Customer Reviews

The Return of Tarzan

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"The Return of Tarzan" by Edgar Rice Burroughs is the second volume in the Tarzan series. First published in 1913, this book is a work of genius. There is something about Burroughs' writing that is captivating, and this book is no exception. "The Return of Tarzan" is a highly entertaining volume.

The book first starts with Tarzan on a ship going from New York to France. On this trip, he makes friends with a Countess and makes an enemy with her brother, a Russian. The Russian will attempt to cause Tarzan problems for the following months. After growing tired of France, Tarzan decides to return to Africa. However, his journey is beset with adventures in desert and wilderness.

The story leads to Tarzan finding Opar, the lost outpost of Atlantis, in the heart of Africa. Although both the men and women of Opar are white, the women retained their beauty, while the men are more ape-like in appearance. From here, there are more adventures and peril.

For great adventures, as you may have come to expect from Edgar Rice Burroughs, "The Return of Tarzan" will meet your needs.

This is, to my mind, the best of the Tarzan series. If you like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" then you'll love this sequel to "Tarzan of the Apes." Like "Raiders," "The Return" is chalk full of adventure. You name it, it's got it: desert adventure, ocean cruises, spy stuff, lost cities, beautiful women, Paris, jungle adventure (naturally), evil Russian villians, etc., etc. Okay, I admit that some of the coincidences in the story are quite unbelievable, but the writing and story are so captivating that you tend to pay it no mind. "The Return" is definitive proof of why Tarzan is perhaps the greatest adventure hero of all time! I would love to see this story made into a movie!

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.

I had started out saying "I'll just read one for a laugh," after going to the library with a friend on my way home from seeing Disney's new cartoon. My mom told me start with the first one but I could NOT stop there. I didn't think it was fair! Book #2 doesn't give everyone a happy ending but doesn't leave you complaining for the next month. After #1 leaves you with Jane engaged to Tarzan's cousin who now has his title, woman, and inheritance. This may sound odd but Tarzan also joins the French Secret Service! I may still laugh at the movies but I will never again laugh at the "real" Tarzan of the books! I don't think of Disney's show as Tarzan. It was fun, but it wasn't Tarzan.

Tarzan is back in an adventure more in tone with the remainder of the series than the original Tarzan novel. Sinister villains, lost races and beautiful priestesses are a mainstay of the series and this book introduces the best of all. Sinister villain-Nikolai Rokoff who would compromise his own sister's honor for money. Lost City-Opar, the remnant of sunken Atlantis. Beautiful priestess-La of Opar, who passionately chases our man Tarzan through several adventures.

Tarzan is marooned near his jungle home and gravitates from civilized man to savage man to ape man over the course of the story. His realization that not all Arabs are sneering villains and not all blacks are cannibalistic headhunters is a welcome relief from the stereotypes that are usual in the series.

When I was a kid (thirty years ago) my dad had an old beaten copy of this book that my three brothers and I readr, reread and probably took worse care of than we should have. I remember the cover vividly- Tarzan fighting a lion, but dressed in what would be considered traditional Arab garb. Every chapter had it's own illustration- THE TREASURE VAULTS OF OPAR featuring Tarzan leaping across a wide chasm!

I reread these books again in my teenage years and found this one to be my favorite. I think I enjoyed it even more than TARZAN OF THE APES.

The story begins with Tarzan crossing the Atlantic after leaving Jane and her family on a train platform in northern Wisconsin (a region of the world I call home) and meeting, not for the last time Rokoff and Paulvitch, two Russian spies who make it their life's goal to humiliate and destroy the Ape Man. Their first meeting includes Tarzan spoiling a plan to blackmail a Count and Countess who quickly become Tarzan's friends.

Later, in Paris, Rokoff and Paulvitch manipulate the Count into challenging Tarzan into a pistol duel, which Tarzan both wins and loses.

Tarzan arrives in Africa again later, ignominiously tossed off a liner by the two mad Russians. He swims ashore and is immediately in his element again.

Meanwhile, Jane and her father, along with Cecil Clayton (Jane's fiance') arrive ashore in Africa following a harrowing period on the ocean in a rowboat when their yacht founders.

Tarzan visits Opar, the fabled city of Atlantians where he dukes it out with savage men and the beautiful high priest, La.

How he and Jane reunite and Cecil's fate, as well as Tarzan claiming his birthright are all part of a story that you need to read to enjoy.

Is Burroughs the greatest writer of the 20th Century? Maybe not, but he is one of the premiere storytellers. This book is one of the most satisfying of the series. It also sets up many adventures in the next dozen, or so, books. La, Opar, Paulvitch and Rokoff are all revisited.

Take the trip- it's worth every second.

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.

This is the book in which Tarzan gets Jane. (No, he didn't get her in the first book...only in the movie.)

Interesting love triangle, made all the more interesting by Tarzan's wild adventures, some of them believable, some of them totally unbelievable, all of them capivating, exciting,and filled with action.

You always know Tarzan, as other "good guys" of this age and genre, will win in the end, but sometimes you wonder how and if he will ever get there.

Every chapter is like reading/watching one of the old serials movie theaters used to run between shows in the double featue on Satudays.

Fun read. Good read. Go for it. You will feel like a kid again---and take it from this old man---that ain't all bad!!!!!

`Tarzan the Ape Man' ended in a Wisconsin train station with Tarzan now capable of speaking fluent French and English and apparently how to drive a car. Not exactly a stellar conclusion for the King of the Jungle. `The Return of Tarzan' finds the jungle hero sailing to Paris drinking absinthe and smoking cigarettes. Not an encouraging start. Tarzan ends up crossing paths with a pair of thugs named Nikolas Rokoff and Alexis Paulvitch who are continually harassing a count and countess, also passengers on the ship. The first half of the book is nothing more than continual encounters between Tarzan and Rokoff in Paris and on the sea and it is dull and silly. Tarzan continues to threaten Rokoff and Rokoff continues to try and kill Tarzan. I cannot stress enough how cartoonish this is. One of the big complaints about the series is how Burroughs fills the stories with absurd coincidences to move the plot forward. About halfway through the book Rokoff and Paulvitch pitch Tarzan over the side of a ship and he manages to swim until he inexplicably comes across a wrecked ship out in the ocean which gives him the means to paddle all the way to the African coast and glory be he manages to land in the exact spot where he grew up. I'm not even sure why Burroughs chose to add this since he could have landed elsewhere in Africa without harming the plot. That is perhaps the most egregious coincidence but only slightly. Tarzan also just happened to run into Jane Porters best friend Hazel Strong on the ship before he was sent over the side.

Lest there be any misunderstanding let me state that the first half of the book is a dud. The second half is like a completely different book. Tarzan becomes chief of an African tribe (naturally) which although more than a tad racist is an improvement for Burroughs as Tarzan actually gets along with the blacks even laughing with them and looking poorly on the whites with which he has spent some time. For Tarzan, the African natives are more his brothers than the refined whites. The rest of the book features a lost city of gold, beautiful women, misshapen brutes and human sacrifice. Yeah, this is what I wanted from Tarzan not that dull as dishwater first half. The second half is silly but at least it's silly in an entertaining way. I was so happy when Tarzan finally returned to his simian brethren as Burroughs tends to do well in writing these encounters although my possibly faulty memory seemed to be that the language of the apes was somewhat limited whereas in this book they appear to have a complete and sophisticated language which adds a bit more silliness to the book.

The absurdity of the coincidence really do hurt the story. Not only do Tarzan and Jane BOTH find themselves in the exact same area of Africa where Tarzan grew up but by the end of the book even Philippe D'Arnot coincidently shows up as he just happened to be sailing around the same section of Africa. Add to this the amount of times Tarzan saves Jane at the last second and this becomes a book that simply cannot be taken very seriously which is a shame because the first book started with tremendous potential. I did have to laugh when Tarzan `smelled' the whites from a few miles away which led him to the distressed Jane Porter. Let me add that Rokoff is little more than a lowlife thug and it's sad we have to see him again in the next book. This book, I would classify as middling as it is neither very good nor very bad. The second half is considerably better than the first half which is a shame because the ape man in polite society has tremendous potential but it's spoiled by the fact that Tarzan is written as indistinguishable from a proper English gentleman except for the times he launches into a rage when pushed into a fight. For a much better interpretation see the 1984 movie `Greystoke' where Tarzan was actually portrayed as a fish out of water. Hopefully Burroughs will keep Tarzan in Africa for most of the remainder of the very long series.

Was Edgar Rice Burroughs a reader of Charles Darwin? Burroughs cites 'use and disuse' being the direct cause of Tarzan's heightened senses as well as a normal man's average hearing and vision. This is natural selection at work, obviously a reference to Darwin's Chapter Five: Laws of Variation. Great audio narrator in Shelly, too.