The Deerslayer Audiobook By James Fenimore Cooper cover art

The Deerslayer

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The Deerslayer

By: James Fenimore Cooper
Narrated by: Raymond Todd
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The Deerslayer is the first of the Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper. Here we meet Natty Bumppo as a young man living in upstate New York in the early 1740s. The action begins as Bumppo, called "Deerslayer", and his friend Hurry Harry approach Lake Glimmerglass, or Oswego, where the trapper Thomas Hutter lives with his daughters, the beautiful Judith and the feeble-minded Hetty. Hutter's floating log fort is attacked by Iroquois Indians, and the two frontiersmen join in the fight.(P)2001 Blackstone Audiobooks Classics Fiction Historical Fiction American Literature Family Classics
Historical Adventure • Cultural Insights • Excellent Character Voices • Vivid Descriptions • Suspenseful Moments
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The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper was written in 1841. I found the story interesting. The more formal writing typical of books written in the 1800s was fun to hear, but I discovered I kept wanting to push the story along as it seemed very slow. I thought it was a good idea to reread a classic and remember what the world was like at that time in America.

I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is twenty hours and fifteen minutes. Raymond Todd does a good job narrating the book.

Interesting

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As a whole, the novel was slow. A physical copy is 550 pages, and yet takes place over three or four days. Plus, parts were exist and racist. BUT other parts broke stereotypes! They talked about equality between all races, not all Natives being the same, and Natives having the land before whites. Not to mention, women sweep in to save the day! (What?!) The descriptions are long and definitely something you'll want to speed up, but the portrayal of women and Natives in the 1840s was astonishing.

Interestingly radical for its time

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I started reading this book back in April of 1990 while I was on the deployment with the U.S. Navy on the USS Eisenhower. Life got in the way and I picked it up and put it down a few times over the years. It wasn’t until about a month ago that I picked it back up, only this time through Audible to finally get it read. It was a long journey but in the end it was worth waiting for. So glad I finally finished reading this book. Now off to the next adventure hopefully not another 30 years in the making!

30 years in the making

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This is a good portrayal of manliness as seen through the eyes of nineteenth-century Americans.

Excellent performance

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Loved how it kept moving and kept increasing interest. Vivid representations of people and the events.

Compelling story.

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If you could sum up The Deerslayer in three words, what would they be?

Very historical and important classic on the history of this country and why it is what was before the liberals took over

What other book might you compare The Deerslayer to and why?

Last of the Mohicans

Have you listened to any of Raymond Todd’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Have and he was good

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no

Any additional comments?

Just great

Great classic

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Classic American story. The reader was very good. Interesting that when Deerslayer was written, 1841, there was awareness of the sad consequences of colonization on Native Americans. Cooper understood that the notion of White cultural superiority was a poor myth, that Spirituality is not unique to white Christians and that not all Christians follow the teachings of their bible. The writer dwells overlong on moralizing, hitting the reader repeatedly and at great length on the fact of cultural equivalency , that Europeans and Indians each have their respective ‘gifts’ that are suited to their respective circumstances. Cooper is unduly harsh in judging Judith, not granting her the possibility that her love for Deerslayer revealed her basic goodness. She deserved better.

Happy to have read Deerslayer

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Listening, instead of reading permitted me to imagine more vividly what JFC intended to portray in this story. I would have struggled with the accents and pronunciations. The narrator did a fine job distinguishing between the characters.
I appreciated the historical context through the lens of his time and not our current pc. It’s no wonder The Deerslayer has remained a favorite.

A glimpse into the past

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The first of the Leatherstocking tales, it captures the attention and imagination. Although the reader has a god voice, he seemed not to understand what he was reading many times and so puts the emphasis on the wrong words. This makes understanding and following the story difficult sometimes. The language is often archaic and even anachronistic; sometimes it seemed like bigger words were used when shorter ones would have done at least as well.
But in all, I thought it well worthwhile and it had many exciting episodes.

excellent story; reading acceptable but not great

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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

If you like adventure, history and the English language you cannot help but enjoy this story. Cooper wrote this in the late 1840's, and as anyone can tell you the English language was quiet different, something I greatly enjoyed. This gives a correctness to his story that cannot be obtained by an modern author. As in his other works he had extensive knowledge of the area he was writing about, and the American tribes that inhabited those regions. As such he was able to paint a picture that was easy to see.

Any additional comments?

This is a slow book to start, but well worth reading if you enjoy adventure stories from the early years of the American Continent.

Excellent

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