TARZAN AND THE CITY OF GOLD
Review contributed by Doc
Hermes ERB Reviews
From
1932, where it was serialized in six parts in ARGOSY for March and April,
this is pretty unrewarding. Most of the book has such an unpleasant, bitter
attitude that it's difficult to find any excitement or pleasure in it.
In the third half (errr the final third), though, everything comes together
for a strong, tense finish... so if you are a diehard Tarzan or Edgar Rice
Burroughs fan, the ending alone would make it worth trudging through the
build-up.
Wandering around Abyssinia for no good reason, the Apeman
finds, yes, another pair of lost cities locked in endless pointless war.
By this time, he seems to take it for granted that Africa is dotted with
remnants of ancient civilizations populated by Europeans. This time, the
City of Gold and the City of Ivory are apparently the surviving outposts
of early Greeks (they use drachmas and have names like Xerstle and Gemnon).
It's never explained. Tarzan never troubles to ask, "Say, what are you
boys doing out here, anyway?" Possibly Burroughs intended to explore the
backstory in a planned sequel called TARZAN AND THE CITY OF IVORY but although
our Apeman does return to the area in the second part of TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT,
we still don't learn the history of this bunch.
Our hero finds himself a prisoner in the warlike Cathne,
where the people worship lions, use lions for hunt and for war, and in
general suffer from leomania. They also use gold for just about everything,
which may be impressive but (considering how soft and easily worn away
it is), might not be practical. The Cathneans are caught up in the usual
unending series of raids and sorties which these lost empires are prone
to; their rival city Athne uses elephants the way the Cathneans prefer
lions.
(An all-out battle between armies of lions and elephants
sounds pretty colorful but again apparently Burroughs was saving it.)
The City of Gold is ruled by an absolute tyrant Queen
Nemone, who is absolutely gorgeous and who either suffers from manic depression
or has just been ruined by the way she was brought up. Cruel, vindictive,
imperious, demanding absolute obedience, she's like Madonna with a pet
lion. And because Tarzan isn't intimidated she naturally tumbles for him
hard. He never mentions Jane (neither does the narrative, although La of
Opar is mentioned), and while he finds her fascinating and even tragically
appealing, her sick personality keeps him from quite falling in love with
her. Nemone has a strong sexual charge that just about crackles off the
page, though. The tug of war between Nemone and Tarzan is really what this
book is all about.
By this time, I expected to find mean-spirited sermons
by Burroughs on how abominable human beings are and how saintly wild animals
are by contrast. But the rhetoric seems more harsh than usual, and Tarzan
seems unpleasantly smug as he keeps rubbing it in (there's a huge vanity
there, too, because he himself is morally superior to all other humans
in his own eyes). But toward the end of the story, almost against his will,
Tarzan starts caring about the friends he starts to make; he risks his
life to rescue helpless sacrifices to the sacred lions; and he starts to
seem genuinely heroic and noble for the first time.
The uneasy relationship between Tarzan and Nemone makes
up most of the book. Although unhappy, it does have a certain resonance
of a doomed romance in the making. After about the halfway point of the
series, the Apeman apparently abandoned his wife, his son and daughter-in-law,
even his grandchild, not to mention the Waziri. It seems to happened at
about the same time Edgar Rice Burroughs' own marriage started to turn
sour.
Now this is just an obvious interpretation, but Burroughs'
increasing sullenness and loss of good-natured humour in his writing, as
well as the way Tarzan runs away from his obligations like a deadbeat jungle
lord, kind of suggests that the aurthor was acting out his own inner struggles
on the page. It's almost inevitable with writers. Two years after he wrote
this agonized book, Burroughs seperated from his wife of thirty years and
applied for divorce. It wasn't until after he re-married his new love that
Jane returned to the printed page. So reading TARZAN AND THE CITY OF GOLD
as a sort of playing out of the author's conficts gives the book some depth
the text itself doesn't provide.
Aside from the psychodrama underlining the story, there's
not much in this book that we didn't find better done in early entries
in the series. I will say this for Jad-Bal-Ja, though... that cat knows
how to make an entrance! (Think about the symbolism of that final scene,
too, as Nemone sends her soul-mate lion Belthar to chase and devour Tarzan;
that lends itself to several bad puns.)
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