The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The publisher of Tarzan of the Apes rejected the sequel novel, much to Burroughs’ disappointment. He wanted significant changes, basically throwing out the first half of the novel and creating a tale in which Tarzan goes completely savage once again. You can also imagine him writing the words that Burroughs never put in any of his books: “Me Tarzan, you Jane.”
Fortunately, Burroughs remained true to his own vision and gave us a story of a man in terrible pain, trying to move on with his life. But he’s still Tarzan, unable to stand by while wrong is done to others, which brings him into conflict with the excellent villain, Nikolas Rokoff. Rokoff is one of the persons who does harm to everyone he believes to be weaker than him (in other worlds, potentially the whole world) and then is enraged any time his schemes are frustrated. Tarzan frustrates him continually throughout the book inspiring multiple attempts by Rokoff to do him harm. But because Tarzan is trying to live as a civilized man, he does not simply kill the villain as he might of if he had met him in the jungle before first meeting Jane Porter.
Jane is the second key player in the novel. She has missed her chance to be Tarzan’s wife and is trying to figure out a way not to marry Tarzan’s cousin whom she is engaged to. The cousin is one of the few people in the book who knows that it is Tarzan, and not himself, who is the legitimate Lord Greystoke, and we watch throughout the novel as he struggles to find the courage to take care of Jane in very difficult circumstances.
This is a novel that juxtaposes civilization with the jungle and finds both savage, but civilization more duplicitous. Note that it is Tarzan, the savage, who is the most honorable man in the story and Rokoff, the scion of civilization, who is the most dishonorable.
The plot is filled with action from beginning to end, but much of the tension comes from friends of Tarzan, including Jane, encouraging him to restrain himself and not kill those who had just tried to kill him. Once again, the savage proves himself more civilized than the civilized man.
This is a great sequel, fully as enjoyable as the first book, and will leave the reader excited for the next one.
