"I Think, Therefore I Ant."
October 18
The
Tarzan Journals
Embrace
literature! Read and become
cultivated. Sure, some might say that where there's culture there's bacteria,
but they... Actually, that's a pretty good line.
My
point is that I’m currently discovering the literary joys of reading Edgar Rice
Burroughs, the great penster behind the Tarzan books; and no lie, I am a
happier guy for it. In fact, I’m so impressed that I’d love to form a
ladies' book club (because it’s always nice to come into contact with
well-read-ladies) to meet once or twice a day and just gab about what a cool
savage Tarzan is. I think it’d
be fun. We certainly wouldn’t have to worry too hard about fretting over
stuff like literary merit.
Now I know a Tarzan ladies’ book club (with me) might be a hard sell to the
ladies of suburbia: To begin with, the book’s author makes it hard for the
fairer sex to warm up to him (FYI statements like “fairer sex” are pretty
much a staple in a Rice novel). If you’re a woman in an Edgar Burroughs Rice
novel then what really defines your character isn’t so much your character
development but your character’s ability to faint on cue and wonder as you
plummet to the ground when on earth a man will arrive to save you.
Either that or you’re a fat black maid who also faints, but, being
fat AND black, you faint far less gracefully. Oh, and after you’ve come to
from your latest dizzy spell you then say funny things like, “Sho ‘nuff
dat time I taught da Lawd was a coming to git me!”
Obviously
it’s kind of a tough sell to the book club types.
Apparently
the literary critics of the day felt the same way. I
can understand.
Having chuckled my merry way through the first Tarzan book, I am
currently chortling and flipping through the pages of Rice’s sequel, “The
Return of Tarzan” In this one Tarzan, well, returns and…
Actually,
I don’t know much more as of yet. I’m
not that far into it. I do know this much: even as "Tarzan of the Apes" continued to pour off the book
stands, Burroughs was working on this sequel. I gather he felt that if
anything was a surefire success, this was it!
And after cheerfully mailing it off to his publishers I also gather he
was somewhat devastated when they rejected it. Why would they do such a thing?
Who knows? Maybe it had
something to do with the writing.
And that’s why we’re here. To spend a little time together as
I share some of the finer literary moments of “The Return of Tarzan”.
But
first a quick summary… Tarzan
has left the civilized world and is back on his way to savage
Africa
after renouncing his right to the woman he loves (Jane of the fainting
spells).
We find him on an ocean liner. We
also discover that after living among civilized men for a short period of time
he now smokes and drinks. Hey, the
big guy’s learning! It also
appears there are all kinds of shady activities afoot on the big ocean tub.
These seem to evolve around a new woman (a Russian countess who goes by
the name of Olga, because if there was ever a sexier name for a countess,
I’ve never heard it), her husband, her criminal brother, his despicable
criminal partner, and the professor and Mary Ann.
So
far, and as best as I can tell, Tarzan seems to do a fair amount of jungle
like preying as well as stalking of the ship’s passengers. It
appears to be making him lots of female admirers and more than one villainous
enemy.
On
page 16 we read of Tarzan’s musings on a woman he has recently
encountered...
Tarzan could not but wonder what manner
of conspiracy was on foot, or what the scheme of the two men might be. There
had been something rather familiar about the appearance of the veiled woman to
whose rescue he had just come, but as he had not seen her face he could not be
sure that he had ever seen her before…
Exciting,
isn’t it? Now, just a few inches
over to the
right, on page 17, Tarzan espies a new gal…
He smiled to himself at the result of
his very uncivilized and ungallant action, for he had not lowered his own eyes
when they met those of a young woman. She was very young and equally good to
look upon. Further, there was something rather familiar about her
that set Tarzan to wondering where he had seen her before…
Hmm,
well I know where I’ve seen that sentence before – on the opposite side of
the page in my paperback. Will it
turn out to be the same woman? I
suspect as much but I sure hope not. A Tarzan three-way sounds rife with
potential.
More
later!
Meanwhile...
Ten Men Who
Can’t Do Drag
The
Monsters That Tucked Me In
Satan’s New Image
The 12
Strange Faces of Jesus
 Liner
Notes From Bad Albums
Twisted
Toys In The Attic
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Monsters From Way Back
What
to say in a Job Interview
Journals of Leon
Schlesinger
Powerful
Superwomen
 Top
Ten Books of Summer 2005
Fashion Faux
Pas
Last Christmas is so 2005...
Only 69 Shopping Days Left Until Xmas!
(to
the top)
To read all the other mildly exciting editions of
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