Burroughs Books

Tytell gives an excellent insight into the founding members of the Beat movement. He shows the backgrounds and the motivations of one of the most innovative literary movements in the 20th century. I would strongly recomend this for anyone , especially if they are just starting to explore this group of writers.

Published over twenty years ago, Naked Angels still holds up as a thorough critical study of the works of Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Kerouac. The first section deals mainly in biography, but it seeks to explain why each of the writers explored certain topics and how their experiences shaped their styles. However, if you have studied these three in a biographical sense, the information presented here will not be new to you.

The second section covers the works of the three writers. While there is certainly a wealth of sources that give critical insights into Beat writing, this section brings them together into an often detailed, more often general study of Beat themes, styles, and voices. The Ginsberg section is particularly detailed in its analysis of Ginsberg's long lines and mysticism. Though Kerouac and Burroughs receive their share of treatment, the Burroughs section lacks the further illumination provided by Burroughs over the last twenty years of his life. And the Kerouac section hits only the high points, simply because it would be too difficult to cover every aspect of this prolific writer's work in a mere 70 pages.

This book is a solid overview of the core Beats and their seminal works. Its age shows at times, but it's worth a read as a well-written and well-thought treatment of Beat literature.

Count on Burroughs for adventure that's as grand as it is implausible. There's that Hollow Earth thing to start with - well, fine. Just use that to set your expectations. If you've read more than one or two things by Burroughs, you know what comes next:
** a centuries-old death cult,
** an improbable escape or two,
** a wide assortment of evolution's "also ran" species, with morals as low as their brows,
** treachery by a traveling companion,
** a babe in need of saving,
** inane romatic miscues,
** fist fights ending in one punch and gunfights ending with one shot...
... well, you know the list. It's all there.

This time, the treacherous traveling companions are Germans, a safe choice for the original post-WWI English-speaking audience. Its pervasive but low-key racism could be annoying; I found it an archaic and ignorant part of the book's corny, campy, and simplistic quaintness. If you can put up with a book written for an audience of a very different era, you'll find a passable adventure story and maybe a pleasant afternoon's reading.

-- wiredweird

Out of Time's Abyss is the third book of the Land that Time Forgot series, preceded by the Land that Time Forgot and the People that Time Forgot. It continues the story of the World War I German submarine captured by a combined allied group that gets stranded in a mysterious pre-historic land. The story is typical, light fare, something you might have expected from a black and white pre-history movie. A bit melodramatic at times, naïve at others. But so what! I've been reading and re-reading ERB for decades and while we aren't talking classics of literature, the stories are fun to read.

Burroughs tackles the issues of evolution in this series, condensing the scope from millions of years to mere generations. Darwinism was still being debated at the time this was written, so it provides a glimpse of the shocking impact and disbelief in certain circles. A fun afternoon read, or something for a pre-teen with an appetite for adventure. (While you can read this book separately or out of sequence, I wouldn't recommend it, too many references to what has happened in the prior books.)
P-)

This is one of my favorite books and I carry it about with me in my vest pocket daily. I find myself taking it out regularly and just opening it at "random" places in the book. Perhaps, a section on Painting (first section) or Guns (second section). Sometimes I've read the point before but even though, I get a new view point everytime. There are a few sections I've still not read though and enjoy that it's small enough to travel with.

This book is a great book if you like WSB's writing and thought. I call it my "Bible" (in joke) and would recommend it to anyone who likes to think of new ways of thinking.

This book is little. It's about the size of a pack of playing cards.

The first section of the book is Burroughs himself, talking about his theories and experience with painting. He took up painting in his later years, declared the written word an obsolete medium (still, books were published under his name), and produced many paintings, which were shown in numerous galleries.

The second half of the book concerns Burroughs and his views on guns, in part. It has the text of a conversation which was recorded during a shooting party attended by Burroughs and a few friends. It has a few witty remarks by Burroughs, but not much else.

It's hard to imagine who the intended audience was for this book, unless it was Burroughs completists only.

Really, _Painting And Guns_ is only for those who have read Burroughs' book of essays, _The Adding Machine_, and also all of his novels.

For completists only.

ken32

Tarzan has overcome Rokoff, but Paulivitch still lives. He is sneaky, and gets Tarzan's son Jack to leave London. In Africa, Jack escapes, with the help of one of the esteemable apes.

Jack must now become his father, and create his own legend, becoming Korak the Killer.

In the previous novel "The Beast of Tarzan," Jane and her infant son Jack were kidnapped by Tarzan's enemy Nikolas Rokoff and his henchman Alexis Paulvitch. Of course, Tarzan tracks down his wife and son and finally dispatches Rokoff. However, in this fourth Tarzan novel, "The Son of Tarzan," Edgar Rice Burroughs provides an adventure whose key point is: like father, like son. Paulvitch had survived the vengeance of Tarzan and now wants to even the score by luring young Jack Clayton away from London. However, his plan is foiled when Jack escapes with the help of Akut, the great ape. The pair flee to the same African jungle where Tarzan was raised a generation before. It there that young Jack Clayton establishes his own reputation as Korak the Killer. Not only does he find Korak find his own place in the jungle and amidst the great apes, he also rescues Meriem, a beautiful young woman, from a band of Arab raiders. Meriem turns out to be the daughter of Armand Jacot, a Foreign Legion Captain who is also the Prince de Cadrenet, and therefore a fitting mate for the son of Lord Greystoke.

On the one hand, "The Son of Tarzan" is a ERB adventure yarn that closely parallels many of the key elements of the original "Tarzan of the Apes." In that sense this is a fairly predictable story (almost from the moment we hear about "My Dear" we know who she will turn out to be in the end), but given all the speculation about what the Tarzan novels were saying about human society and evolution, it is interesting to note that we have the same relationship between "The Son of Tarzan" and the original "Tarzan of the Apes" that you find between Jack London's "White Fang" and "The Call of the Wild." In each we have the creature of the wild become civilized and then reverse the process in the second. Of course, London's novels have received a lot more consideration along these lines in terms of Darwinism and the whole nature versus nuture debate (effectively canceling the question out by taking it both ways in his two novels), but it is interesting to see Burroughs do essentially the same thing with his own two novels.

My parents tuned me into Tarzan when I was a little kid. Prior to their intervention, all I knew about Tarzan I learned from the Johnny Weismuller movies and the Saturday morning cartoons. The Tarzan created by Edgar Rice Burroughs is not like anything you have ever seen in any movie or cartoon. His character is so in depth. He taught himself to read and spoke fluent French.

The only problem I had with this book was not with the content, but the book itself. The pages came loose from the binding only three weeks after I bought it. For that I would give it one star, but I can't separate content from book quality.

In the previous novel "The Beast of Tarzan," Jane and her infant son Jack were kidnapped by Tarzan's enemy Nikolas Rokoff and his henchman Alexis Paulvitch. Of course, Tarzan tracks down his wife and son and finally dispatches Rokoff. However, in this fourth Tarzan novel, "The Son of Tarzan," Edgar Rice Burroughs provides an adventure whose key point is: like father, like son. Paulvitch had survived the vengeance of Tarzan and now wants to even the score by luring young Jack Clayton away from London. However, his plan is foiled when Jack escapes with the help of Akut, the great ape. The pair flee to the same African jungle where Tarzan was raised a generation before. It there that young Jack Clayton establishes his own reputation as Korak the Killer. Not only does he find Korak find his own place in the jungle and amidst the great apes, he also rescues Meriem, a beautiful young woman, from a band of Arab raiders. Meriem turns out to be the daughter of Armand Jacot, a Foreign Legion Captain who is also the Prince de Cadrenet, and therefore a fitting mate for the son of Lord Greystoke.

On the one hand, "The Son of Tarzan" is a ERB adventure yarn that closely parallels many of the key elements of the original "Tarzan of the Apes." In that sense this is a fairly predictable story (almost from the moment we hear about "My Dear" we know who she will turn out to be in the end), but given all the speculation about what the Tarzan novels were saying about human society and evolution, it is interesting to note that we have the same relationship between "The Son of Tarzan" and the original "Tarzan of the Apes" that you find between Jack London's "White Fang" and "The Call of the Wild." In each we have the creature of the wild become civilized and then reverse the process in the second. Of course, London's novels have received a lot more consideration along these lines in terms of Darwinism and the whole nature versus nuture debate (effectively canceling the question out by taking it both ways in his two novels), but it is interesting to see Burroughs do essentially the same thing with his own two novels. Final Note: This particular edition features the art of J. St. John Allen, which is always a big plus for any ERB fan.

As Richard Lupoff notes in his Bibliographic Note: "This book might be called Last Adventures of Tarzan. It is, perhaps, the last Tarzan book that will ever be published consisting of complete tales of the Ape Man written entirely by Edgar Rice Burroughs."
He was right. There now exists a "Lost Adventure of Tarzan" completed by Lansdale, but this is all ERB, full of his richly humorous late writing about Tarzan.

"Tarzan and the Castaways" is really a collection of three novellas regarding the Lord of the Apes written in 1940-1941 by Edgar Race Burroughs. This was essentially the 24th and final Tarzan book and takes it title from the first and longest of the three stories. Tarzan is stranded on one of those uncharted Pacific islands with a colorful collection of English aristocrats, a Dutch officer, and Janette Laon, the beautiful French companion of big game hunter Fritz Krause. Going back to the beginning of the series in one respect, the castaways end up on the island when the crew of the "Saigon" mutinies (which is how Tarzan's parents ended up stranded in Africa way back when). Meanwhile, the castaways also have to deal with a lost colony of Mayans who are always looking for new human sacrifices. If Tarzan was not there, all of these people would be dead meat, but although he might have second thoughts about some of them, Tarzan does save the day.

"Tarzan and the Champion" has Lord Greystoke encountering "One-Punch" Mullargan, the heavyweight champion of the world, and his manager Joey Marks. Tarzan has Nkima the little monkey on his side, so the champ does not stand a chance in this little one-joke trifle from ERB. Finally, "Tarzan and the Jungle Murders" continues the basic formula, albeit with a nod towards world events as the references to the "Great Man" in the story turn out to be about Benito Mussolini. The story is simple: there is a downed English plane and a RAF colonel, the American inventor of an ignition disruptor device, a Russian exile, cannibals, and a safari of yet more English aristocrats. Think of this one as "Clue" set in the jungle with Tarzan trying to figure out who did in who and whey (how, when and where are always obvious).

"Tarzan and the Castaways" is a collection of minor efforts by Edgar Rice Burroughs, to be read by the Tarzan fan out of a sense of completeness once everything else has been devoured (including the juvenile effort, "Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins"). The formula here was certainly tried and true once upon a time, but after two dozens novels is now tried and tired.

"Tarzan and the Golden Lion" was written by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1923 and is the 9th novel in the Tarzan series. Tarzan is drugged and delivered to the priest of Opar, the lost colony of Atlantis the Ape Man had visited in "Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar." Once again he is rescued by La, the High Priestess of the Flaming God, who is consumed by her hopeless love for Tarzan. But when her people discovered she has betrayed them, Tarzan has to flee with La into the legendary Valley of Diamonds, where savage gorillas rule the jungle. The good news is that Tarzan and La are being followed by Jad-bal-ja, his faithful golden Lion. The bad news is that they are also being followed by Estaban Miranda, who happens to look exactly like Tarzan, but who is not a very nice fellow. Burroughs always thought that La was a better mate for Tarzan than Jane, which explains why he tried to kill off Tarzan's wife at one point in the series. Certainly Jad-bal-ja makes a better companion for the Lord of the Jungle than Cheetah. "Tarzan and the Golden Line" is an above average novel in the series, although the plot is somewhat repetitive of Tarzan's original adventure in Opar in the 5th novel.

This book was originally published in 1923 and is the 9th novel in the Tarzan series. As a pre-teen and teenager, it was my favorite Tarzan book simply because of Jad-Bal-Ja, the golden lion of the title. Heck, I had a pet dog I ran around with; Tarzan got to run around with a lion.

In the book, Tarzan finds himself in Opar, a remnant of the lost city of Atlantis (he's bee here before in "Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar"). He's not exactly a popular guy in Opar and is rescued from certain death (is there any other kind in these books) by La, the High Priestess of Opar who just happens to be in love with Tarzan. They are forced to flee together into the Valley of Diamonds, which just happens to be ruled by some very nasty gorillas. Fortunately for Tarzan, Jad-bal-ja is on his trail and arrives in the nick of time.

While this is still a favorite of mine, it contains a plot twist that I always thought was one of ERB's worst. Estaban Miranda is a Spaniard, who happens to look just like Tarzan, and somehow keeps managing to fool a lot of other characters. It just never made much sense that even if he looked like Tarzan, he could so easily get away with imitating the Lord of the Jungle.

Tarzan needs some cash, so he is off to look for a source. The Jewels of Opar sound like a good idea. He has a bit of a problem when there, when he loses his memory.

This gives the gorgeous seductress and loopy priestess La a chance to try and get her hands on the muscular King of the Jungle, until he remembers the whole Jane thing.

A pretty good Tarzan adventure.

"Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar" is the fifth book in the Tarzan series and is generally considered one of the better of Edgar Rice Burroughs' tales of the Lord of the Jungle. Tarzan once again returns to Opar, the source of the gold for lost colony of fabled Atlantis. Ever since Atlantis sank beneath the waves, the workers of Opar have continued to mine all that gold, which means there is a rather impressive stockpile. Tarzan follows a greedy Belgian and Arab into the jungle, where the evil pair manage to stumble upon the lost city, at which point our hero loses his memory after a fight. This is good news for La, the beautiful high priestess who serves the Flaming God, because she has had that big crush on the ape man since their first encounter. However, while his amnesia opens the door for her amorous advances, her high priests are vowing that Tarzan will not escape their sacrificial knives a second time. Meanwhile, Jane is in trouble back at their African homestead and wondering what is keeping her noble husband from once again rescuing her.

"Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar" first appeared in two issues of "All-Story Cavalier Weekly" in 1916. As you read the novel you will pick up on the fact that Burroughs liked the character of La a lot more than he did that of Jane (who he would attempt to kill off in a few books). Of course, this second visit to the land of Opar is not as exciting as the first and the amnesia bit is going to be one that ERB subjects Tarzan to a couple of more times down the road. This is definitely one of the author's pot-boilers and for the pulp fiction era it is pretty solid stuff. Things get a bit predictable, but the tension between Tarzan and La gives the book a bit of bite. You just need to make sure you go through the first four Tarzan books before you read this one, because you need to know about what happened the first time Tarzan visited Opar.

Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote Tarzan and the Leopard Men, an 80,000 word novel, in a two-month period -- July 9 to September 25, 1931. 1 It is perhaps the closest to reality of Burroughs' novels, pitting the ape-man against the "Anyoto" (Leopard) society in the area around the eastern edge of the great Ituri Forest in the Belgian Congo. In this story, Tarzan quelled their activities for awhile, though one of the worst outbreaks of the Leopard Men occurred three years later in this area.

The Anioto, or Leopard Men actually existed for a long time in the Congo. It was a secret society within various native tribes, flourishing from the eighteenth century to 1936. The Anioto consisted of young men who sought to address local problems through a reign of terror in which people were killed and mutilated by iron claws, causing severe lacerations to the neck and chest. Victims were often found missing limbs or even their heads. Anioto comes from the verb, nyoto, which means to scratch, probably owes its origin to Bafwasea vernacular.

The Anyoto Society apparently originated among the Mabudu tribe in the Wamba area of the Ituri Forest, and after infiltrating the Mambela Society of the Babali tribe, the sect gradually spread south to Avakubi, Irumu, Bafwasende, and even Beni on the southeast edge of the forest, leaving a trail of mutilated bodies in its wake. Cyrier identifies the Anioto initiation ceremony as the "Mambela ceremony," which may indicate its historical filtering through this tribe. However, he indicates that the Aniyoto among the Bali has a long history into the nineteenth, perhaps even the eighteenth century. "Although Anioto may not have been ubiquitous throughout the area, it appears that some villages were familiar with the association and had direct contact with it."

Burroughs no doubt had done his homework before writing "Tarzan and the Leopard Men." This most historically authentic of his Tarzan stories is filled with accurate details of the Aniyoto and demonstrates the great lengths Burroughs would go to research his novels, even though this one is often disparaged as hack work not deserving a second notice.

That said: Burroughs created a situation even more fantastic than the Aniyoto in which the blood of virgins is collected for a youth potion. Well, he WAS writing pulp fiction. Leopard Men is not listed as a great favorite even among fans, however, the psychological ramifications of this one is interesting to say the least.

"Tarzan and the Leopard Men" was originally published as a six-part serial in "Blue Book Magazine" from August 1932 to January 1933. The 18th of Edgar Rice Burroughs' pulp fiction yarns about the Lord of the Jungle (and 44th overall) represents the downward spiral in the series as ERB pulls the old amnesia chestnut out to tell another story of romance and adventure in the jungles of Africa.

The story begins with a story in which a series of things happen: Kali Bwana, the story's requisite damsel in distress, is attacked in the middle of the night by Golato, the headman of her safari. Tarzan, accompanied by Nkima, his little simian friend, is knocked unconscious and trapped under a tree. Meanwhile, Nyamwegi, a native who is returning home to his village after seeing his girl friend, is attacked and killed by four of the Leopard Men, a mysterious cannibalistic cult. Orando, son of Lobongo, the chief of that same village, discovers and frees Tarzan, who no longer remembers his own name, even though he thinks the ape-man is a demon.

Both Nyamwegi and Orando had been praying to their muzimo, their protective spirit, and Orando decides that Tarzan is his muzimo, and that Nkima must be Nyamwegi's ghost. Not remembering that he is the Lord of the Jungle but still having all of his finely honed instincts and physical abilities might make accomplishing the tasks at hand more difficult, but you know that by the end of this yarn that Tarzan will put an end to the Leopard Man cult and not only rescue Kali Bwana but help her find what she is looking for in the African jungles. In other words, your basic, formulaic ERB potboiler for 23 chapters.

If this was one of your first Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan novels you would be more impressed with "Tarzan and the Leopard Men" than if you have been working your way chronologically through the series, because in that case there is really nothing new here beyond the amnesia gambit. But that is not exactly a positive addition to the formula. The bottom line is that this Tarzan adventure is okay, but nothing special. Once you get past the first ten Tarzan novles you are into the land of diminishing returns with pretty much each and every volume.

I've read only a few chapters of "Accepting the Universe," and am enjoying it a great deal. Though it may seem perfunctory to say so, Burroughs was clearly a thoughtful man, and what I mean is that he clearly pursued his inquiries into the nature of the universe, or the universe of nature, to the point where he could pursue them no further. He had a keen understanding of the impartiality of nature. My only complaint thus far is that he called the universe "very good" even while arguing that good and evil are not inherent in anything.