Quote:
Originally Posted by GA Russell
gmw, I've never read the book, but I got a copy of it for Christmas, and I'll plan to read it in the next couple of weeks.
I'm a little surprised about your comment, because I thought that everybody knew that. But my understanding was that the emphasis was not on his white skin but on his blue blood. I thought that the idea was that Tarzan was a noble, and therefore was better than us commonfolk, even if raised in the jungle by apes.
But I'll read it, and then find out if my assumption is correct.
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I made my comment because I am not sure how many have actually read the original book - as opposed to watching Tarzan on TV etc. (not that the adaptations were necessarily much better). So I though it was best that anyone thinking of picking up the book for the first time should not come to it looking for high-minded literature.
It is possible that my reaction is also coloured by the books that follow, which don't improve on the situation (Burroughs regularly borrows the prejudices of the times to short-circuit character development, particularly in his villains). There is also the question of whether "lordly" and "white" become implicit synonyms in the presentation. (Why aren't the native chiefs all as smart and strong and noble as Tarzan?) ... But I don't want to spoil it. It's not really that much different to what a lot of modern commercial fiction does, just that the acceptable prejudices have changed in the last hundred years. I still think it's a fun read.
I will be interested to hear your reactions.