Finish What You Started - Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle and A Princess of Mars

As mentioned at some point, I have actually managed to finish a few of my half-finished reads since beginning Project Finish What You Started. Just not many. Oh, and I keep forgetting to write up a review, which was part of the project, so generally speaking the project hasn't been a raving success.

In fact, not only hasn't it been a raving success, but I've also started and stalled in the middle of at least three or four other books since I decided to make a dent in the already large number of works I haven't finished. I kinda suck at this.

Anyway, I managed to knock off a couple of Edgar Rice Burroughs books along the way, so I may as well review 'em both and get it over with.

Many long years ago I had picked up a couple of Tarzan books at a library weeding sale, and promptly forgotten that they existed. Then, one holiday, I picked up one of them to see what this Tarzan business was all about.

It was Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, which is the eleventh book in the series. To be perfectly honest, the eleventh book is not the best introduction to Tarzan. I got about halfway through it, but didn't really "get" it, and then moved on to other books.

Then, a couple of years ago, I suddenly caught Tarzan fever. I can't really explain it, but I just fell for the character big time. I started collecting the movies and researching the history of the character (I think, at last count, I had at least fifteen Tarzan films from different eras - not including the first RKO serial) and decided to go back to where it all began - Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan of the Apes. One library in town stocked it, and I held onto it for much longer than I should have.

I was fascinated by the difference between the Tarzan of the novels and the Tarzan of the films, and suddenly more interested than ever in seeing where the books took the character. As there were no more Tarzan books in the library, and I couldn't locate the ones I owned, I hopped onto the Interwebs. I had already read ERB's The Lost World, and I thought I might try one of his other series while I was spending money. So, I ordered Tarzan Returns (which became one of my favourite books of all time) and A Princess of Mars - the first book in the John Carter series.

Tarzan Returns was a corker of a book, and someone would make me very happy if they would film it as a mini series (as long as they did a decent job). A Princess of Mars didn't really do it for me, though. I took it with me on a camping trip, thinking an ERB novel would be a great way to while away the time. However, It wasn't exactly gripping. I got about a third of the way into it, but then put it down and didn't bother picking it up again.

Until I decided to Finish What I Started.

Princes of Mars

I managed to pick up the story again fairly well after ignoring the book for a year:

Civil War cavalryman John Carter escapes Indians by hiding in a cave, when gets mysteriously transported through space by some kind of magical mental deportation thingy. He finds himself stark naked on Mars, where he discovers he has superpowers due to the fact that he was raised on Earth, with Earth gravity, and the lesser gravity of Mars makes him super strong and capable of leaping over tall buildings in a single bound (remember, folks, ERB thought of it first). Well, maybe not tall buildings, but he can still jump fairly high.

He encounters one of the Martian species - a race of big, green giants with four arms and hearts hardened by years of battle and senseless brutality. He accidentally manages to kill a Martian chieftain, and is given the rank and station of the fallen chief. He is then adopted by the Green Martians as a half chieftain/half pet thing while they work out if their bizarre code of honour allows them to kill him without getting into a "proper" fight first. They take him back to their "city", which turns out to be the ruins of a city built by a race which died out long ago.

While there, he encounters a Red Martian - a girl from another Martian species that is more or less human - only red. She is, of course, a princess and, of course, naked - as are they all (I can't help but wonder if ERB did the naked thing just for the sake of pulpy book covers, but I expect the excessive nudity might make filming the book difficult). The girl is the captive of the Green Martians, who treat her unkindly (because that's how they treat everyone). John rushes to her rescue, "accidentally" killing another Green chieftain as he does. By this time, he has managed to teach himself how to speak Martian (not dissimilar to Tarzan teaching himself to read), so he can communicate with the girl...

Oh, blah, blah, blah. He falls in love with her. She keeps him at arms length. There are battles between different factions of both Green and Red Martians. The would-be lovers argue over cultural differences. They get separated and despair of ever seeing each other alive. John manages to make friends with at least one Martian in every camp. There's a big battle with a warlord which involves a daring rescue of the princess. The 19th Century cavalryman manages to fly Red Martian fighter-jets without difficulty. He gets the girl and saves the day. They get married and live happily ever after...

Except the big machine that controls the weather is sabotaged, and everyone starts dying from lack of oxygen. Our hero races to the machine to save his beloved family, only to feel a strange tug on his being, as he is magically mentally teleported back to his body on Earth, which has been lying in a death-like state in a cave in Arizona for ten years. He now has new magical powers, that seem to involve not aging, and longs to find a way to teleport himself back to Mars.

It all sounds terribly exciting, doesn't it? And yet, somehow, it reads like Wells' The Time Traveller without the good bits.

Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle

Now, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle was a different matter. There were many things in the novel I understood now, having read the first two books in the series, and the rest of it didn't need much explanation because I knew what to expect from this world.

It had been too many years since I started reading the book, so I had to go back to the beginning, but this time 'round I found it a fun book to read.

There are these two Amercian hunters on vacation in Africa - one's a middle aged jerk, and the other is a nice young man who is starting to realise his friend is a jerk. There's also a band of Arabs making their way to the hidden city of Nimmr (what is with the secret hidden cities in the middle of Africa? Wasn't Opar enough?), accompanied by their slaves who are looking for a chance to escape and get back to their tribal homes - which, conveniently enough, are located not far from the ancient hidden city of Nimmr. It's the intention of the Arabs to steal all of Nimmr's treasure and, possibly, the most beautiful woman in the world (according to the legends).

The two Americans have a falling out and go their separate ways. The jerk manages to tick off everyone in the jungle (including Tarzan), so his hired men abandon him in the middle of nowhere and he survives by accidentally stumbling onto the group of Arabs (who have also managed to tick off Tarzan). The nice young man is well supported by his hired men, but manages to get himself lost after a lion attack and a lightning storm. He survives by accidentally stumbling onto the ancient hidden city of Nimmr.

Nimmr, as it turns out, is actually one of two cities in a well defended and easily missed valley in the middle of the heart of Africa - both of which are populated by knights and ladies of the medieval variety. Apparently, during the crusades, a group of knights managed to find their way to this valley. They then got into a disagreement as to whether or not they had completed their crusade and found the Holy Thing They Were Looking For. One group said they had found it, and wanted to declare "mission accomplished" and go home. The other group wanted to keep going and refused to let those quitters go back. They set up camp at one of the only two ways out of the valley and refused to let anyone pass. To spite them, the quitters set up camp at the other exit and refused to let anyone pass at that end, either.

And so, for several centuries, generation after generation of inbred knights lived their medieval lifestyle in this hidden valley while holding two things as being absolute truths: The outside world is full of evil Saracens who must not come in, and those dudes on the other side of the valley are stupid losers who must not pass.

When James (the nice young man) stumbled into Nimmr, he had a hell of a time trying to convince them he wasn't a Saracen. Then he had a hell of a time trying to convince them the Saracens aren't surrounding them and they aren't coming. Then he had a hell of a time trying to convince them that the crusades were long over and the rest of the world has sort of moved on. In the meantime, he managed to fall in love with the princess (as you do) and get himself accepted as one of the knights (as you do). The princess was, of course, the most beautiful woman in the world...

Meanwhile, the Saracens actually were coming in the form of those nasty, sneaky, thieving Arabs. They managed to break into the other city on the other side of the valley while everyone was playing tournaments in the middle of the valley. However, the kind of the other city kidnapped the princess, which prompted James to rush to the rescue, which revealed the whole "the Saracens are coming!" thing...

Meanwhile Tarzan was busy jumping around between the various groups, rescuing people who needed rescuing, threatening people who needed threatening, and eventually bringing his own "army" (the Waziri) to chase off those nasty, sneaky, thieving Arabs.

It should probably be pointed out that this book was written in 1927, and isn't exactly politically correct by today's standards. If you aren't American or English (or maybe French), the Tarzan novels will probably not be on your list of "books that treat my racial/religious group with respect".

I can't remember how it ended. The bad guys got their comeuppance, of course, and the various estranged lovers (there were also a couple of star-crossed lovers in the Arabs' camp) found a way to be together, and Tarzan went back to roaming about the jungle looking for things to do. Does it really matter exactly how these things were accomplished?