Joined: Oct 15, 2004 Posts: 2089 Location: Arkansas
Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 5:59 pm Post subject: Tarzan Series
Though I'm only on book two of Edgar Rice Burroughs "Tarzan" series, its easy for me to understand why this book is a classic, as its much more than a well-written story, but a statement about how the farther we move from the jungle, the less civilized we become, as so well stated in this line from page 17 of Book Two, the "Return of Tarzan", when Tarzan, now out of the jungle and living in civilization, laments his having left the jungle, and in commenting on man, he says:
Quote:
"But they are all alike. Cheating, murdering, lying, fighting, and all for things that the beasts of the jungle would not deign to possess -- money to purchase the effeminate pleasures of weaklings. And yet withal bound down by silly customs that make them slaves to their unhappy lot while firm in the belief that they be the lords of creation enjoying the only real pleasures of existence . . . It is a silly world, an idiotic world, and Tarzan of the apes was a fool to renounce the freedom and the happiness of his jungle to come into it."
Maybe, then, we should not fear a return to the jungle.
I found the above line from Tarzan, that "men foolishly believe they are the lords of creation enjoying the only real pleasures of existence" strikingly reminiscent of a line from the Bible, wherein it states:
Quote:
"for that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast; for all is vanity.
Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3 verse 19, King James Version
Joined: May 14, 2005 Posts: 2125 Location: Along the banks of the muddy Mississippi
Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 6:38 pm Post subject: Re: Tarzan Series
The books are so much better than most of the many movies. _________________ “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.” (Ted Perry)
Joined: Oct 23, 2005 Posts: 1709 Location: East of Eden
Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 5:55 pm Post subject: Re: Tarzan Series
Yes I agree, those books are classics. The only film that even attempted to tell the right story was Greystoke, with that Highlander guy. _________________ "If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy
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