Tarzan of the Apes (BTW - Just so's ya know, Tarzan was not the first name Burroughs had in mind for his hero. Who needs teachers when you have such high-end genes? Of course, being an Englishman of gentle birth he has the cranial capacity to figure out the alphabet, language, the whole megilla. He begins to explore, and discovers books. As he grows, Tarzan is intrigued by the unoccupied house in which he was orphaned. The boy's human ingenuity (and mom's fierce protection) gives him the equalizer he needs against the larger and much stronger apes in his tribe, and he thrives. Coincident with the downfall of mom and dad Greystoke, aka Alice and John Clayton, a mother gorilla, mourning the recent death of her baby, hears the baby crying, takes him in as a substitute and raises him as her own.
The Tarzan of the title is the son of privilege, his English upper crust parents done in by dark forces while in Africa. The stuff of cartoons, hurtful cartoons.ĮRB with Maureen O’Sullivan and Johnny Weismuller - from
Black Africans were regarded by the ignorant as barely human, cannibalistic, and of inferior moral substance (unlike King Leopold). Burroughs was a product of and reflects his time. Not nearly far enough, but some distance nonetheless. It was published in 1912, not all that long after the Bronx Zoo displayed a pygmy in the monkey house. At first blush it appears incredibly dated, awash in the racism of its era. In looking at it anew with a bit more lifetime and some extra inches under my belt, a few things stand out. Tarzan is introduced to the world in October 1912 - from Maybe it was not sci-fi enough for my pre-adolescent self. While I am a fan of ERB's Barsoom series, I was never all that taken with jungle boy. I had first read this, of course, back in my wastrel youth, in the early 60s most likely. Tarzan of the Apes was a free download from somewhere I cannot recall.
iTouch reading is of a different sort, at least it has been to date. I save my hardcore reading for when I am sitting and can take notes. As it is not comfortable wrangling the actual book I am reading at a given time while standing, I lift my trusty iTouch and am able to read a bit until the crowd thins. Coming home, though, I often have to stand for a good while before I can get a seat. One of the advantages of riding the subway to work is getting extra reading time.
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