T15 Tarzan Triumphant

I was a total Burroughs fanatic when I was a kid, and of his novels I liked the Tarzan series the best. I barely remembered TARZAN TRIUMPHANT before rereading it, but I remembered that I had liked it especially well for one of his later Tarzan novels. Even for a kid, the plots did tend to get rather stale after eight or so -- Tarzan constantly rescuing Jane from kidnappers and encountering lost civilizations in the process. One of the things that makes this novel so much fun to read is the contrast of characters, which include an adventurous English Lady, a reformed Chicago gangster, a professor of geology, and a beautiful (of course) woman who grew up in a lost civilization of physically and mentally deformed religious fanatics. Tarzan is merely a peripheral character, popping in every once in a while to save someone from being eaten by a lion, to rescue people from slavers, and so on. There were passages that I remembered almost verbatim, though I did not recall in which of his novels they had occurred (p.63): "Tongani, the baboon, perched upon his sentinel rock, surveyed the scene and, perhaps, not without appreciation of the beauties; for who are we to say that God touched so many countless of his works with beauty yet gave to but one of these the power of appreciation?" And another (p.65): "Tarzan knew the wild peoples of his savage world too well to expect an unprovoked attack, or a killing for the love of killing such as only man, among all the creatures of the world, habitually commits." And still another (p.69): "The Prophet and the Apostles were intoning their senseless gibberish, meant to impress the villagers with their erudition and cloak the real vacuity of their minds, a practice not unknown to more civilized sects." One last one (p.52): "'. . . I don't know that you will be much safer in England than you are here.' `Why?' demanded [Jezebel]. `You are too beautiful ever to have perfect safety or perfect happiness.'" Ideas such as these made a strong impression on my adolescent mind, and lifted ERB's work above the mere escapism of most adolescent adventure novels. I suspect that anyone who might read this review is already a Burroughs fan and hardly needs my recommendation. If not, I would suggest reading TARZAN OF THE APES before TARZAN TRIUMPHANT. But I still consider this one of his best.

"Tarzan Triumphant" is the 15th novel in the Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. There were two basic plot lines ERB used in these books: either the bad guys invaded Tarzan neck of the woods or he followed them to some lost city. "Tarzan Triumphant" actually combines both of these approaches. No less a person than Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin has ordered John Clatyon, Lord Greystoke a.k.a. Tarzan to be killed and sent Leon Stabutch to take out the Lord of the Apes. Stabutch and his henchmen cut a path of looting and killing through the land of Tarzan and he takes off in pursuit, which leads to the valley near the Ghenzi Mountains where there are the people of North Midian and South Midian. Led by their respective prophets, Abraham and Elijah, they are religious fanatics who have perverted the faith passed down from their Roman Christian ancestors. Just to make things really interesting in addition to the killer Soviets there is also the English aviatrix Lady Barbara Collins who is going to be sacrificed by the Midians, meaning that once again Tarzan has to come to the rescue as well as ushering the bad guys to their just reward. "Tarzan Triumphant" is a standard ERB yarn but still one of the better ones in the series, especially with the take on the perverted notion of Christianity practiced in Midian. The supporting cast is particularly colorful, such as Dan "Gunner" Patrick the small-time Chicago mobster, along with the traditional European bad guys, and the only apes are a tribe of baboons rather than the great apes that raised Tarzan. So, all in all, this is an ERB potboiler but a solid one in the series. But from hereafter things get totally formulaic with one new "lost" city after another.