Lessons on greed and vanity from an inanimate narrator
Like many an autobiography of its time, the book begins with a genealogical overview of its handkerchief narrator. The handkerchief, who identifies as a female, explains that she is descended from flaxseed that was bred in Massachusetts, packed in a keg and loaded on a British ship, stolen by French pirates in the Atlantic, then taken to Picardy where it was sown, grown, spun, and woven into a bolt of cambric. Having been cut from the center of this cloth, the narrator considers herself a political moderate, as opposed to her siblings that were cut from the left and right extremes of the sheet. The unadorned fabric of the hanky is then purchased by a down-on-her-luck French maiden who lovingly emblazons the cloth with embroidery and lace, thus producing an exceptional handkerchief that commands high prices. The narrator explains that handkerchiefs not only have the ability to see and hear what is occurring around them but also possess an added power of clairvoyance that even allows them to read the thoughts and feelings of those in their vicinity. This is fortunate because the handkerchief spends long stretches of the narrative shut up in drawers and chests, yet is still able to relate the human events taking place in the houses in which she dwells.
Cooper obviously wrote this work with some degree of satire in mind. Rarely if ever is it laugh-out-loud funny, however, and the handkerchief relates its story with the poker face of a classic comedy straight man. One wonders what a writer like Balzac, who specialized in comedies of manners with a bitingly satirical sense of humor, could have done with a premise like this. Cooper, on the other hand, is primarily known as a historical novelist, the Sir Walter Scott of colonial America. Humor isn’t exactly his strong point, so instead of satire what really shines through this bizarre story is the moral message that Cooper wishes to impart. The various hands through which the handkerchief passes illustrate the contrast between shallow materialism and virtuous love. Regardless of their French or American origin, the women who possess or covet the handkerchief are either saints or gold diggers; the men who court them run the gamut from noble gentlemen of pure intentions to opportunists looking for advantageous marriages to further their position in society. Those in the latter category suffer the most ridiculous lampooning from Cooper. Overall, the plot resembles something similar to a less skillfully executed take on one of Anthony Trollope’s Victorian romances, except for having the strange added dimension of being narrated by an inanimate object.
Nowadays we know Cooper best for his Leatherstocking Tales and other novels of adventure, war, and wilderness. He was, however, a more versatile author who frequently published fiction and essays of social commentary on political events in Europe, of which this novel is an atypical example. Autobiography of a Pocket Handkerchief is unlikely to make anyone forget The Last of the Mohicans, but this unusual literary curiosity does prove more entertaining than one might expect.
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