale.
# They require that when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, [[Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic|the talk shall sound like human talk,]] and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, [[Seinfeldian Conversation|and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand]], and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say. But this requirement has been ignored from the beginning of the ''Deerslayer'' tale to the end of it.
# They require that when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, [[Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic|the talk shall sound like human talk,]] and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, [[Seinfeldian Conversation|and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand]], and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say. But this requirement has been ignored from the beginning of the ''Deerslayer'' tale to the end of it.
# They require that when the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, [[Informed Attribute|the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description]]. But this law gets little or no attention in the ''Deerslayer'' tale, as Natty Bumppo's case will amply prove.
# They require that when the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, [[Informed Attribute|the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description]]. But this law gets little or no attention in the ''Deerslayer'' tale, as Natty Bumppo's case will amply prove.
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Cooper's gift in the way of invention was not a rich endowment; but such as it was he liked to work it, he was pleased with the effects, and indeed he did some quite sweet things with it. In his little box of stage properties he kept [[Signature Style|six or eight cunning devices, tricks, artifices]] for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go. A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of the moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick. Another [[Trope|stage-property]] that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was his [[So Much for Stealth|broken twig.]] He prized his broken twig above all the rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. [[So Much for Stealth|It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn't step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around.]] Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, [[With Catlike Tread|he is sure to step on a dry twig.]] There may be a hundred handier things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. [[Running Gag|Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig;]] and if he can't do it, go and borrow one. In fact, the Leather Stocking Series ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series.
Cooper's gift in the way of invention was not a rich endowment; but such as it was he liked to work it, he was pleased with the effects, and indeed he did some quite sweet things with it. In his little box of stage properties he kept [[Signature Style|six or eight cunning devices, tricks, artifices]] for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go. A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of the moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick. Another [[Trope|stage-property]] that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was his [[So Much for Stealth|broken twig.]] He prized his broken twig above all the rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. [[So Much for Stealth|It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn't step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around.]] Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, [[With Catlike Tread|he is sure to step on a dry twig.]] There may be a hundred handier things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. [[Running Gag|Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig;]] and if he can't do it, go and borrow one. In fact, the Leather Stocking Series ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series.


I am sorry there is not room to put in a few dozen instances of [[Scarily Competent Tracker|the delicate art of the forest, as practised by Natty Bumppo]] and some of the other Cooperian experts. Perhaps we may venture two or three samples. Cooper was a sailor--a naval officer; yet he gravely tells us how a vessel, driving towards a lee shore in a gale, is steered for a particular spot by her skipper because he knows of an undertow there which will hold her back against the gale and save her. [[Dan Browned|For just pure woodcraft, or sailorcraft, or whatever it is, isn't that neat?]] For several years Cooper was daily in the society of artillery, and he ought to have noticed that when a cannon-ball strikes the ground it either buries itself or skips a hundred feet or so; skips again a hundred feet or so--and so on, till finally it gets tired and rolls. Now in one place he loses some "females"--[[Insistent Terminology|as he always calls women]]--in the edge of a wood near a plain at night in a fog, on purpose to give Bumppo a chance to show off the delicate art of the forest before the reader. These mislaid people are hunting for a fort. They hear a cannonblast, and a cannon-ball presently comes rolling into the wood and stops at their feet. To the females this suggests nothing. The case is very different with the admirable Bumppo. I wish I may never know peace again if he doesn't strike out promptly and follow the track of that cannon-ball across the plain through the dense fog and find the fort. Isn't it a daisy? If Cooper had any real knowledge of Nature's ways of doing things, he had a most delicate art in concealing the fact. For instance: one of his acute Indian experts, Chingachgook ([[It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY"|pronounced Chicago]], [[No Pronunciation Guide|I think]]), has lost the trail of a person he is tracking through the forest. Apparently that trail is hopelessly lost. Neither you nor I could ever have guessed out the way to find it. It was very different with [[Only Known by Their Nickname|Chicago]]. Chicago was not stumped for long. He turned a running stream out of its course, and there, in the slush in its old bed, were that person's moccasin-tracks. The current did not wash them away, as it would have done in all other like cases--no, [[Magical Native American|even the eternal laws of Nature have to vacate]] when Cooper wants to put up a delicate job of woodcraft on the reader.
I am sorry there is not room to put in a few dozen instances of [[Scarily Competent Tracker|the delicate art of the forest, as practised by Natty Bumppo]] and some of the other Cooperian experts. Perhaps we may venture two or three samples. Cooper was a sailor--a naval officer; yet he gravely tells us how a vessel, driving towards a lee shore in a gale, is steered for a particular spot by her skipper because he knows of an undertow there which will hold her back against the gale and save her. For just pure woodcraft, or sailorcraft, or whatever it is, isn't that neat? <ref>Mark Twain worked as a steamboat pilot on Mississippi for years. These parts may well be what set him off in the first place.</ref> For several years Cooper was daily in the society of artillery, and he ought to have noticed that when a cannon-ball strikes the ground it either buries itself or skips a hundred feet or so; skips again a hundred feet or so--and so on, till finally it gets tired and rolls. Now in one place he loses some "females"--[[Insistent Terminology|as he always calls women]]--in the edge of a wood near a plain at night in a fog, on purpose to give Bumppo a chance to show off the delicate art of the forest before the reader. These mislaid people are hunting for a fort. They hear a cannonblast, and a cannon-ball presently comes rolling into the wood and stops at their feet. To the females this suggests nothing. The case is very different with the admirable Bumppo. I wish I may never know peace again if he doesn't strike out promptly and follow the track of that cannon-ball across the plain through the dense fog and find the fort. Isn't it a daisy? [[Dan Browned|If Cooper had any real knowledge of Nature's ways of doing things, he had a most delicate art in concealing the fact.]] For instance: one of his acute Indian experts, Chingachgook ([[It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY"|pronounced Chicago]], [[No Pronunciation Guide|I think]]), has lost the trail of a person he is tracking through the forest. Apparently that trail is hopelessly lost. Neither you nor I could ever have guessed out the way to find it. It was very different with [[Only Known by Their Nickname|Chicago]]. Chicago was not stumped for long. He turned a running stream out of its course, and there, in the slush in its old bed, were that person's moccasin-tracks. The current did not wash them away, as it would have done in all other like cases--no, [[Magical Native American|even the eternal laws of Nature have to vacate]] when Cooper wants to put up a delicate job of woodcraft on the reader.


We must be a little wary when Brander Matthews tells us that Cooper's books "reveal an extraordinary fulness of invention." As a rule, I am quite willing to accept Brander Matthews's literary judgments and applaud his lucid and graceful phrasing of them; but that particular statement needs to be taken with a few tons of salt. Bless your heart, Cooper hadn't any more invention than a horse; and [[Insult to Rocks|I don't mean a high-class horse]], either; I mean a clothes-horse. [[Cliché Storm|It would be very difficult to find a really clever "situation" in Cooper's books]], and still more difficult to find one of any kind which he has failed to [[Narm|render absurd by his handling of it]]. Look at the episodes of "the caves"; and at the celebrated scuffle between Maqua and those others on the table-land a few days later; and at Hurry Harry's queer water-transit from the castle to the ark; and at Deerslayer's half-hour with his first corpse; and at the quarrel between Hurry Harry and Deerslayer later; and at-- but choose for yourself; you can't go amiss.
We must be a little wary when Brander Matthews tells us that Cooper's books "reveal an extraordinary fulness of invention." As a rule, I am quite willing to accept Brander Matthews's literary judgments and applaud his lucid and graceful phrasing of them; but that particular statement needs to be taken with a few tons of salt. Bless your heart, Cooper hadn't any more invention than a horse; and [[Insult to Rocks|I don't mean a high-class horse]], either; I mean a clothes-horse. [[Cliché Storm|It would be very difficult to find a really clever "situation" in Cooper's books]], and still more difficult to find one of any kind which he has failed to [[Narm|render absurd by his handling of it]]. Look at the episodes of "the caves"; and at the celebrated scuffle between Maqua and those others on the table-land a few days later; and at Hurry Harry's queer water-transit from the castle to the ark; and at Deerslayer's half-hour with his first corpse; and at the quarrel between Hurry Harry and Deerslayer later; and at-- but choose for yourself; you can't go amiss.
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{{quote|"'Be all ready to clench it, boys!' cried out Pathfinder, stepping into his friend's tracks the instant they were vacant. 'Never mind a new nail; I can see that, though the paint is gone, and what I can see I can hit at a hundred yards, though it were only a mosquito's eye. Be ready to clench!'
{{quote|"'Be all ready to clench it, boys!' cried out Pathfinder, stepping into his friend's tracks the instant they were vacant. 'Never mind a new nail; I can see that, though the paint is gone, and what I can see I can hit at a hundred yards, though it were only a mosquito's eye. Be ready to clench!'



"The rifle cracked, the bullet sped its way, and the head of the nail was buried in the wood, covered by the piece of flattened lead." }}
"The rifle cracked, the bullet sped its way, and the head of the nail was buried in the wood, covered by the piece of flattened lead." }}
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{{quote|"'Point de quartier aux coquins!' cried an eager pursuer, who seemed to direct the operations of the enemy.
{{quote|"'Point de quartier aux coquins!' cried an eager pursuer, who seemed to direct the operations of the enemy.



"'Stand firm and be ready, my gallant 60ths!' suddenly exclaimed a voice above them; wait to see the enemy; fire low, and sweep the glacis.'
"'Stand firm and be ready, my gallant 60ths!' suddenly exclaimed a voice above them; wait to see the enemy; fire low, and sweep the glacis.'



"'Father? father!' exclaimed a piercing cry from out the mist; 'it is I! Alice! thy own Elsie! spare, O! save your daughters!'
"'Father? father!' exclaimed a piercing cry from out the mist; 'it is I! Alice! thy own Elsie! spare, O! save your daughters!'



"'Hold!' shouted the former speaker, in the awful tones of parental agony, the sound reaching even to the woods, and rolling back in solemn echo. ''[[Large Ham|Tis she! God has restored me my children!]] [[Rousing Speech|Throw open the sally-port; to the field, 60ths, to the field! pull not a trigger, lest ye kill my lambs! Drive off these dogs of France with your steel]]!'" }}
"'Hold!' shouted the former speaker, in the awful tones of parental agony, the sound reaching even to the woods, and rolling back in solemn echo. ''[[Large Ham|Tis she! God has restored me my children!]] [[Rousing Speech|Throw open the sally-port; to the field, 60ths, to the field! pull not a trigger, lest ye kill my lambs! Drive off these dogs of France with your steel]]!'" }}
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