Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

There is a king of the jungle/nobel savage in all of us. There must be some base-level appeal for us modern men where we feel compelled to dream we could, with only a knife and a rope, if put in the right situation, conquer the wilderness. Like other magazine stories told during this time (the Most Dangerous Game, etc) it points to a certain level of supple, straight, superman that exists beneath the clothes of civilization. I read this book shortly after getting LOA's 100 year anniversary edition of both Tarzan and Princess of Mars. From the actual books written by Burroughs to the various movies, comics, cartoons, and the eventual Disneyfication of the story.

It is amazing to see the arc this character has taken over the last century. Like Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan is both a type and a rejection of type. Tarzan is one of those characters who came out of the post-Victorian, pre-WWI age that seem almost to exhibit a place larger than the actual book(s) he was born in. I thought it kind of added to the idea of a book read from straight out of the jungle itself so I wasn't offended at all. The reading was good but patchy in technical quality. The characters are three-dimensional, by the way, and 'real.' How on earth did Tarzan end up in Wisconsin? 's true. Few men resemble Tarzan today, nor have his personal ethics, and I am not sure how many women resemble Jane today. to mix it all up and make it more complicated and interesting, I guess. The story portrays the very essence of male and female differences and relationships - and then we have culture. The author loved showing how Tarzan was not as barbaric as some of the civilized people in America. I did not know that Tarzan had taught himself to read English. The movies are good, but the novel is really rather better. It is quite an excellent story and I was surprised how affecting it was. I took up this download because the price was really good, and anyway why not? I haven't heard any pulp fiction, and I am waiting for my next subscription date to roll around, This is the 'true' story of Tarzan - the original book before the movies got to it.

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs