Customer Reviews

TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was originally published in 1923 and is the 9th novel in the Tarzan series. As a pre-teen and teenager, it was my favorite Tarzan book simply because of Jad-Bal-Ja, the golden lion of the title. Heck, I had a pet dog I ran around with; Tarzan got to run around with a lion.

In the book, Tarzan finds himself in Opar, a remnant of the lost city of Atlantis (he's bee here before in "Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar"). He's not exactly a popular guy in Opar and is rescued from certain death (is there any other kind in these books) by La, the High Priestess of Opar who just happens to be in love with Tarzan. They are forced to flee together into the Valley of Diamonds, which just happens to be ruled by some very nasty gorillas. Fortunately for Tarzan, Jad-bal-ja is on his trail and arrives in the nick of time.

While this is still a favorite of mine, it contains a plot twist that I always thought was one of ERB's worst. Estaban Miranda is a Spaniard, who happens to look just like Tarzan, and somehow keeps managing to fool a lot of other characters. It just never made much sense that even if he looked like Tarzan, he could so easily get away with imitating the Lord of the Jungle.

The first thing you have to consider when deciding to read this book is that is has language familiar to the vernacular of the era, but not so much in use now in polite society. Natives are called "boys" and the N word, and even tho it is by somewhat villainous characters, it may not be something you want the kids to read, at least without a discussion beforehand.

In addition to the language issue, this is sort of a step down in the Tarzan series. Burroughs got too busy in this book. In just the previous book he described a very interesting three pronged society. Here, he comes up with another "hidden valley society", but he's so busy with another set of villains that he gives it very little attention. It could have been an interesting society, but with few details and plotting that has it gone almost by the time it is introduced, its left unfinished compared to his very successful "world building" in other novels.

As the first reviewer mentioned, there is a very hard to take plot which has a double for Tarzan fooling people you're pretty sure he could not have fooled into thinking he was either Tarzan or Lord Greystoke. A former employee also decides to mount an expedition to loot Opar, and seems to find it just a bit too easily.

Burroughs worked hard to make frustrating and complex sequences of events that kept the reader wondering how it all could end well, but in Tarzan and the Golden Lion he may have over-reached that technique. Burroughs didn't mind writing formula once he had a success with a story, and this book has "quickly turned out formula" written all over it.

If you are reading the Tarzan series you don't want to skip this by any means, but you'll find yourself rolling your eyes from time to time. We do get the introduction of Tarzan's unique pet, the Golden Lion. He'll show up from time to time in future Tarzan adventures.