a.k.a. V.J.

A fun fact about my hometown: it was the setting for a piece of classic American literature. Sort of.

I say “sort of” because the novel in question, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pathfinder, or, The Inland Sea, was set at a time when the patch of ground that is now Fulton was really just a portage in the wilderness. It also might be a stretch to call The Pathfinder a classic. The novel was one of the installments of The Leatherstocking Tales, best known as the series that included The Last of the Mohicans. The latter novel is certainly an American classic (even if I personally find it unreadable), but the other books in the series are not nearly as well regarded. It would be a bit like claiming that Jaws 3-D was a classic film, based on the cinematic achievement of the original Jaws.

Comparing The Pathfinder to Jaws 3-D might be overly harsh; or maybe it isn’t. I can’t really say because I’ve never been able to make it through the book, despite several attempts. James Fenimore Cooper was wildly popular in the nineteenth century, but I don’t think his style has aged particularly well for modern readers. This modern reader, at least, finds it to be tough sledding. Mark Twain (who famously mocked Cooper’s writing style) is credited as saying, “A classic is something that everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read.” That’s how I feel about The Leatherstocking Tales in general and The Pathfinder in particular. I want to have read it due to the local significance, but I have no desire to actually slog through Cooper’s prose.

Even if I can’t embrace the novel, I still like the fact that my little corner of the world is represented in a piece of fiction that is probably available in most American libraries. The literary connection has been a longstanding point of local pride, with an Oswego-based bank, a Fulton housing complex, an island in the Oswego River, and a dining hall on the SUNY Oswego campus all bearing the name “Pathfinder.” Maine has Stephen King, Mississippi has William Faulkner, and Boston has Robert B. Parker, but here in Fulton, we’re hangin’ with Mr. Cooper.