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Title: Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs ISBN: 0-345-31575-8 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 12 February, 1984 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (15 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Charming Yarn
Comment: In a way, Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Return Of Tarzan is his most exemplary work. That is to say, it contains the best examples of what works and what doesn't in Burroughs' fiction.
First, what doesn't:
1) If you have a problem with ridiculous coincidences, The Return Of Tarzan is probably not for you. I sometimes think "Serendipity" is Burroughs' real middle name. For example: in ROT, Tarzan is thrown overboard and swims ashore to the same spot on the west coast of Africa where he was born. A little later, Jane Porter, the love of Tarzan's life, is shipwrecked at the EXACT SAME SPOT.
(Wait, it gets better.)
Finallly, Paul D'Arnot, Tarzan's best friend, JUST HAPPENS to be patroling that same strech of African coast and JUST HAPPENS to decide to investigate Tarzan's birthplace AT THE SAME TIME that Tarzan and Jane are there.
I mean, come ON.
2) As Gore Vidal has pointed out, Burroughs couldn't write dialogue to save his life. For example, in ROT he has Rokoff, the novel's heavy, exclaim, "Name of a name!". Does anyone talk like this? Has anyone EVER talked like this?
Next, what does:
1) Burroughs is, as much if not more so than any writer of his generation, a natural born yarn-spinner. If I had to pick any writer, living or dead, to sit around the campfire with my friends and I and keep us entertained, Burroughs would probably be the one.
2) Burroughs was absolutely gifted in describing action, fight scenes in particular. I think the great Robert E. Howard may have been his only peer in this regard.
3) Burroughs probably gets more mileage out of the "fish-out-of-water" scenario than any writer I've ever read. My favorite example of this is a scene in which Tarzan, wild man of Africa, is depicted haunting the libraries and museums of Paris by day, and sipping absinthe(!) and smoking cigarettes at Parisian clubs by night. What a picture! Did he ever run into Ernest Hemingway? Now THERE'S an idea for a story!
Upon reading The Return Of Tarzan, many would say it's a fairy tale, pure escapism.
Well, thank goodness for that. Burroughs may not have been a peer of the Vidals and Hemingways of the world; nonetheless, we need him just as much.
Rating: 4
Summary: The best Tarzan adventure
Comment: "Return of Tarzan" is my favorite Tarzan book I have read. John Greystoke (Tarzan) has renounced his title and begins to return to the wild when he becomes involved in some Russian theives, then takes empolyment with the French Secret Service, and after a while goes back to Africa to become a cheif of a warrior tribe, finaly discovering Opar, an ancient jewel mine for Atlantis. Jane Porter has many adventures herself, getting involved with Russian spies (the same one Tarzan fought earlier) and then is ship wrecked in Africa, and is taken prisoner and offered up as human sacrifice by the pristess of Opar. The action is great, and I loved the description of nature, the jungles, deserts, and the oceans. The temple in Opar is very realistic (as far as this fantasy genere goes), and Tarzan is still pretty green to civilization, prefering the savage wilderness to the cities. There is only one complaint, and that's the huge coincidences that keep happening; both Tarzan and Jane run into the same people (the Russian and the Oparian pristess), it's just too much. But hey, this is nothing compared with what happens later in the series, when Burroughs gets really lazy.
Rating: 4
Summary: Entertaining, better than the films.
Comment: Like most people, I encountered Tarzan in movies, but only about a year ago got around to reading the first book. What a different experience. I don't think I've seen a movie that was very faithful to the novel. "Greystoke" got the tone and theme, if not the narrative. What's is essential to the books, and usually left out of the screenplays, is Tarzan's ability to live in the jungle, but to function in "civilized" society as well.
The second novel (like the first) is essentially episodic. Tarzan, having renounced Jane Porter's love and his title, embarks on a series of adventures, including saving a woman's honor, surviving a duel, traveling to the Middle East as a secret agent, and finally finding himself marooned in the jungle he grew up, and discovering the city of Opar.
Overall, the novel entertains. Tarzan remains a solid character. Occasionally, Burroughs' prose tends towards purple, and some of the dialogue can be stilted. There are also certain descriptions of the native African peoples which aren't terribly enlightened. However, the whole book is a blast.
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Title: Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Gore Vidal ISBN: 0451524233 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: March, 1990 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: Tarzan 2-in-1 (The Beasts of Tarzan/The Son of Tarzan) by Edgar Rice Burroughs ISBN: 0345408306 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 30 September, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs ISBN: 0809599805 Publisher: Wildside Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs ISBN: 080959983X Publisher: Wildside Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Tarzan the Terrible by Edgar Rice Burroughs ISBN: 0809599821 Publisher: Wildside Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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