Tarzan #07 - Tarzan the Untamed

Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote two Tarzan serials that were published in 1919 and 1920. The first was titled “Tarzan the Untamed “ (aka “Tarzan and the Huns”) and was published in Redbook from March to August 1919. The second was “Tarzan and the Valley of Luna”, published in All-Story Weekly from March to April 1920. The two stories were combined to make one complete novel, Tarzan the Untamed, in 1920 by A.C. McClurg (illustrations by J. Allen St. John). I chose to read the novel version, often presented as the seventh in the Tarzan series (after the short-story collection Jungle Tales of Tarzan).

German troops from the Great Lakes region of Africa (Tanganyika) descend on Tarzan's plantation in British East Africa, spurred by the turbulence of World War I. The titular hero is away at the time, but returns to find charred bodies and the Waziri warrior Wasimbu crucified on the wall. Among the burned corpses is what Tarzan presumes is his beloved wife Jane. Tarzan, enraged by the invasion and the murder of his wife, reverts back to his savage feral state.

In a unique marriage of modern warfare and jungle barbarism, Tarzan annihilates the German troops, first by shaking one to death and then later sniping them off with a carbine rifle. After meeting with British intelligence, Tarzan devises a plan to eliminate German troops from the trenches – with a lion, or what ERB and the apes refer to as “Numa”. The attack and intrigue leads Tarzan to extract revenge on two German brothers, one of which had a hand in Jane's presumed death. Additionally, a pivotal part of the through story is Tarzan's capture and re-capture of a German spy, a woman named Bertha Kircher.

In the second half of the novel, the “Tarzan and the Valley of Luna” serial, the book completely shifts gears into an African wilderness and survival formula as Tarzan and Bertha run into a downed British pilot named Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick. Harold gains a fondness for Bertha despite representing separate warring factions. The most interesting aspect to this portion of the novel is the closing chapters, a wild chain of events that reaches its pinnacle in a city of insane, and very scary, villagers. 

Tarzan the Untamed, while enjoyable and compelling, suffers from an identity crisis created by the publisher. The first half sets the reader on very different path involving this feral Tarzan, a savage swing that briefly recalls the intensity of Tarzan of the Apes a midst rapid-fire mechanization. His unbridled fury sets in motion a chain of violent sequences that are just ripe with emotion and anguish. But, the second half is an endless recycle of story ideas that I disliked in Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. Burroughs consistently rehashes the “rescue and release” formula with Tarzan thrust into chasing Bertha, freeing her from some nefarious predicament (cannibals, soldiers, crazy villagers, apes, lions) only to recycle the concept again in just a few pages. Smith-Oldwick is an admirable, if not lovable, addition to the story but fails to achieve much purpose other than fodder for abuse. 

I'm looking forward to the next Tarzan installment, Tarzan the Terrible, and what appears to be the first in a series of unpredictable adventures in lost civilizations. I think this change of pace may increase my enjoyment of this classic character. I'm not giving up on Tarzan.