Pynchon mention

[vze422fs at verizon.net]

on 2/5/03 3:48 PM, Otto at ottosell at yahoo.de wrote:

> It's been mostly ignored that it's American literature (except the fact that
> there's slavery of course), seen as typical boys' adventure literature.
> I don't think that anybody has called it quintessentially American. And
> Twain hadn't been presented to me at school.
> 
> I've read "Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn" only once after I had finished
> Fenimore Cooper (short version of all five big novels in one book) when I
> was maybe ten or twelve years old, after seeing the tv-mini series. I guess
> that after finishing it I returned for another time to F.C. which I've read
> several times before I finally got the full novels much later (in 1986). For
> some reason in my mind Tom & Huck never became such American heroes
> as Nat Bumppo and Chingachgook.
> 
> Otto

Last of the Mohicans and the Deerslayer are not widely taught in American
public schools. The others (The Prairie, The Frontier) are virtually
ignored. Cooper has never been accorded the iconic status of Twain to the
general public. Perhaps the language is a bit florid.

Thanks for the always surprising European perspective on things we often
take for granted.

Joe

 > 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: vze422fs at verizon.net
> To: Elainemmbell at aol.com ; malignd at yahoo.com ; pynchon-l at waste.org
> Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 8:09 PM
> Subject: Re: Pynchon mention
>> 
>> I'm curious as to the opinions of our European friends. Was Twain
>> presented to them as something quintessentially American? Or ignored
>> altogether?
>> 
>> Joe
>> 
> 
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