The Return of Tarzan, Vol. 2
by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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Book Reviews of The Return of Tarzan, Vol. 2

Book Review: A Charming Yarn
Summary: 4 Stars

First, what doesn't:

1) If you have a problem with ridiculous coincidences, The Return Of Tarzan is probably not for you. I sometimes think "Serendipity" is Burroughs' real middle name. For example: in ROT, Tarzan is thrown overboard and swims ashore to the same spot on the west coast of Africa where he was born. A little later, Jane Porter, the love of Tarzan's life, is shipwrecked at the EXACT SAME SPOT.

(Wait, it gets better.)

Finallly, Paul D'Arnot, Tarzan's best friend, JUST HAPPENS to be patroling that same strech of African coast and JUST HAPPENS to decide to investigate Tarzan's birthplace AT THE SAME TIME that Tarzan and Jane are there.

I mean, come ON.

2) As Gore Vidal has pointed out, Burroughs couldn't write dialogue to save his life. For example, in ROT he has Rokoff, the novel's heavy, exclaim, "Name of a name!". Does anyone talk like this? Has anyone EVER talked like this?

Next, what does:

1) Burroughs is, as much if not more so than any writer of his generation, a natural born yarn-spinner. If I had to pick any writer, living or dead, to sit around the campfire with my friends and I and keep us entertained, Burroughs would probably be the one.

2) Burroughs was absolutely gifted in describing action, fight scenes in particular. I think the great Robert E. Howard may have been his only peer in this regard.

3) Burroughs probably gets more mileage out of the "fish-out-of-water" scenario than any writer I've ever read. My favorite example of this is a scene in which Tarzan, wild man of Africa, is depicted haunting the libraries and museums of Paris by day, and sipping absinthe(!) and smoking cigarettes at Parisian clubs by night. What a picture! Did he ever run into Ernest Hemingway? Now THERE'S an idea for a story!

Upon reading The Return Of Tarzan, many would say it's a fairy tale, pure escapism.

Well, thank goodness for that. Burroughs may not have been a peer of the Vidals and Hemingways of the world; nonetheless, we need him just as much.

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