I nominated this so you can probably guess: I like it ... despite all its shortcomings.
I know it is crap. After reading this you can watch
George of the Jungle and think it was not a spoof but a spirited retelling of the original. And I love that movie too.
It's probably a carry over from childhood. As I noted in the nomination thread, when others were reading wholesome tales like
Anne of Green Gables, I was reading
Tarzan of the Apes and the myriad stories that followed. I was climbing trees and swinging from branches - the orchard at home suddenly the darkest jungles of Africa. (But now even a small step ladder makes me nervous.
) And I'm guessing it might be these stories that first led me into science fiction and fantasy via Burroughs' John Carter (Barsoom) stories.
Acknowledging and reading this as pure fantasy helps, I think. It's not quite our world, just very similar. In Tarzan's world there are Apes that fall somewhere between gorillas and humans - something like large chimpanzees, perhaps. In Tarzan's world the lions don't act much like our lions, and it's hard to walk a hundred yards through the jungle without running into one (but always just one, never a pride that would work together to make a brief snack out of a naked ape
).
And while reading I can accept all that. I can forgive the incredible coincidence that Tarzan's cousin, William Clayton (along with Jane Porter etc.), should be stranded on the same beach as Tarzan's parents. I can even forgive most of the sexist, racist and classist portrayals*. No, there are just two things that stood out in this as a step too far for my tastes:
The strandings are almost identical, even down to the large kind-hearted villain that convinces the others to set the people on the beach with supplies rather than simply throwing them overboard. (And this delicate sensibility appears after slaughtering the rest of the officers on board.) I found it easier to accept it was the same beach than that these circumstances should repeat.
And the second was swinging through the trees of Wisconsin - over the top of a bush fire. This gave me trouble (hot air rises, trees burn). Isn't it odd that, of all the things I could have picked on, this stood out? And I've never even been to Wisconsin. Okay, so I've never been to Africa, either.
* It seems to me that a story that places white nobility onto such a high and shining pedestal means that much of the racism becomes a variation of class prejudice. The book shows savagery among both white and black men; only the white nobility stands out as honourable ... and, curiously, this is apparently hereditary, so the white nobility can't even take credit for it as something they choose. (Tarzan can't help being good and noble, and a non-cannibal, non-rapist - it came built in. In which case thinking well of Tarzan for these traits is like thinking well of him for having two arms and two legs.)
But toward the end Tarzan points out that lions may be cowards or not, because each are different. "There is as much individuality among the lower orders, gentlemen, as there is among ourselves." This is a little spoiled by the "lower orders" reference, but it is still, as with a few other places in the book, a nod to the idea that how you behave is not all down to what you are ... which, I admit, is direct contradiction to other parts of the book that insist Tarzan behaves has he does because of his heritage, but such contradictions are often evident with expressions of prejudice.