Where It's Two Books in One

The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Like the first Tarzan book, this is more fun to read than I expected. I could almost give it a 4--but it is in other ways a poorly written book, so I'll compromise with a 3.

The beginning feels like an Agatha Christie mystery or something, with Tarzan traveling on a ship across the Atlantic and getting involved with a young woman and her husband being harassed and intimidated by her brother, who is the villain of the novel. I enjoyed the urbane version of Tarzan, the cultured man who can turn it up a notch if he needs to. Good fun. This plot is working very well until about halfway through, when we are jerked back to Africa, in and around the place Tarzan's parents were shipwrecked. This requires Tarzan to be thrown overboard, supposedly to his death, and Jane to be in a shipwreck.

I mean, come on! First of all, the odds of Tarzan surviving and then ending up in exactly that spot are so ridiculously tiny, but for Jane to end up there, too, on that same stretch of coast, is just so unlikely it's goofy. Laughable. This was bad planning. But second, it makes the book split right down the middle. The author could have made a whole novel about Tarzan protecting a young woman from a bad guy on a ship and in Paris, which I was up for. Then he could have made a whole other novel set back in the jungle. Trying to mix the two plots was a mess.

But as I said, it was pretty fun to read. A super-competent protagonist who is also highly moral is my favorite. I don't think I'm alone here. So if you read Tarzan novels, you just allow the outrageous coincidences and let yourself enjoy the story.

I've seen these books in libraries and used books stores my whole life and never really wanted to read them, but I see the appeal now. They're still not for everybody--especially those who, quite understandably, can't stomach the casual racism that was so prevalent at the time. (I personally would like to see that changed with suitable edits, but I realize that most people hate seeing Roald Dahl's books, and others', being changed in that way.)

Anyway, flawed, for sure, but still fun.

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