Literature Network » James Fenimore Cooper

HOW DESTINY HAS ELUDED A MAN OF VISION

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From: The Boston Globe
Date: 20021030
Author:Michael Kenney, Globe Correspondent

Eustace Conway is hardly the first, and is unlikely to be the last, American man to head off into the woods in search of life and liberty (along with the pursuit of happiness). Few, however, have been more fortunate in their chronicler - excepting, perhaps, Natty Bumppo, and James Fenimore Cooper had to invent him.

For what Elizabeth Gilbert has done, in this absorbing biography, a finalist for the National Book Award, is to suggest that the "history of man's prog ress on the North American continent" can be found in the life story of a 42-year-old man who is pretty much a failure at human ...

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