In the initial pages of this book, John Clayton (aka Jean C. Tarzan) is a sophisticated westerner who is welcome at any sophisticated Parisian gentleman’s club (meaning something rather different when this was written than what it means in most modern cities). Indeed, there is a portion of the book where the “apeman” seems more like a western spy than the “King of the Jungle.” If you, like me before picking up this edition, have never actually read any of the myriads of Tarzan novels penned by the late ERB after the success of Tarzan of the Apes, you will be pleased to know that Tarzan is no James Bond. You may even be relieved to know that Tarzan’s career as a spy was attenuated in rather bad form. But the closing of one door usually results in the opening of another and suddenly, we find ourselves on familiar ground.The Return of Tarzan is the book where the King of the Jungle discovers Opar, the famous City of Gold. I’m presuming it’s the same city that shows up in a later book called Tarzan and the City of Gold and one of the subjects of a Tarzan movie (I saw so many when I was a kid!). It has the familiar jungle priestess trope but it has slavers (I don’t remember those in the Tarzan canon before.) who happen to be ivory poachers (I remember that one in a lot of movies and think they appear in other books.) and a lost civilization. Tarzan does get reunited with characters from the first book at one point and the ending isn’t a huge surprise.One thing I hadn’t realized about ERB before was exactly how skeptical he was about religion (whether Occidental, Oriental, or Pagan). Two statements jumped out at me in this novel. The first was a high priestess who said, “It is the duty of the high priestess to instruct, to interpret—according to the creed that others, wiser than herself, have laid down; but there is nothing in the creed which says that she must believe. The more one knows of one’s religion, the less one believes—no one living knows more of mine than I.” (p. 272) Sadly, I’ve met a few religious practitioners of which this might be true, but I asked myself why they were doing what they were doing. My answer was more cynical than ERB’s. However, I must insist that I’ve known a lot more ministers who were sincere than I have known that were like this high priestess.At another point, there is a great irony because a helpless female is being dragged to a sacrificial altar. She doesn’t know what’s going on and here’s what she thinks just before she sees the bloodstained “table:” “…was she not among the servants of God? It might be, of course, that their interpretation of the supreme being differed from her own, but that they owned a god was sufficient evidence to her that they were kind and good.” (p. 303) The Return of Tarzan is a delightful (albeit shallow and formulaic) escape. I still think the John Carter of Mars series (albeit shallow and formulaic) and the Pellucidar series are ERB’s best work, but I’ll probably read the occasional Tarzan novel as I find them. After all, lots of people think I’m shallow and formulaic, too.
As I read this book over the last few weeks, I remembered and recognized more and more parts of it --finally, including the ending-- and realized that I'd read it before as a kid. (Evidently, I did so after reading part of it at a friend's house; but had forgotten the title of what I'd read there, and so came to think that episode involved a different book.) The re-reading, after a lapse of nearly 50 years, was fresh and enjoyable once again; in fact, it made me recall how much I enjoyed the original Tarzan book! I'd given that one just three stars when I reviewed it here, judging it on the basis of literary criteria like accuracy of the background, etc.; but this reading persuaded me to rate both works just on the basis of how much I enjoyed them, and so to allow the extra star.Readers of the first Tarzan novel probably almost unanimously feel that, despite the nobility of Tarzan's choice at the end, it concludes in a very unsatisfactory way. They'll be delighted to know that this sequel affords Tarzan and Jane another chance. :-) It picks up soon after those events, commences on an ocean liner, moves to Paris and then French-ruled North Africa, and only later returns to sub-Saharan Africa. Along the way, it offers a duel, a shipwreck, attempted murders, espionage, suicide, lion attacks, a lost race, and fabulous ancient treasure, with jeopardies, rescues and escapes galore. (And, of course, romance; not just one, but four --well, actually five-- attractive ladies are among the characters.) The positive and negative characteristics of Burroughs' style are fully in evidence here --though he was apparently more familiar with his French and North African setting than his tropical African one; the former natural and cultural landscapes come across much more realistically than the latter. (His picture of the remnants of lost Atlantean civilization in Opar, on the other hand, is wildly implausible; the extreme sexual dimorphism, with the females beautiful and the males ugly and ape-like, produces the kind of reader reactions to the two groups that he wanted, but is genetically impossible, and the idea that humans could mate with apes comes straight out of the quack Darwinism of his day.) Burrough's plotting would sometimes subject the long arm of coincidence to, at the very least, a dislocated wrist; but given the fascination of his story-telling (and cliff-hanger transitions from one character/characters to another) it's a forgivable flaw. :-) African blacks in 1913 were far more advanced than the Waziri as he portrays them, but his depiction of blacks is more positive than that of some of the writers who were his contemporaries, such as Thomas Dixon (though the contrast he attempts to draw between the Waziri and the coastal blacks exhibits racial stereotyping and profiling). And here as in the first book, Tarzan is confronted with serious moral temptations and choices, and he learns and grows in that area. All in all, a great read for adventure fans!
What do You think about The Return Of Tarzan (2007)?
How in the world did Burroughs go from TARZAN OF THE APES to...this? TARZAN OF THE APES was pulp fiction in a good sense; THE RETURN OF TARZAN epitomizes what happens when pulp fiction is done poorly. Nothing about the story feels natural. The book begins with Tarzan landing a job as a secret agent. That's right, a secret agent. Reason enough to put the book down right then and there! Tarzan never fails to show up at the perfect moment to foil the bad guys' plans. He fights like Superman, woos women with the skill of a Don Juan, and reacts to being shot the way most people react to mosquito bites. There is no drama or tension because you always know things will work out for him. On a more technical level, the writing of the story is sparse, and the plot barrels ahead too quickly for anything that happens to seem important. There's plenty of action, but none of it interesting. Tarzan is supposed to be pining away for Jane, but he seems to be having way too much fun flirting with married women for me to feel sorry for him. Lastly, the dialog throughout the book is stiff to the point of being robotic. THE RETURN OF TARZAN may be OK if you're a little kid and all you want is adventure, but for most people I would only recommend reading it as a last resort.
—John
Wow! As much as I found fault with the first book in this series, "Tarzan of the Apes" - because of its deep-seated colonial and racist views of the world (not so unusual for 1912, when it was written) - at least it was well plotted and imaginatively conceived. Unfortunately, it ended on a bit of an emotional cliffhanger, which made me want to tackle the sequel just to see how the Tarzan-Jane romance would play out. I don't regret forcing myself to conclude the saga - knowing stuff is always nice - but I found the second book to be an absolutely dreadful read. First of all, it's as if Burroughs had lost all structural restraint, sending Tarzan first to Paris for an extremely odd set of urban adventures (for an "Ape-Man"), followed by an even odder trip to Northern Africa in the service of the French government (Arabs fare only slightly better than do sub-Saharan Africans), before finally depositing him in his jungle of origin. But the story doesn't stop there: soon, we are plunged even further south into a mysterious city of gold inhabited by a "lost race of white men" . . . and things do not improve from there. Did I mention that, along the way, Tarzan picks up a Russian nemesis? But the worst part of the whole affair is the inconsistency of Tarzan's behavior. Sometimes he is super-smart and super-strong - almost invincible - but then, when it serves Burroughs for his hero to get into trouble, Tarzan suddenly does something as inexplicably stupid as the acts performed by those clueless folks in horror movies who insist on splitting up and exploring dark spaces on their own. It's a mess. My advice is to definitely read the first book, but to then read a digest of the activities in the second one, instead. Bye-bye, Burroughs! It was nice knowing you.
—Christopher
Few would ever claim that Edgar Rice Burroughs was a great writer at any point in his career, but it should be noted that he was an extremely poor writer at the start of his career. He improved immensely during those first few years, but re-reading his early books can often be rather painful. On the other hand, he did have a lot of very good ideas, and that is why his series are still remembered and still read today. This is especially true of Tarzan, in which he created an iconic character who is known by many people who have never even read one word of Burroughs’ work. “The Return of Tarzan”, the second in the Tarzan series which was published from June through December 1913 in “New Story Magazine” is a good example of the contrast of good ideas and poor writing. The story picks up where “Tarzan of the Apes” left off; Tarzan had given up his legacy and the woman he loved and travels to Paris to see his friend Paul d’Arnot. On the way there, he makes an enemy of Nikolas Rokoff, and Rokoff becomes Tarzan’s nemesis. In the first book, time and time again Tarzan took on Lions, but in this book it is Rokoff that Tarzan repeatedly faces, at least in the first half. That being said, Rokoff does make a bit more interesting of a foe, as he has different schemes, but it still becomes tiresome. As the action moves back to Africa, the Lions return as a repeated foe, though Rokoff is still lurking around. Another significant weakness of Burroughs writing at this time was his reliance on the amazing coincidence. When Tarzan is pushed overboard by Rokoff, he amazingly makes it to shore almost exactly where he lived before he was found. When the others are forced to abandon ship, they too find themselves within a few miles of the same spot even though they are split into two groups. The only slightly saving factor is they are completely unaware of how close they are to that spot.On the positive side, Burroughs has some good ideas. He makes Tarzan struggle with his barbaric ways when in civilization. His creation of the lost city is inventive and adds a different element to the story as well. This highlights one of the key differences between the Barsoom series on the one side, and Tarzan on the other. With the Barsoom series, Burroughs was able to create an entire world, but with Tarzan he was constrained by reality, and thus it is Tarzan repeatedly fighting Lions and other wild beasts. With the lost city, Burroughs is free to break away from the constraints of the known Earth.For the reasons given above, I don’t think the first two books of the Tarzan series hold up as well as the first two books of the Barsoom series. Neither of the series has great writing, but Mars, as a setting, gave Burroughs much more freedom to invent and imagine then did Earth, and that played to Burroughs’ strength. At the same time, one shouldn’t judge these stories too harshly. They are still good fun if somewhat dated, and if one just wants some mindless adventure they can still fill that need.
—Dave
