Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Tarzan the untamed


A group of German army-men ransack Tarzan's home while he is away. When he returns, he discovers he dead bodies of his mate and her bodyguards. With this, he discovers that he has no more need of civilization, and returns to his savage state to seek revenge. He finds the supposed killers of his mate and summarily executes them. He then decides to kill other German's and help out some of the Brits. He eventually decides to leave the war effort, but he ends up with a beautiful young female German spy.

Today the story is ridiculously politically incorrect. Black Africans are mere savages, less sophisticated (and more brutal) than the apes. Whites are superior, though Germans are demonized. (during the time this was published it would probably have been hard to portray them in a positive light.

The story seems rather artificial. The plot elements are mere excuses to connect the action sequences. The characters are all fairly shallow, after all it is the action that is important. The end has a couple big twists. However, I was already expecting these early on in the story. This seems a case of Burroughs running out of originality, and just giving the readers plenty of action.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous11:49 AM

    ERB's books are always entertaining - any deep meaning is probably just accidental.

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