After weathering mixed reviews and relatively tepid domestic
earnings ($72 million) earlier this year, the science fiction adventure epic John Carter was written off as a box
office calamity of Waterworld-sized
proportions. This has been blamed mostly on ineffective marketing, notably a
movie trailer which neglected to make viewers aware of the film’s historic background
and seminal influence (a problem that might have been avoided if Disney had run
with this inspired fan trailer
instead).
But the movie’s unabashed heroic romanticism began
resonating with review-proof fans worldwide (where it has earned $200+ million)
and reviving the
flick’s financial pulse. Now JC is
set to release on DVD this week, and will likely do brisk business. Perhaps it
will also introduce more fans to John Carter’s creator, one of the most
prolific, imaginative novelists of the 20th century – or any
century, for that matter: Edgar Rice Burroughs.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the
publication of Burroughs’ first novel, A
Princess of Mars, the book upon which John
Carter is largely based. Burroughs, or ERB, is more familiar to many as the
creator of Tarzan of the Apes, one of the most recognizable and enduring figures
in pop culture history. Born in 1875 in the wake of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells,
ERB has been called by many the father
of American science fiction. His 60+ novels, ripping tales of high
adventure set everywhere from the earth’s core to the African veldt to the
jungles of Venus, served as inspiration for countless writers and scientists
from Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury to Carl Sagan and Jane Goodall.
I discovered Tarzan of
the Apes at the age of twelve. Prior to that, my only exposure to the
legend of Tarzan was through Hollywood’s appallingly distorting lens (the
Johnny Weismuller films, probably the best-known, are particularly misleading
and embarrassing; Burroughs’ creation was no “Me Tarzan, you Jane” halfwit). Uncorrupted
by the deceit and venality of “civilized” man, Tarzan is the very embodiment of
the Noble Savage – literally noble: a
polished, educated scion of English royalty, he sheds “the thin veneer of
civilization” and returns to the African trees of his youth in pursuit of adventure
in two dozen action-packed novels.
I already enjoyed reading, but diving into that book was
like a religious epiphany; when I realized that there were many more in the Tarzan series, not to mention dozens of
other action-packed ERB books featuring pulp heroes like
cavalry-captain-turned-Martian-swordsman John Carter (featured in eleven books of
his own), I became like a crack addict. Indeed, I credit Burroughs as the
inspiration for my passion for reading and even my desire to become a writer. In
high school and then pursuing English and Humanities majors in college, I
broadened my reading horizons of course, but I never again was thrilled and
transported by fiction in quite the same way.
Yes, the language is a bit archaic now. No, ERB makes no
claims to literary genius, though his prose is unusually sophisticated by pulp
standards. But his novels are relentless page-turners overflowing with heroes
who are men’s men of honor, the proud, beautiful women who love them, and villains
undiluted by moral complexity (read: moral equivalence) – all populating the
dangerous, exotic landscapes of Burroughs’ trailblazing imagination.
In our cynical age it’s easy to roll one’s eyes at the
old-fashioned ideals, romanticism and sense of high adventure that permeate
ERB’s work and which defined my own childhood. Thankfully, we can still return to those thrilling
days of yesteryear through the books of Edgar Rice Burroughs. As Ray Bradbury
put it in his homage to the master of adventure,
We may have liked Verne and Wells
and Kipling, but we loved, we adored, we went quite mad with Mr. Burroughs. We
grew up into our intellectuality, of course, but our blood always remembered.
(This article originally appeared here on PJ Lifestyle, 5/31/12)
