The Power
I’m working my way through the stacks of magazines and numerous blogs I missed while I was off visiting the good people of LA. During this process I saw two statements relating to the power of writing. George Stade a professor and author of Confessions of a Lady Killer and the upcoming Sex and Violence was the featured in The Week and given an opportunity to list what he views as the "best books" for the Book List column. Some of his choices don’t really match the visual image I have of a guy with those book titles but this one was truly interesting - no, it really is:
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Signet, $5), Stumbling upon this book at age 11 made me a reader and finally a professor of English and a writer. It’s racist, ignorant (in the first magazine version tigers are indigenous to Africa), sentimental about the British aristocracy, and full of the wildest improbabilities, but somehow the fantasy floats up and out of the dross.
Okay, for those unfamiliar with "dross" it’s waste or scum. And, yeah, this isn’t the book that made me want to become a writer. But it made a difference to him. What an awesome thing to be able to write something that helps shape the course of someone else’s life.
Then there’s the matching view expressed by Sienna Kelly in her blog entry here. In her words:
To know that what I have to say, while it may not change the world or affect everyone who reads it, is important.
If Stade’s experience is universal, and I think it is, Kelly’s words may change more than she thinks. And, really, have you ever heard someone say they were changed by Tarzan of the Apes before?
August 26th, 2005 at 8:28 am
I never liked Tarzan much (the racism, while typical of its day, taints it for me too badly, and did even when I was a kid), but one of the series that influenced me most was Burroughs’ Barsoom books. Romance, kick*ss women, exotic locales, a hero who is alpha and at the same time a gentleman– it just doesn’t get any better. (And all that nasty racism that taints Tarzan is almost entirely missing– in fact, the main romance is interracial, and the hero forms alliances with numerous different races, creating a sort of United Nations of Mars in the process.) Sure, it’s goofy, but it’s loads of fun. I really believe it’s these books that made me decide to be a romance writer.
August 26th, 2005 at 9:41 am
Do you think that the 11 year old Stade actually picked up these nuances from Tarzan at that age, or do you think (as I do) thats he read the book years later and realised that it was actually quite flawed?
August 26th, 2005 at 10:15 am
I’m thinking Stade loved the book because it made him dream and wonder, and that he only saw its flaws years later. I’d say that’s probably the norm. There are a host of books I loved in my youth and even my not-so-youth that I’m guessing if I read now I would find riddled with all kinds of hideous problems from intolerance to plain ‘ole bad writing.
But, it sounds as if Ellen picked up on the nuances and noticed the racism in one book and not in another - thus proving once again how much smarter Ellen is than yours truly. See, I grew up in Pennsylvania Amish country (not Amish myself, mind you) and didn’t meet up with many folks of different races and ethnic backgrounds until I left for college at 17. Having that kind of sheltered upbringing I could spot injustice (’cause I was always cool even if a bit naive) but that didn’t mean I always understood what was upsetting me. I think whatever greater understanding I now have came with maturity and experience.
August 26th, 2005 at 10:31 am
I really think the racism in Tarzan is so horrifically blatant that even an eleven-year-old would likely notice it. The writing issues(Burroughs’ love of incredible coincidences, for example) aren’t so obvious to a kid. And the “ignorant” stuff… eh, didn’t bother me in the least. The book version has a lion, not a tiger, but it still doesn’t belong in the jungle. That never really occurred to me until I was an adult, though.
August 26th, 2005 at 10:43 am
The eleven-year-old boys I knew were more concerned with spitting on each other than reading. But, again, I grew up in PA Amish country.
With all this talk I must now go back and look at the book to check out the racist content. I’m sure I read it as a kid but really have no recollection of it.
August 26th, 2005 at 4:24 pm
Oh, definitely racist, and interesting in the way the racism works and the savage/civilized hierarchy. I’m a huge fan of Tarzan, not necessarily because of the content, but because of the promise in it — it reads like an attempt to reconcile the savage and the civilized, and fails utterly.
And I’m not certain it is all that sympathetic to the English aristocracy. Greystoke, even though he is sent on a mission of diplomacy, is terribly inequipped to deal with lower classes or act in any diplomatic way because of his class (on the boat with the captain) and later, fails spectacularly trying to carve a bit of civilization out of the jungle. His wife goes crazy after being ‘raped’ by the ape, because her tender English sensibilities can’t handle the jungle anymore.
On the other hand, Jane–the American–does, and captures the heart of Tarzan, who is the ultimate expression of both human and ape, savagery and civilization. That they don’t have a HEA is just ERB being honest, I think. That she marries his English cousin is something of a tragedy, but a civilized one, issinnit?
God, look at me blab. I really do love this book.