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Entries by Jeff Sergent (143)

Thursday
Jun192014

The Great Tarzan Adventure #6: Jungle Tales of Tarzan

Jungle Tales of Tarzan is the other book I mentioned in review number four that I did not look forward to reading.  I had read somewhere it was about Tarzan pre-Jane contact.  Maybe I’m just not fond of prequels.  (I know or can infer what happened before – so let’s move forward!)  I’m at that point where I want to read some things similar to what I’d seen in the movies or comics.  I want lost civilizations and strange goings-on.  Well, Edgar Rice Burroughs saw fit to do otherwise, and I can’t say that I can complain too much.  For those of you who want to read more about Tarzan’s adolescent years, this is definitely the book for you.  I would say that it would help to have read book one, but this is a good hopping on point if your just getting here.  And if this is your hopping on point, read no further – there be spoilers ahead! 

Jungle Tales is actually a collection of twelve short stories that describe some important points in Tarzan’s maturation process.  Among other things, he learns about love, loss, justice and revenge, but, most signigicantly, he learns that he is different from the apes – not just physically.  I had initially expected the stories to focus on different points in his younger life, but they are really focused on a specific period, but it works because this appears to be a very formative period in his life.  Some of the stories address questions I’m sure everyone has considered.  For example, “Tarzan’s First Love” describes his love and battle for a female ape; “Tarzan and the Black Boy” describes a desperate attempt to alleviate the loneliness he experienced among the apes.  Other stories involved disputes and jokes played on the local tribe.  More memorable was “The End of Bukawai” where we see the true nature of man emerge in Tarzan in the form of revenge.  Two other memorable stories were “The Nightmare” and “Tarzan Rescues the Moon.”  The former details a nightmare, apparently his first, and how that leads Tarzan to distinguish himself from animals by power of imagination.  “Tarzan Rescues the Moon” offers some further insight into how he has begun to view the world differently from the apes. 

This collection was one of the biggest surprises for me so far in my Tarzan adventure and one of my biggest disappointments.  I absolutely loved the short story format with Tarzan.  He, like most pulp heroes, work best in this format because it’s more about what they do than who they are.  I wondered more than once if The Jewels of Opar wouldn’t have benefited from cutting it down to a novella.  Anyway, these are definitely heavy on action.  Actually, most tell of one thing Tarzan decides to do and that’s about it.  That’s not to say that there is no characterization.  Overall, this book may provide the most when the stories are considered as a whole.  We see him struggle with loneliness, especially once he loses the ape he loves to another, which leads to his kidnapping of a boy.  We also see him begin to understand that he thinks differently from the apes, he can imagine, he understands the passage of time.

Of course, as I stated earlier, I would have liked to have read from different periods in Tarzan’s life.  Right when I became excited about reading Tarzan in this form, the tales became less like stories and more like chapters.  When I go back to reread Conan or Kane, I pick and choose stories or read them in whatever order strikes my fancy.  That doesn’t mean you have to read these in any order, but they are definitely chronological in the book and, I would say, more enjoyable and easier to follow read when read in order.   They are definitely connected by time and space, unlike a lot of pulp stories.

Now to the bad.  Burroughs disappointed me majorly.  I’ve read arguments about his racism, but I always read his work for his stories and imaginations. The racism, what l saw anyway, I attributed to the time in which he lived, like with Howard, Lovecraft, or even Kipling.  Is that good or bad?  Well, that’s a good debate, and one I’d like to participate in some time, but I digress . . .  In Tarzan and the Black Boy, Burroughs presented me with a passage that really bothered, so much so, I had to put the book down and talk to chief Nerdblogger Dan. 

Here’s the passage: 

But Tibo, the little black boy, lacked the divine spark which had permitted Tarzan, the white boy, to benefit by his training in the ways of the fierce jungle. In imagination he was wanting, and imagination is but another name for super-intelligence.

Imagination it is which builds bridges, and cities, and empires. The beasts know it not, the blacks only a little, while to one in a hundred thousand of earth's dominant race it is given as a gift from heaven that man may not perish from the earth (Ballantine Books, 75).

When I read it, I wanted to think it was the narrator or speaker’s observations, but it’s difficult not to see Burroughs as narrator because of his many intrusions.  I even wanted it to be Tarzan’s thoughts because he had a definite grudge against Mbonga’s tribe, and he tended to generalize, especially at this period in his life.  But the observations seemed out of character for Tarzan.  He was starting to construct thoughts but . . . I guess I’m just rationalizing.  It’s there, it’s ugly.  There’s really not much more to say.  Your thoughts?   

Jungle Tales was an odd read for me.  I liked it more than I thought I would (but still not better than Beasts), but Burroughs let me down for the first time since I’ve been reading him from all the way back in high school.  I sincerely hope that this experience will not taint the rest of this great adventure for me.  I still read Howard and Lovecraft with no problems.  Anyway, time to move forward with Tarzan the Untamed, which I’ll get to in September.  Got to take a break to do some summer reading with my high school students.  So if you’ve been thinking about joining, here’s you a wonderful chance to catch up.  See you then!

 

Monday
Jun162014

Quite Quotable

Anyone who thinks he can draw a line between good and evil is at best mistaken, at worst demented.

George Turner, Drowning Towers

Sunday
Jun082014

Quite Quotable

The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.”

Larry Niven, Ringworld

Sunday
Jun012014

Quite Quotable

Things are always going to be falling apart on Earth, you might as well get used to it.

Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars

Thursday
May292014

The Great Tarzan Adventure #5: Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

Burroughs’s fifth Tarzan novel, Tarzan of the Jewels of Opar, is the first, to me anyhow, that read like a stand-alone adventure.  There were references to earlier volumes, we meet an old friend, the Waziri, and, of course, La and the lost city of Opar.  Still, there is no narrative carry over the way there was with the Russian storyline.  This would be a good place for the casual reader to jump in.  There’s a sense of continuity but not a necessity to know it.  For the dedicated reader, however, there’s little to be learned of the character or history of Tarzan.   

Be warned – spoilers ahead!

Tarzan has gone broke from some venture at the beginning of this tale.  No big deal for him, since his fortune came from the lost colony of Atlantis, Opar.  He simply has to go get more.  Until, that is, he takes a blow to the head and awakens with amnesia.  I don’t know how clichéd the plot device was during Burroughs’s time, but it just didn’t work for me.  I could be biased; these types of stories tend to frustrate me.  For one, I don’t like seeing the protagonist acting the opposite of the way he typically does.  And for another, it just seems like a lazy, too simple way to make conflict.  It happens, however, and bad stuff happens.  Jane is kidnapped by a band of Arabs with plans for ransom.  There’s the story of a Belgian who has murdered his officers and fled into the jungle and who gets wrapped up with the Arabs, and therefore Tarzan. 

Yeah, my thoughts exactly – where’s Opar in all of this?  I mean, he goes there, gets amnesia, and leaves.  La does pursue him to win back a sacred knife and because she’s totally, madly in love with him, but that’s pretty much it.  Everything, of course, works out in the end, but I was expecting a bit more from this one. 

So, yes, I was disappointed.  I rated it three on Goodreads, so I didn’t hate it.  I didn’t not like it. I was just disappointed.  Here’s my major complaints:

  1. Lack of information about Opar.  Burroughs spends about a page or so info-dumping about the history of Opar, for which I’m eternally grateful . . . I just wanted more.  I was expecting Tarzan to delve into the deep, dark recesses of Opar and uncover hidden truths, etc.  Didn’t happen.
  2. La made me cringe.  She made a brief but memorable appearance in Return, so I was expecting something earth-shattering here.  I mean, she’s pretty ingrained in the mythology outside the novels.  I wanted to know more about her, see her as a powerful woman.  Didn’t happen.
  3. Where’s Tarzan?  Was it just me, or did it seem like Tarzan was only in about half the book?  I wanted him exploring a lost world, battling strange beasts . . . Didn’t happen.
  4. Where’s Korak and Meriem?  They were introduced as a great power couple in the last book.  No, I didn’t expect them to reside at the Tarzan mansion, but I did expect them to at least be mentioned once.  Didn’t happen.
  5. An uncomfortable number of lions died in the course of the story.

If I could point to one thing that saved the book from total disillusion, it was Mugambi and the Waziri.   I was especially glad to see the return of Tarzan’s companion from Beasts, and his and the Waziri’s defense of Jane ranks as one of my favorite Edgar Rice Burroughs scenes.  Probably in my top twenty of reading period.  When the Arabs are attacking the Greystoke estate, the Warzir, lead by Mugambi, are gradually pushed into the house, then into the very room where Jane has sought refuge.  They fight and die, not giving an inch freely.  It was like a scene from Cy Endfield’s Zulu.  When Mugambi fell, I was genuinely saddened.  What a way to go though – very memorable.  And then when Burroughs brought him back, I can honestly say I wasn’t totally surprised.  I usually hate tricks like this one because they make the powerful death scene seem cheapened; it feels like a cheat.  Not this time.  I hope to see Mugambi later.  (Of course, I wrote the same thing about Korak and Meriem last time, and look where that got me.)   

The Jewels of Opar, by far, has been the biggest disappointment for me so far on this journey.  I probably sound a bit more bitter than I actually am, but I was so looking forward to this one, more than many of the others just based on titles.  Oh well, I’ve still got nineteen to go.  I expect there will be lots of ups and downs along the way.  Next on the list is The Jungle Tales of Tarzan.  It’s a collection of short stories from Tarzan’s youth.  If you’ve been thinking about joining the Adventure, here’s probably a very good chance to climb on board.

See you next time!