Tarzan, Book 1

I recently posted my 1,000th book review on this blog, and in doing so, I noted some publication years for which I had not yet read a single book. In my search for worthwhile books published in 1912, I came across this classic by Edgar Rice Burroughs—a book I’d always wanted to read anyway!

The story is one familiar to most adults and children alike, that of a baby raised by apes in the jungles of Africa who happens upon a beautiful lady named Jane. There’s a whole lot more action and drama to it, of course, but this really is the gist of this first novel in the series.

As with many adventure novels of the time period (like those of Jules Verne or H. Rider Haggard), the story isn’t one (supposedly) just grabbed from thin air but is instead based on true events as recorded in some long-lost diary of a dead-or-missing adventurer. As Burroughs puts it: if this story isn’t true, it is at least “unique, remarkable, and interesting.” (4)

The account begins with Clayton and Alice Greystoke, British officials on a mutinous ship whose crew elects to abandon the couple on the deserted shores of Africa rather than kill them outright. With a promise that maybe one day Black Michael would tell the British government where they roughly might be, they make do and set up a hut and begin building a life for themselves.

The jungle isn’t good to Alice, however, who loses her sanity after she kills an attacking ape. Then, not long after bearing a child that will eventually become Tarzan (meaning “white skin”), the couple is attacked in their home and murdered by vengeful apes. A mother ape, Kala, who’s just lost her baby takes up the human child and raises him as her own. Thus throughout his life, Tarzan has no clue that his ape family is not really his and that he’s different from everyone else in his tribe; that he’s not merely Tarzan but the new Lord Greystoke himself.

Tarzan eventually uses his human reason and cunning to his advantage, becoming King of the Apes, killing a leopard and making clothes for himself. Importantly too, he gains access to the hut in which he’d first been found, discovers books, and teaches himself to read and write in English, though he doesn’t know how to speak or hear it!

When another party hunting treasure eventually lands in the same region, Tarzan communicates with them secretly and in writing, rescues them from danger, and falls madly in love with the blonde beauty, Jane. For the remainder of the book, Tarzan learns to deal with his feelings, communicate with the humans, and civilize himself back to where a proper white gentleman should be.

As the story progresses, you can sense well that this story is a product of it’s times: racist against black Africans through and through. The black “savages” in the surrounding village are considered barely-human people, essentially another tribe of apes that pepper the African landscape. The civilized whites notice that Tarzan is so much different than these savages, so much better, but they can’t put their finger on why. They hold out hope for his ultimate sophistication, and of course they eventually see it.

From where does such racism stem? Atheists might not want to admit it, but we can all thank the “progress” of Darwinism—a belief system still shoved down our children’s throats to this very day—for books that equate Blacks with apes. It’s the natural order, after all, according to this godless “scientific” theory. Banning books like this will never erase from reality the fact that racist ideology is the theory of Evolution taken to its logical conclusion. We live in a crazy, dysfunctional, bi-polar world. Nothing makes sense when God is dead.

Like the Darwinian racism it promotes, this book is just science-fiction, so I take nothing too seriously. As a novel, it was entertaining, and I’ll probably look up Book 2 at some point in the future, just for kicks.

One question this book left me with, though, that I can’t answer is where the familiar Tarzan yell came from. While it’s mentioned in the book, it’s not defined, and as I read it described, I heard something completely different in my mind than the “A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!” that we all know and love. Maybe The Origin of the Species has the answer!

©2023 E.T.