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Tarzan of the Apes (Signet Classics)
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About the Author
Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1875. After serving a short time in the 7th U.S. Cavalry, Burroughs was a shopkeeper, gold miner, cowboy, and policeman before becoming a full-time writer. His first novel, Tarzan of the Apes, was published in 1914, and along with its 22 sequels has sold over 30 million copies in 58 languages. Author of numerous other jungle and science fiction novels and novellas, including The Land That Time Forgot, Burroughs had a writing career that spanned almost 30 years, with his last novel, The Land of Terror, being published in 1941. He died in 1950 at his ranch near Tarzana, the California town named for his legendary hero.
Gore Vidal was born Eugene Luther Vidal in 1925, later adopting the surname of his grandfather, Senator Thomas Gore, as his first name. He is the author of numerous novels—the first, Williwaw, written when he was twenty-one—as well as scripts for film, television and the stage, including the extremely successful The Best Man and Visit to a Small Planet. He is perhaps best known for his historical novels, including Burr (1973), 1876 (1976), and Lincoln (1984). He won the National Book Award in 1993 for his book of essays, United States (1952-1992).
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tarzan, pre-cartoonification,
By
This review is from: Tarzan of the Apes (Signet Classics) (Paperback)
It's hard to imagine a time when no one had ever heard of Tarzan, when the ape man hadn't swung his way across countless B movie screens and Disney features. When I saw Edgar Rice Burroughs' 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes listed among the public domain texts easily downloaded to the Kindle for free, I was curious to see what the original Tarzan looked like, before his cartoonification. It was worth the download.
The outline of the story told in Tarzan of the Apes--the first of what would be 24 Tarzan novels written by Burroughs--will be familiar. It begins with the story of Tarzan's parents, who were generously put ashore by a mutinous crew rather than killed, abandoned on an island that was inhabited only by wild beasts and cannibals. John Clayton is an Englishman's Englisman, brawny and brave and possessed of an innate nobility. His pregnant wife Alice strives to be a suitable companion to such a man. They survive in the jungle for a time, until their son is a year old, and then they both die from separate causes. Tarzan is adopted into a family of apes, where he eventually thrives because he is able to compensate for his physical shortcomings (compared to apes; compared to your average man he is a god) by employing his intellect. Tarzan teaches himself to read from the books he finds among his dead parents' possessions, and so he is able to communicate when the island is finally visited by Europeans, Jane Porter and her bumbling father, who've been marooned themselves. A romance ensues, which leads Tarzan to civilize himself and follow Jane to America. One can complain that Tarzan is sexist and racist. Jane's black servant Esmeralda is a beloved but comically uneducated appendage to the family, wont to faint at the slightest disturbance, while the cannibals Tarzan runs across are scarcely portrayed as human. Tarzan's mother is all fluttering female, striving to deserve her man. These biases are hardly surprising, however, given the book's age. Like Esmeralda, but without the racist subtext, Jane's father is portrayed comically, as a blithering idiot, in passages which seem ill-fitted to the rest of the rather serious narrative. Burroughs also offers the occasional over-long, poorly written sentence: "From this primitive function has arisen unquestionably, all the forms and ceremonials of modern church and state, for through all the countless ages, back beyond the uttermost ramparts of a dawning humanity our fierce, hairy forebears danced out the rites of the Dum-Dum to the sound of their earthen drums, beneath the bright light of a tropical moon in the depth of a mighty jungle which stands unchanged today as it stood on that long forgotten night in the dim, unthinkable vistas of the long dead past when our first shaggy ancestor swung from a swaying bough and dropped lightly upon the soft turf of the first meeting place." Tarzan impresses as a character both because of his physical prowess and his mental acuity. He is portrayed as a noble savage, a blend of human and ape that is superior to both species, both of which come in for criticism. (Though Tarzan is not perfect: we're told, for example, that as a man he will sometimes kill merely for sport.) The book closes with a final act of nobility on Tarzan's part--very nicely done--that underscores his inherent quality. Many elements of Burroughs' story are of course fantastic, but the author makes much seem credible because of the details he provides--he describes how John Clayton was able to build a sturdy dwelling, for example, from limited supplies; or how Tarzan could teach himself to read; or how he could track someone's progress through the jungle by minute signs which to his practiced eye were like flashing neon. The details bring Tarzan's jungle to life. Despite the familiarity of Tarzan's story and any shortcomings in the book, Tarzan of the Apes is actually quite a gripping read. I was able to put the book down, to be sure, but there were many times when I was lost in the story while reading, eager to see how things would play out. I can understand how Tarzan came to be such a beloved icon given this introduction. -- Reviewed by Debra Hamel
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
tons of fun,
This review is from: Tarzan of the Apes (Signet Classics) (Paperback)
I remain a big fan of the book and the Johnny Weismiller movies some 40 years later. However, there's only a vague relationship between the series of Tarzan books written over a 30 year period and the movies, which continue to be made in various forms even now. Any fictional character that remains fixed in the public's attention over a 100 year period is a powerful invention indeed.
Tarzan the creature of the books is far more than the half wild man of the movies, a highly intelligent, self-made superman, unfettered by the chains of civilization and its artificial morality and forged in the fires of the ultimate Darwinian environment, the jungle, which of course he not only survives, but dominates by force of will, intellect and physical prowess. Raised by apes from infancy, after the death of his aristocratic British parents, he has no concept of his own humanity for a substantial portion of his youth. It's difficult to say that he ever really comes to find the company of humans to be superior to that of the apes who raised him. At no point does he ever succumb entirely to the weakening charms of civilization. It takes relatively little to drop his civilized veneer and charge into action, knife bared. Burroughs himself was a reporter and pulp fiction writer. Most of these works and others that he also wrote appeared in serial format in various magazines. The first few books of the Tarzan series remain highly readable and are very creative. Then they devolved into a highly formatted plot structure that he found commercial and easily repeatable. As a pulp fiction writer, he reflects most of the prejudices of his time, making them painful at times to the modern reader, as would many of the earlier works of Robert Heinlein, if anyone read them today. But they are generally better in this regard than many of the movies. None of the movie characters ever became principal chief of an African tribe. But for sheer fun, Tarzan has had few equals over the decades
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Lord Tended by the Big Apes!,
By
This review is from: Tarzan of the Apes (Signet Classics) (Paperback)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) was a prodigy of imagination. He started his writer career quite late; his first work was published in 1912. From that point on a ceaseless flow of imaginary worlds & heroes poured from his pen: John Carter of Mars, Carson Napier of Venus, David Innes and Abner Perry on Pellucidar at Earth's center and the most famous of them all Tarzan of the Apes.
Tarzan's world is Africa. But an extraordinary Africa populated with apes more intelligent than any known ones and in later adventures with a plethora "lost cities", "ant-men" or whatever suit ERB in order to deliver a fast paced adventure. As other reviewers point out do not expect "politically correct" tales, they are the product of a society still torn by racial prejudices. Another assumption that closely follows this is: "superior traits" are inherited directly and a Lord will always be a Lord no matter what the circumstances. The reader may assume all this adventures occurs in an "alternate reality" that have some common traits with our world such as the ones depicted by Guy Gavriel Kay for example. Now you'll be ready to enjoy the original story of Tarzan as it was delivered by ERB, free from Hollywood changes or comic's stereotypes. A couple of English nobles are abandoned by a mutinous crew in the coast of Africa where they barely survive. Adversity proves to be more than what they may endure and both die leaving an infant that is miraculously adopted by Kala an anthropoid that has lost her baby-ape. Protected by her, Tarzan starts a life struggle to conquer a space among the over towering brutes. His natural intelligence combined with a strengthening body allows him to survive and in due time lead the ape tribe. ERB ability renders all this astounding fates credible: Tarzan learns to read and write all by himself; Tarzan defeats a Gorilla with his father's knife; Tarzan helps a group of marooned white people and fell in love with Jane; Tarzan...continue delivering one prowess after other... and you'll believe it. I read "Tarzan of the Apes" at my teens and continue reading many of his 23 following adventures, borrowing volume after volume from a nearby library. When I grow up and gain economic independence I bought and kept this book and some more Tarzans. I warmly recommend this series to any reader who is fond to read unending adventures in a magic world. If after reading Tarzan's stories you still want more from ERB try the Martian series, they are almost as good as this one. Reviewed by Max Yofre.
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