Dr Hermes Reviews - TARZAN Back to our Contents Page

TARZAN AND THE MADMAN (Dec 2, 2002) Written in 1940 but not published until 1965, this late entry in the Tarzan series never appeared in magazine form and Burroughs apparently shelved it for good. (The later TARZAN AND THE "FOREIGN LEGION" also had no success in finding a magazine sale and eventually was published by Burroughs himself, three years after it was written.) As for TARZAN AND THE MADMAN, it was eventually brought out of limbo into hardcover in 1964 by Canaveral Press and then issued as a paperback the following year. The book starts off strongly with the mystery of why local friendly African tribes think the Apeman has been abducting women and children (who are never seen again). Tarzan is puzzled and grimly determined to find out the imposter who has been undermining his reputation (he states bluntly that he will find the man and kill him, simple as that). There is also an impressive moment when a crook takes a shot at the peacefully approaching Apeman, but even as his bullet misses, an arrow thumps into the gunman`s shoulder and Tarzan is already vanishing up into the trees. Every now and then, we get a glimpse of just how quick and dangrous the Apeman is, and this is one of those instances. Unfortunately, the story quickly gets bogged down in the confused situation involving a mysterious lunatic who thinks he IS Tarzan* but who is believed to be God by the descendants of still another lost city founded by Europeans long ago. This time, it`s a castle populated by "chocolate-colored" people who are the result of Portugese colonists who have intermixed with the native Africans, and of course they are in a state of perpetual war with an opposing city populated by descendants of the Moors who had been chasing the Portugese. Haven`t we seen this setup all before? By this time, Burroughs had settled down to mixing five or six familiar ingredients in different combinations for each Tarzan book, and the result usually fell flat with a dull thud. Alemtejos,this particular lost civilization, is mostly there to make some heavy handed satire about organized religion, and since Tarzan doesn`t care particularly about the society, neither does the reader. The story lacks any of the supporting cast. Jane, Korak, the Waziris are not even mentioned. For all we know, Tarzan is a solitary creature with no family and only a casually friendly footing with some of the native tribes. He seems oddly distracted and disinterested in the whole proceedings, as if he is bored by the whole business and would welcome a bash on the head so he can have amnesia again and nol have to think about anything other than eating and sleeping. (It`s also ironic that Tarzan scoffs at the idea of his desiring some of the treasure. "What would I do with gold?" he asks, conveniently forgetting all the time and work he made his Waziri tribesmen put in to looting Opar.) Burroughs is still putting humans down and attributing imaginary virtues to animals. He writes that animals are not avaricious or greedy; of COURSE they are, almost every species from hummingbirds to deer spend much of their time defending their territory or trying to extend it, just like humans. And he repeats that animals do not lie. (Duh! If you can`t use language, you can`t lie. And don`t you think that if your pets could talk, that the cat would constantly be trying to blame everything on the dog? Or that the dog would be saying some burglar must have gotten in and eaten the steak on the dinner table?) It`s also worth noting that while the great apes (the word "gorilla" is never used here, as by this time the mangani were seen as a seperate species) are happy to eat "plaintains, bananas, tender shoots and occasionally a juicy caterpillar", they don`t mind a bit of meat now and then. This matches what modern observors have reported and it seems odd that Tarzan (who was raised by them) is so completely carniverous. In every book, he pounces on a pig or deer and devours some of it before taking off again. Seldom if ever is it mentioned that he eats fruit or nuts. Why he doesn`t have scurvy or other nutritional deficiencies is puzzling, unless he makes a point to eat the contents of his prey`s stomachs and upper intestines. It would be easier to pick some fruit or shoots, but maybe it wouldn`t be as colorful. TARZAN AND THE MADMAN is not so much an awful book as it is uninspired. There are some good parts, as when two treasure hunters lugging heavy gold are dying of thirst and exhaustion but refuse to abandon the treasure. But in general, there`s very little here we haven`t seen before, little of the creative energy and enthusiasm that made the early books in this series so compelling and so rewarding to read again. If there had been a monthly Tarzan pulp magazine in the 1930s, this would probably be regarded as an average issue; but considered as an independent book, for which expectations would be higher, it`s disappointing. I would not recommend it to someone wanting to try a book in the series... TARZAN THE TERRIBLE or JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN have much more energy and creativity, and would give a better feel to a new reader. _______ *At least this guy doesn`t look like the genuine Apeman, although they are about the same size. After Esteban Miranda and Stanley Obroski, it would be too much to have another dude showing up who just happens to look enough like Tarzan to fool even his wife. And the convoluted explanation of how a man obssessed with Tarzan ends up impersonating the real Apeman stretches your suspension of disbelief to the point where it has trouble snapping back after the book is over.

"Tarzan and the Jungle Murders" (March 18, 2005) Phew. This is awful. "Tarzan and the Jungle Murders" appeared in the June 1940 issue of THRILLING ADVENTURES and was later collected with two other stories into the book TARZAN AND THE CASTAWAYS. It's really unrewarding material. According to Irwin Porges' book EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS: THE MAN WHO CREATED TARZAN, the original manuscript had the Apeman show up late in the story and was only identified as the Stranger (as if this nearly-naked bronzed giant in Africa in an Edgar Rice Burroughs yarn would be tough for readers to identify). Leo Margulies had one of his editors rewrite the story so that Tarzan appears from the start, and evidently this revision was extensive, uninspired and clumsy. (I would like to see what the Burroughs version was like, if it still exists somewhere.) Here's an attempt to show the Apeman as an amateur detective. Well, why not? Burroughs normally showed Tarzan as shrewd, well-read and very observant. He should be as good at sleuthing as any other amateur, if not better. The Apeman also possesses an ability matched only by Doc Savage among his pulp peers, an enhanced sense of smell. Tarzan can not only tell by a lion's body odor whether the animal is hungry or full, he can recognize scents too faint for the average person to detect even when pointed out to him. All just dandy, but this story doesn't use the super-nose power fairly. There's something here that's impossible for me to forgive in a mystery. I don't mind if the all-important clue is casually dropped in the middle of a distracting action scene or dismissed by one of the characters as unlikely, as long as it is presented to the readers early enough to give us a chance to use it. When, at the literal tail-end of the story, Tarzan explains who the murderer is by describing physical characteristics which were never mentioned before....! That's when the book goes sailing across the room to knock over a lamp and I have to retrieve it, grumbling under my breath. Also, Tarzan sniffs a glove left at the first murder scene. Okay, we realize that he can therefore recognize the owner if he should meet him. But to give the reader a sporting chance, Tarzan should mutter something like "sulphur", so that we can keep an eye out for a suspect lighting matches with his thumbnail. Give us something to work with, Burroughs! (Since the glove's scent lets Tarzan identify the killer immediately at first meeting, the other deductions our boy works out must be for the benefit of the other characters.) Aside from the fact that the mystery angle is lame, the story falls flat as jungle action as well. Tarzan finds two crashed planes, and he reconstructs what happened. This part isn't too badly done, as the Apeman realizes the dead pilot in the first plane has a bullet hole in the throat, left of the larynx, at a downward angle. Therefore, he could only have been shot from another plane. Tarzan finds two men had survived the crash and sets out to track them down. It turns out two nearby safaris have merged for expediency, and they are made up of a typical Burroughs steamy mixture of a noble British lady, an arrogant and abusive guide, two men in love with the same maiden, a spy or two involved in the theft of some plans for a weapon vitally important to the upcoming war, all that lurid tangle of lust and greed we've seen in many Tarzan stories before. This unhappy group has just been joined by two dishevelled and half-starved men who wandered out of the jungle (gee, could they possibly be the two men from the downed airplane?! Hmmm....) The Apeman turns up only to be blamed for a stabbing murder which has just happened in the camp, and then there's a second death which is also attempted to be laid on him (but he has an alibi). Finally, the motley crew assemble in the Resident Commissioner's bungalow for the big revelations. This is Colonel Gerald Giles-Burton of the Bangali government, by a remarkable coincidence the father of one of the murder victims. (Bangali? Say, you don't think this Colonel is part of the Jungle Patrol and he knows a man with a mask and a skull ring, do you?) Tarzan doesn't quite recap all the events and then point his finger and say, "You - are - murderer!" with a Chinese accent, but he does explain who is really hiding under what name, and who did the killings. But, as noted above, he basically is pulling clues out of his loincloth that weren't available before. That's not how the game is played, old boy. In case the crime-solving part of the story isn't enough to satisfy Tarzan fans, there's an interruption in the storyline as the Apeman is captured by unapologetic cannibals and has to summon a herd of elephants to rescue him. This is told in such a drab and uninspired style that it reads more like an outline than the finished story. So many other details seem odd or out of synch with the established Tarzan canon that I would guess there's as much of that anonymous editor's wordage in this story as Burroughs', maybe more. At this point, all I have left to re-read in the series is TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD MEN (a lukewarm potboiler), JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN (some interesting and offbeat short stories of our hero's youth) and the first book itself, TARZAN OF THE APES (I'll be using the HIGH ADVENTURE reprint of the original 1912 magazine edition). And I have to say, "Tarzan and the Jungle Murders" looks like it will rank as the absolute lowest point of the entire saga.

"Tarzan and the Champion" (Jan 20, 2003) From April 1940, where it appeared in BLUE BOOK magazine, this is a minor story in the Tarzan saga. It has some good points, but it also misses some great possibilities. What we`re dealing with here is an American heavyweight boxing champion who has taken it into his head to travel through Africa and shoot hundreds of wild animals for trophies. Not only does he come up against Tarzan, who takes a dim view of the whole proceedings, but there are also some particularly unpleasant cannibals in the area, so things don`t go well for the boxer and his manager. Part of the problem with this story is that "One Punch" Mullargan is such a cardboard character, an incredibly ignorant brute who never really comes to life. His limited intelligence and careless habits with his fists are quickly tedious, and his stereotyped New York slang is supposed to be amusing but is only tiresome. Also, I know Tarzan is strong and quick bordering on the superhuman, but it might have been more interesting if Mullargan had put up a good fight in their inevitable duel. Warch old newreels of Joe Louis in action and you can see how someone like that could give even the Apeman a hard time. Mullargan does show signs of being redeemable. After Tarzan chastises him for shooting dozens of zebra (with a machine gun, no less), the boxer struggles with the idea and eventually apologizes, saying that he never thought about animals having feelings. To his credit, Tarzan takes this belated apology into account. Also, when Mullargan`s manager is captured, the champ doesn`t escape but turns back in a hopeless attempt to rescue him. This impresses the Apeman. ("...self-sacrificing heroism is not a common characteristic of wild beasts. It belongs almost exclusively to man, marking the more courageous among them. It was an attribute that Tarzan could understand and admire.") This is one of the rare times when Burroughs has something nice to say about people, and it`s worth noting. The best part of the story is actually the menace of the Babanos, a tribe of canibals who relish their diet. ("They eat human flesh because they like it, because they prefer it to any other food...they hunt man as other men hunt game animals, and they are hated and feared throughout the territory they raid.") The Babanos are genuinely scary, and they provide Tarzan with a worthwhile challenge that every hero needs to show his mettle. The Babango prepare their victims by first breaking the prisoners` arms and legs in several places and then letting them soak in the river for a few days to make them tender. (I`m pretty sure I saw Rachael Ray doing this on 30 MINUTE MEALS on the Food Channel, or maybe it was the Two Fat Ladies. Anyway...) Contrasting with the Babangos are the Waziri, who are their usual stalwart, noble selves. The porters in the safari recognize the Waziri as great warriors, whom they do not have to fear. I always thought the Tarzan movies would have benefitted from having the impressive Muviro and his tribe in the action more. Finally, as brief as this story is, Tarzan manages to find an opportunity to drop down on a lion, then wrestle with it and stab it to death. Was there ANY Tarzan book where he didn`t kill at least one lion? (Even on Sumatra, in TARZAN AND "THE FOREIGN LEGION" he sent a tiger or two to their afterlife.)

TARZAN AND THE CASTAWAYS (Feb 27, 2004) From 1941, this first appeared in three parts in the August and September issues of ARGOSY WEEKLY as THE QUEST OF TARZAN (not a particularly relevant title, come to think of it). In 1964, Canaveral Press published an edition from Burroughs' original manuscript, now titled TARZAN AND THE CASTAWAYS, in which form it is most easily found. (Included are two short stories from that period, "Tarzan and the Champion" and "Tarzan and the Jungle Murders".) Actually, TARZAN AND THE CASTAWAYS is pretty good, if not spectacular. While there`s nothing wildly new about it, the story does throw the familiar ingredients together in a new kettle and stirs them up a bit more. Away from Africa for once, the Apeman finds himself on a large island in the Pacific, babysitting a handful of survivors of yet another shipwreck. That`s not enough. Okay, there are also a half dozen thugs (a cliched German and Arab and Russian) skulking about and desperately eager to cause trouble, as well as twenty vicious Lascars (any Lascars out there? How do you feel about the way you were portrayed in pulp fiction?). Still not enough gasoline on the fire. Okay, throw in a cargo of wild beasts from the ship that otherwise would never be found within thousands of miles of the island... some elephants, tigers and lions, even two lovable orangutans. (Tarzan frees these critters from the sinking ship because they are noble creatures whose lives are precious, but you notice he draws the line at snakes and lets those varmints die.) No, no, no. We need a lost civilization. What hasn`t been used so far...hmmm. A Mayan outpost! Yes, this is the city of Uxmal, founded by emigrants from Yucatan hundreds of years ago. This means we can throw a weak minded king and an insincere high priest into the plot, as well as a saucy young maiden snatched right off the sacrificial altar before the knife can do some impromptu cardiac surgery on her. Now we`re ready. The story falls neatly into two halves. First, we have a suspenseful shipboard melodrama, where a German brute named Schmidt has taken over the ship SAIGON (the genuine captain is bedridden with fever). Schmidt is terrifying some European passengers who only want to get home alive. Remember after WWI, when Burroughs started throwing in an occasional good German? Well, with a new war starting up, the heinous Hun is back,as nasty as before. Actually, there are only two or three halfway likeable people in the entire cast.... and two of them are decent only because the formula demands a young couple fall in love and go through some misunderstandings. (Burroughs reminds me of Robert E. Howard in that regard, most of the characters in both writers` stories are unlikeable scoundrels always on the edge of turning on each other. Howard would just as soon skip including the young lovers, though, as just being that mushy stuff.) The oppressive German has a naked wildman in a cage which he has purchased from a venial Arab who captured the guy. He plans to exhibit the growling savage in a sideshow back in Berlin, eating raw meat and drawing in the rubes. Of COURSE it`s Tarzan. Be serious. Lord Greystoke has suffered another severe concussion, which has left him temporarily unable to speak or comprehend ohers` speech. As soon as this corrects itself, he promptly gets creased across the noggin with a bullet, knocking him unconscious for a while. Considering how many traumatic head injuries Tarzan has survived, it`s amazing he doesn`t walk around in circles all the time, twitching and laughing for no reason. The shipboard sequence does have some clever moments. At one point, Tarzan amuses himself by letting the passengers think he is actually eating the dead captain. What a card. Of course, since we never do see the captain (who is described as being deathly ill and never mentioned after the shipwreck, you have to wonder just where the villains got all that raw meat they were giving the Apeman.... waste not, want not.) The big storm that endangers the ship, the daring escape by our hero as he bends the iron bars of his cage enough to get out, and the mutiny against the tyrannical German who has usurped command, are all presented briskly and vividly. Once our menagerie both human and beast are castaway on the uncharted island of Uxmal, things settle down into a much more typical exploit for the Apeman. There`s friction between the bad guys (who just will NOT stay in their own camp) and much badmouthing of our naked hero by a rather dim and unreasonable old dowager. Then, of course the Mayans turn up and Tarzan is on a familiar game again... saving maidens from being sacrificed, leaping over walls and racing to the rescue, even killing a lion with only a knife. (The only lion for thousand of miles in any direction, and sure enough the Apeman drops down from a tree to wrestle it and then stab it in the heart.) Because the story is considerably shorter than the typical Tarzan book, there is none of the padding where three parties chase each other back and forth. In fact, the book moves briskly and suddenly finishes up with a startling bloodbath that drops most of the bad guys dead in the dust with little fuss. Our hero survives a rather mild trial by ordeal that any reasonably fit lifeguard could manage. The castaways are rescued so promptly after the plot has been resolved you might think a ship has been waiting just offshore, the captain watching through binoculars until he got his cue. ("Looks like Greystoke`s got the girl. Now the Mayans are praising him as a god. All right, let`s go in and pick them up.") By this time, Burroughs' writing style is streamlined and breezy, very modern. He obviously did some research on the Maya but doesn`t clog the narrative with too much detail. The story shows some signs it wasn`t polished much; a tribe of cannibals on the island are mentioned but never appear, and the ending just rears up abruptly. There are some interesting little bits of business. When asked if he is an Englishman, the Apeman replies, "My father and mother were English"... not quite the same thing. When a cute little Mayan heartbreaker throws herself brazenly at Tarzan, he turns her down with no explanation. It`s a writing dilemma. Tarzan is after all still married to Jane, who cannot be killed betwen books because the fans won`t allow it. But if Burroughs dislikes Lady Greystoke and doesn`t want to mention her, then he has a problem explaining why our hero rejects the several stunning wenches who fling themselves at his brawny bod.

TARZAN AND THE "FOREIGN LEGION" (Oct 23, 2002) Written in 1944 but not published until 1947 (and with no magazine serialization), this was the last Tarzan book by Edgar Rice Burroughs, penned only a few years before his death. It`s also one of the very best in the entire series. Stationed as a war correspondent in Hawaii, Burroughs broke with tradition in many ways with this book. Where the preceding dozen novels had become increasingly repetitious and predictable, here there are real surprises. The writing style is crisp, wry, with sharper pacing and neater characterizaton than had been seen in years. With this last book, Burroughs seemed to take a fresh look at his most famous creation and see him from a different angle. TARZAN AND THE "FOREIGN LEGION" is set on the country-sized island of Sumatra, where the Japanese forces have been terrorizing the natives and massacring the Dutch colonists. On an American bomber doing recon work, our hero is shot down and finds himself stranded abruptly on Sumatra with a handful of Amrican aviators, soon joined by a succulent blonde teenager. On one level, the storyline is the basic plot that had served Burroughs well for many years. Take Tarzan and a few friends, set up some vicious enemies, throw in some bystanders who could go either way, and mix them all in a junlgle full of natural dangers and wild beasts. There`s not exactly a plot as much as there is a succession of escapes and captures, battles and journeys, with good luck and complete disaster taking turns. But against the basic action-filled narrative line, Burroughs sets the characters interacting with each other in new and insightful ways. He also loved to match up couples who were obviously meant to get together and then make them suffer as they had misunderstandings and tiffs, and he loved to juggle a large cast with wildly differing motivations, but here he does all this more smoothly and convincingly than ever before. Most significant is that this book reveals many of Tarzan`s secrets and shows him in sharper definition. For the first third of the book, he is known to the other characters (and referred to by the narrator) as Colonel Clayton of the RAF. Obviously, readers know his true identity but it`s still a stunning moment where it`s revealed. Tarzan drops naked from a tree onto a tiger about to kill his friends and he slays the enormous cat with his knife (as he has done so many times before). Then he lets loose a horrifying nonhuman victory cry and glares at his friends, lost for a moment in his animal nature. They`re frightened and uncertain, until he shakes if off and almost literally turns back into Clayton. It`s a terrific moment, one of the most impressive scenes in the series and it would hit audiences hard if it were put on the screen. To cap it off, one of the survivors suddenly recognizes him. ("John Clayton," he said, "Lord Greystoke --- Tarzan of the Apes!"), leading a slightly dim comrade to ask, "Is dat Johnny Weismuller?" Later in the story, when his identity is being challenged, a guerilla fighter says, "And there`s the scar on his forehead that he got in his fight with the gorilla when he was a boy." This is surprising and amusing. The genuine Tarzan knows of all the books and Hollywood movies about him, which in some strange way makes him seem more real. As good as the book is, it does have a few drawbacks. For one thing, whiles Burroughs obviously did some serious research, he has the orang-utans acting like his typical Mangani apes from back in Africa... challenging Tarzan to a death duel, carrying off a nubile young lady for some intended cohabitation. All of this goes way against what we know now about these primates, but that has to be overlooked. And Tarzan seems pretty casual about tackling tigers; it always seemed more impressive when his fights with big cats were desperate, risky last resorts instead of "oh well, another tiger to kill." Actually, it would have been interesting (considering tigers are bigger and faster than lions) if Tarzan had found himself with his hands full. [I have since been informed that the tigers of Sumatra are in fact considerably smaller than the big equivalent cats of India. If you spot any similar factual mistakes or dumb typo errors in these pages, please e-mail me.] (I personally have always been irritated by Burrough`s way of idealizing animals into pure incarnations of virtue and constantly putting humans down, but I seem to be the only one annoyed by this practice.) Also, remembering how Burroughs later apologized for his vicious anti-German speeches in earlier books like TARZAN THE UNTAMED, it`s a little sad to find him twenty years later, once again going on about the sub-human "monkeymen" Japanese and how a righteous hatred against the enemy is a noble thing. (The young heroine says, "I have not killed a man, I have killed a Jap." with her face lit up with "a divine light of exaltation.") But it was 1944 and you have to put yourself in the mindset of that year to see why a writer would say that. There are other points worth noting. Tarzan here relates how he has not aged, seeming to be in his twenties while actually in his sixties. He tells the story of the grateful witch doctor who gave him the voodoo treatment years ago and he also mentions the more recent Kavuru drug which he and his family share. But Tarzan is realistic enough to realize he`ll inevitably die one way or another. ("Death has many tricks up his sleeve beside old age. One may outplay him for a while, but he always wins in the end.") From that brief scene, Philip Jose Farmer was inspired to tell his own stories of the Apeman, and of the pastiche heroes Lord Grandrith and Doc Caliban. The rest of the cast is drawn well, if a bit broadly in the WW II multi-ethnic tradition, and the dialogue has a more natural ring to it than in most of the earlier books. The Americans admit they`re scared when facing execution, talk about what war does to people and the nature of hatred, and they all develop emotionally as the story goes on. In addition to the American aviators of different ethnic and educational backgrounds, there are the toughened Dutch resistance fighters, the heroic young Corrie Van der Meer and the intriguing Sarina, a pirate Eurasian woman descended from headhunters but who sees the light and tries to do the right thing. These people make up the "Foreign Legion", no relation to the famous French Foreign Legion and therefore a bit of a misleading title.