Why Tarzan Books are Great

Okay, so here is some higher order literary criticism...for the Tarzan series. I am often asked "Okay sir, you're perhaps the most well-read person I know. You've read nearly every landmark work in the English language from Beowulf to 10 pages of Twilight. Why is it that you so passionately embrace a piece of admittedly escapist pulp fiction?"

Well, to be honest, no one has actually ever asked me that question, but I think some people mean to ask me that question when I tell them how much I loved the Tarzan books. So, anyway, if that question is ever asked, here is my answer.

I love the Tarzan books because they are about freedom. When I read the Tarzan books I was around 15 years old. I was at the perfect age. I was just starting to get a taste for what life would be like as a grown up--and I was scared. Grown ups don't have lazy summers where they just sit around idly watching water dry on the pavement after an intense water balloon fight. Grown ups don't run down the street barefoot just cause they can. Sadly, grown ups don't ever really do anything for the sake of the thing itself...grown ups always focus on the ends of their actions and forget the intrinsic value of the action itself.

In all they do the future hangs over adults like a spectre--every moment tainted by worry and obligation over some future contingency. Even supposed escapes are tainted by responsibility and obligation. When grown ups try to escape their problems all they do is convert their existing problems into a more attractive form. For example, on a vacation they worry about having as much fun as possible and hitting all the right spots, on weekends they worry about Monday's meeting etc. Simply put, as we age, the child like frivolousness, the ability to fully appreciate a perfectly hedonistic summer (the original meaning of the word thank you very much), the ability to fully be in the moment and appreciate its beauty disappears. And what do we do to compensate for this loss? Well, most of us just compensate by taking on more responsibilities. We take on new chains of responsibility, one at a time, wondering if the next one will so occupy us that we can finally get lost in work the way we used to get lost in play. With stuffy self-importance we accept each chain as indicative of increased adultly (new word) status and we thankfully begin our dogged march through adulthood. Everyone does this, it's part of growing up....for everyone but Tarzan.

Tarzan never learned about responsibility, until he was in his late 20s he didn't even know the word existed (and even then it would have been the French word for responsibility since he learned French before English). Tarzan grew up in the untamed jungle. Every day he'd stop and recognize the beauty around him. Tarzan had no conception of time. He just went from stages of being hungry to not being hungry. He slept when he wanted to, he ate when he wanted to. He was the master of his element, the true king of the jungle. When Tarzan took out a deer with his father's trusty hunting knife he roared at the top of his lungs and the whole jungle trembled. Even the lions (who admittedly aren't all that ferocious) skulked away.

So just imagine how deeply Tarzan's freedom would affect me as a 15 year old boy. I was just starting to realize the weight of responsibility that awaited me as an adult. Every day I was told where I needed to be, what I needed to do, when I needed to be there...Tarzan didn't worry about any of that stuff. Tarzan was free in a way that I could barely imagine... Tarzan didn't even have to wear pants (he did however accessorize when he met Jane).

Just think about what it would be like to be Tarzan. He didn't even know what it meant to lie until he met white explorers. Tarzan didn't know anything about being self-conscious, he didn't know anything about jealousy or frustration. Tarzan forever lived in the moment--only limited by his strength (and he was super strong so not much of a limitation) and his mind (and he was a genius).

Speaking of Tarzan's intelligence, so many people miss that. They always think of him as the terse, barely coherent "me Tarzan, you Jane." That is just ridiculous. Edgar Rice Burroughs even made fun of his beloved Tarzan's film characterization in his 22nd book. In that book Tarzan somehow manages to find the set of a movie based on his adventures. Coincidentally (we accept all coincidences as completely natural in these books) a lion escapes that day and the real Tarzan takes him down in front of everyone and saves the day. The director looks at Tarzan in all his ferocious splendor and says "maybe he could look the part," but then he dismisses the idea and says "no, he looks too intelligent."

You see, Tarzan was an English lord. He was self-educated, but by the end of the books he could speak fluently in over 20 languages. Tarzan beat the animals not because he was stronger (as they mistakenly show in the movies), but because he was smarter. Put simply, Tarzan was the best man that Burroughs could envision. Tarzan was handsome, strong, smart, honest, kind...he was everything I wanted to be, but I never envied him for any of these things, I only envied his freedom.

I wanted to run through the jungle feeling healthy and alive. I wanted to have no constraints, no schedule, to yell when I felt like it--to do whatever came to my mind simply because I thought to do it. I wanted to be totally free in a way that someone growing up in a city could only haphazardly imagine.

So, that's why the books are great. You can't help but read them and notice time slowing down. You can't help but read them and notice that so many of the things weighing you down are a bit silly, but most importantly you can't read them without feeling like you've cheated the system a little and postponed growing up, if only for a little while. Reading these books helps remind you of what you gave up to become a grown up.