The Return of Tarzan (Tarzan (Audio))

Rating:
Summary: A Charming Yarn
Review: 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:
Summary: Entertaining, better than the films.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Tarzan takes Paris!
Review: That's not the whole story of course but it's an impressive part of it. Tarz renounces his family name,fortune and the woman he loves, giving it all to his cousin, and he does it all in Wisconsin! Yup, Wisconsin. Hurting from the ordeal, he heads off to Paris to forget about Jane. Wow, the Apeman in the City of Lights! So he spends time in Paris, almost has an affair with a Russian noblewoman, whups on her brother(an evil Russian spy), hangs out in art galleries and operas and eventually joins the French Secret Service out of boredom. All this is just the set-up for the rest of the novel. The book does seem to end too quickly but I think that has more to do with the serial/pulp nature of the story's publication deadline than any fault of the author. Tarzan and The Return of... are an entertaining 0ne-Two punch. Anyone who reads #1 should finish the experience by reading #2. I wish someone would make a film of this book, it's more interesting than the first one.