A tale of a noble woodsman and a fair damsel as he guides her past the perils of Indians and the French in the wilderness on Lake Ontario. Suspense, intriguing characters and adventure. ( )

The Pathfinder shows Natty at his old trick of guiding tender damsels through the dangerous woods, and the siege at the blockhouse and the storm on Lake Ontario are considerably like other of Cooper's sieges and storms. Natty, in this novel commonly called the Pathfinder, keeps in a hardy middle age his simple and honest nature, which is severely tested by his love for a nineteen-year-old young woman, Mabel Dunham. She is a conventional heroine of romance. A certain soft amiability about her turns for a time all the thoughts of the scout to the world of domestic affections. More talkative than ever before, he reveals new mental and moral traits.

Here's what I wrote after reading in 1989: "Another of the Leather Stocking Tales. In this one, the noble and kind-hearted Pathfinder (Natty Bumppo) falls in love with the brave and virtuous Mable Durham. Tale is set on the Great Lakes and involves intrigue between the English Americans, French Canadians, and American Indians." ( )

I read The Deerslayer and The Last of the Mohicans many years ago, and was interested to discover this version of Natty Bumppo. In keeping with his era, Cooper is quite long-winded and didactic at times. I still enjoyed this story, although I probably won't read it again.

The Pathfinder embodies what many would describe as the 'noble savage' except he's white. He is noble and virtuous, a solitary man of the woods except for his Indian friend Chingachgook, who plays a much smaller role in this story. He falls in love, but is doomed to disappointment, which isn't really a spoiler as it is clear from the beginning that in order for the Pathfinder to marry Mable he would have to become something other than he is. He would have to leave off being a nomadic woodsman, which he himself recognizes would change him utterly. His chivalric attitudes almost guarantee that he will be single and celibate for life.

Although the Pathfinder plays a large role, the story is really about the adventures surrounding Mable, her father Sgt. Dunham, and Jasper Western, the captain of a boat on Lake Ontario. I liked dipping into this moment of pre-revolutionary history, when the French and their Indian allies still had designs on the American territory, and Americans were still subjects of the British. ( )

Ex-lib. JCC. Ex-lib. Newburgh Library, Ann Arbor ( )