The Monikins

by James Fenimore Cooper

Book Overview

It is not improbable that some of those who read this book, may feel a wish to know in what manner I became possessed of the manuscript. Such a desire is too just and natural to be thwarted, and the tale shall be told as briefly as possible. During the summer of 1828, while travelling among those valleys of Switzerland which lie between the two great ranges of the Alps, and in which both the Rhone and the Rhine take their rise, I had passed from the sources of the latter to those of the former river, and had reached that basin in the mountains that is so celebrated for containing the glacier of the Rhone, when chance gave me one of those rare moments of sublimity and solitude, which are the more precious in the other hemisphere from their infrequency.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1515006069
• ISBN13: 9781515006060
• Release Date: July 2015
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 124 Pages
• Weight: 0.67 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 8.5" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

Caudology, The Seat of All Reason

'The Monikins' was written at the exact midpoint of James Fenimore Cooper's thirty year writing career, and is totally unique in his body of works. Although it embraces nearly all of the themes and many of the ideas found in his other works, 'The Monikins' stands as Cooper's only satire. The tale is that of a member of the English aristocracy, Sir John Goldencalf, a staunch defender of the European social-stake system, and his travels among the lands of highly intelligent monkeys, the Monikins, near the South Pole. Although it has satirical and structural similarities to 'Gulliver's Travels' by Jonathan Swift, it is more directly concerned with a comparison of governmental considerations between European social-stake, specifically English, governments, and the more democratic republic government found in the United States, with the US system being ultimately vindicated. The book itself is a rather difficult read given its stilted language (it was published in 1835), but after a slow start, becomes rapidly absorbing. The language itself can be sometimes a bit of a barrier to the modern reader, with great portions like "Kinder; but more bisonish than any thing else. Let them go on, Sir John; and when the time comes, we will take them aback, or set me down as a pettifogger." This line (and others like it) sent me scurrying to my dictionary to discover that a pettifogger is 'a petty, unscrupulous lawyer; a shyster,' which makes the sentence much clearer. Other delightful contrivances in the book (though with equally florid language) are the chapter titles and subtitles Cooper chose. My two favorites are Chapter 24, 'An Arrival, An Election--Architecture--A Rolling-Pin--Patriotism of the Most Approved Water', and, Chapter 12 , 'Better and Better--A Higher Flight of Reason--More Obvious Truths, Deeper Philosophy, And Facts That Even an Ostrich Might Digest.' These titles emphasize the satire by their over the top pretentiousness vis-a-vis the chapter to come. The plot concerns Sir John and Captain Noah Poke, and American, voyaging to the Polar Regions to repatriate four monikins who were stranded in France. The voyage takes them to Leaphigh, home of the monikins in question, and the allegorical equivalent to the monarchy of England, and later to Leaplow, the equivalent of the United States. Cooper is particularly brilliant in his coverage of the US government in which there is a President, 'The Great Sachem'; a Senate, 'The Riddles'; a House of Representatives, 'The Legion' (more commonly 'The House of Bobees'); a Supreme Court, 'The Supreme Arbitrators'; and a Constitution, 'The Sacred Allegory'. Although Cooper favors the republic of the US; he also does not shirk from its foibles, with references to a 'moral eclipse', and witty observations that are both satire and clever wordplay, such as: "The institutions of Leaplow are divided into two great moral categories, viz. the legal and the subjective. The former embraces the provisions of the great elem