Tintin in Prisoners of the Sun by Herge: Review

(Book Review--Tintin, Comic Books)

Tintin in Prisoners of the Sun by Herge: Review

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Book Review

(Book Review--Classics, Pulp Fiction Classics, Children's Literature)

Started: October 7, 2022

Finished: November 9, 2022

(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.) 

Background Information

I was reading this book at work a couple weeks ago, and a co-worker commented, "Tarzan?  I didn't know there were books as well!"

I suppose Tarzan has become so well-known as a movie icon that perhaps there are people out there who don't know that he started out life as a series of books.  But he did--a series of 24 books, of which this book is the first one.

Tarzan of the Apes was originally serialized in pulp magazines in 1912, and then released as a novel in 1914.

Author Edgar Rice Burroughs was a prolific pulp writer (in addition to the Tarzan series, he also wrote the John Carter of Mars series.) 

In writing Tarzan, Burroughs was reportedly influenced by the African adventure stories of H. Rider Haggard and The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.  But whereas H. Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling both knew intimately the terrains about which they wrote (H. Rider Haggard had spent years in South Africa, Kipling spent years in India), Edgar Rice Burroughs had famously never left the United States.  So the African jungle in the Tarzan novels is one that's completely from Burroughs' imagination, and is consequently completely fantastical.  So while this novel gets no points for realism, it is fun to visit the lush, dense, deadly tropical jungle of Burroughs' imagination.

My History with Tarzan

I was never a huge Tarzan fan as a kid.  Although I was curious about him.

Growing up in the 1980s, I had managed to pick up from cultural osmosis that Tarzan had once been a huge pop-cultural phenomenon in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, and then had subsequently gone out of style.  (In the old days before the Internet and Wikipedia, it was difficult to get information on pop-cultural phenomenons from before your birth, but you picked up little things through overheard conversations, or references on TV shows, etc.)

As a kid, I was more interested in the phenomenon itself than in Tarzan--that is, I was fascinated by how something could be such a huge part of 1950s pop culture, but then be so unfashionable by the 1980s.  What exactly separated us from the kids of the 1950s?  How had humanity changed in the intervening years to make Tarzan unmarketable?

As for the Tarzan movies themselves, my memory is that they were hard to come by in the 1980s.  I don't remember them being available at the local video store.  I don't remember them being on cable TV.  (I don't know, what are your memories of the 1980s like?  Was I missing something, or was it just hard to find this stuff back then?)

If Tarzan had been more widely available, I totally would have watched all of those old movies.  (As a kid, I loved that old cheesy retro stuff.)

As it was, though, the only Tarzan movie I came across as a kid was the 1932 movie Tarzan the Ape Man (W). I think I was in 4th grade.  We were on a family vacation somewhere in the mid-west, and while staying at a hotel, I was scanning through the television listings, and saw that Tarzan the Ape Man was playing.

My parents were very strict about what I watched back in those days, so everything was a negotiation.  My mother eventually decided that since the movie was from 1932, it couldn't be that violent, and agreed to let me watch it.

Then, when we all watched it together that evening, the movie was more intense than my mother was expecting, and I remember during a few scenes of the movie, my mother would turn to my father and remark in surprise, "1932!"  (The intonation in her voice conveying the meaning of: Imagine that this is from a 1932 movie.)

(Upon consulting Wikipedia, it looks like 1932 was actually pre-code Hollywood (W), which probably explains why it was more intense than my mother was expecting.  But I haven't seen the movie since then, so at this point my memories of it are foggy and scattered.  But I do have a vague memory of Jane and her father travelling into the jungle with a group of African guides.  They encounter numerous jungle dangers along the way, and at each danger point one or two of the African guides will die.  When I was reviewing Pirates of the Caribbean 3, I used this as an analogy to talk about how the Chinese crew were used.)

Also, in 2016, I saw The Legend of Tarzan when it was playing in theaters (and reviewed it on this blog).

Why I Read This Book

I’ve been slowly working my way through the pulp fiction classics on this blog.  So it was only a matter of time before I eventually worked my way around to Tarzan.

I did read some of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s other series, John Carter of Mars, way back in 2006, and wasn’t particularly impressed with it.  (I gave it a mostly negative review).  I suppose that experience didn’t make me overly eager to rush into Tarzan.

Confession time: Back in 2006, I actually bought a copy of Tarzan, and just never got around to reading it.  It was a copy from Signet Classics that combined Tarzan with The Prisoner of Zenda (available on Amazon HERE).  It contained an introduction by Gore Vidal.  At the time, I read the Gore Vidal essay, but never got around to never got around to reading the actual book.  (Again, I think my experience with John Carter or Mars had dampened my enthusiasm).  Then, when I went back to Japan in 2007, this was one of the many books I just had to get rid of without reading.    

Despite, I've still been meaning to get around to it someday.

More recently, this past August there was also some increased chatter about the Tarzan series on booktube for Garbaugust, which pushed this series toward the top of my mind.

And so, when I saw a copy of Tarzan in SC Vivo City here in Vietnam, I snatched up a copy.  

(I don’t think I’m going to have any luck finding any of the rest of the series out here in Vietnam, but the bookstores were at least selling the first book.)

Links

* The introduction by Gore Vidal that I mentioned above (the one that Signet Classics used for their 2006 edition) actually comes from a 1963 essay that Gore Vidal did for Esquire Magazine called Tarzan Revisited.  It's available online HERE, and is worth reading for a couple of different reasons--both for Gore Vidal's dissection of Burroughs' plot and prose, but also for Gore Vidal's musings on how common it is for people to maintain a running adventure stories in their heads.

As someone who all through childhood was always imagining adventure stories in my head, I found Gore Vidal's musings on this subject to be of personal interest.  But my personal thoughts on all this are another whole subject for a different post some other day.  

* I've been linking to Mari Ness's reviews on Tor.com throughout my reviews of The Land of Oz.  But Mari Ness also has an excellent review of Tarzan on Tor.com, entitled: Heredity, Environment, and a Few Dead Lions: Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes.  This is worth reading in its entirety--Mari Ness is a very insightful, but also humorous reviewer.  She's a lot of fun.  I'll just quote a paragraph to give some of the flavor:

Fortunately, before he can suffer too much from his responsibilities, a number of people—not ape people, human people—start randomly arriving, including, in no particular order: two easily distracted scholars; Tarzan’s cousin Clayton, under the understandable impression that he is the real Lord Greystoke; various evil sailors (Tarzan doesn’t like them); a black woman named Esmerelda, who, after seeing the various skeletons, wild apes, and so on, really wants to return to Baltimore (she has a point); various Frenchmen; and oh, yes, Jane. She’s the daughter of one of the two scholars. Esmeralda appears to have come along as her chaperone, although a remarkably ineffective one. Various encounters and near-encounters occur, then lions appear, all eventually leading to this:

"He took his woman in his arms and carried her into the jungle."

I have more than a few things to say about this—notably, uh, Tarzan, I get the whole raised by apes thing, but just a few seconds ago, Jane was striking Tarzan’s giant breast with her tiny hands (it’s that sort of book) protesting Tarzan’s burning kisses (as said, it’s that sort of book) and repulsing him, so what is this “his woman” stuff? Anyway, off to the jungle they go, where, after a night of gift giving including fruit and a golden locket Jane falls headlong in love with him. (Did I mention it’s that sort of book?)

Plot Summary and Commentary ***SPOILERS***

In my 2006 review of the first 3 books in Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Martian series, I wrote:

From a literary standpoint however these books are pretty awful. I doubt they could even get published today. Burrough’s doesn’t pause for any description at all. The whole book is one long fight scene. It reads like something a 12 year might write:

“So there I was, stuck on Mars. All of a sudden all these green men attacked me. I fought bravely, and I had almost beaten them all, when all of a sudden a giant spider came out of the ground and attacked us. I battled the spider until these giant birds descended on us and tried to eat me....”

I exaggerate, but not by much. 

I was expecting to find the same thing in Tarzan, and was therefore surprised to find out that Tarzan of the Apes is actually pretty well written.

(I may have been too harsh in my 2006 review of The Martian Tales Trilogy.  I don’t know.  I’m going to have to go back and re-read those books one of these days.)

But in contrast to my memories of The Martian Tales Trilogy, Tarzan is not simply a mad-rush from one fight to another.  It actually has decent pacing and development.  The story is told in sufficient detail, and the scenery and characters are also fully described.

This is clear right from the beginning, when we are still on Tarzan’s backstory.  I expected Tarzan’s parents to be killed off very quickly, but we actually spend 35 pages with them before they finally die and Tarzan gets adopted by the apes. 

Chapter 1 opens with the premise of a narrator who is reconstructing the history from various documents and eyewitnesses:

I had this story from one who had no business to tell it to me, or to any other. I may credit the seductive influence of an old vintage upon the narrator for the beginning of it, and my own skeptical incredulity during the days that followed for the balance of the strange tale.

When my convivial host discovered that he had told me so much, and that I was prone to doubtfulness, his foolish pride assumed the task the old vintage had commenced, and so he unearthed written evidence in the form of musty manuscript, and dry official records of the British Colonial Office to support many of the salient features of his remarkable narrative.

I do not say the story is true, for I did not witness the happenings which it portrays, but the fact that in the telling of it to you I have taken fictitious names for the principal characters quite sufficiently evidences the sincerity of my own belief that it may be true.

The yellow, mildewed pages of the diary of a man long dead, and the records of the Colonial Office dovetail perfectly with the narrative of my convivial host, and so I give you the story as I painstakingly pieced it out from these several various agencies.

If you do not find it credible you will at least be as one with me in acknowledging that it is unique, remarkable, and interesting.

From the records of the Colonial Office and from the dead man’s diary we learn that a certain young English nobleman, whom we shall call John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, was commissioned to make a peculiarly delicate investigation of conditions in a British West Coast African Colony from whose simple native inhabitants another European power was known to be recruiting soldiers for its native army, which it used solely for the forcible collection of rubber and ivory from the savage tribes along the Congo and the Aruwimi. The natives of the British Colony complained that many of their young men were enticed away through the medium of fair and glowing promises, but that few if any ever returned to their families…. (and so forth)

But this conceit is not continued beyond the first chapter.  From the second chapter onwards, the story continues with the standard 3rd person omniscient narrator. (Ordinarily one imagines these kind of inconsistencies would be fixed in the drafting process, but because this novel was originally serialized in the pulps, I suppose redrafting earlier chapters wasn’t possible.) 

As you can see from the above quotation, it turns out that the reason Tarzan’s parents end up in the African jungle in the first place is because they are sent by the British government to investigate the abuses of Belgians in the Congo, but then while en route there’s a mutiny on their ship, and they end up getting marooned on the coast of the jungle by the mutineers.

(In the first two chapters, we get the whole story of how the mutiny came about.  As it turns out, the captain of the ship seems to do everything he can to provoke a mutiny in a way that remind me of the captain from Mutiny on the Bounty).

What happens next is so well-established in pop-culture that I think everyone knows it whether they’ve seen a Tarzan movie or not.  Tarzan’s parents die in the jungle, and Tarzan is raised in the jungle by the apes.

I suppose I should pause here and talk about the jungle.

In my review of King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard, I wrote:

I didn’t know much about this book before I started, and I confess that it was quite different from what I had expected.

I was expecting much more of a jungle adventure story--men hacking their way through thick green jungle foliage, boating down a jungle river, battling crocodiles and piranhas and tigers.

Instead, this is much more of an African savannah story. They cross through the great plains, there is a bit of elephant hunting, and then the real meat of the journey takes place crossing a desert.

H. Rider Haggard spent years living in Africa, so he knew the terrain he was writing about.  And this got me thinking: are there actually tropical jungles in Africa, or is Africa mostly deserts and savannahs?  When I think about lush thick tropical jungles, am I imagining Africa? Or am I actually imagining South America or India? I don’t know--I’ve never been to Africa.  

Edgar Rice Burroughs has also never been to Africa, and so he creates the African jungle of his imagination--it’s described as being thick with green plants and vines, and Burroughs uses the adjective "impenetrable" frequently when describing the jungle foliage.  This thick foliage also offers a complete camouflage for all the deadly animals that live within.  (In chapter 8, when describing Tarzan’s encounter with a lion, Burroughs writes “For a moment the two eyed each other in silence, and then the great cat turned into the jungle, which swallowed her as the ocean engulfs a tossed pebble.”).

Suffice it to say, Tarzan of the Apes gives me exactly the jungle adventure atmosphere that I had felt cheated out of in King Solomon's Mines.

There’s about 100 pages of Tarzan’s adventures in the jungle before Jane arrives.  During these pages, Tarzan fights for leadership in the ape hierarchy, learns how to fight against the other animals, and also fights against the black tribe in the jungle.  

The Tarzan described in these pages is a savage. He’s been raised in the jungle, and knows only the jungle laws. He both kills other gorillas in his battles for dominance, and he kills and terrorizes the black tribe that live in his area of the jungle.

  For example, one of the black warriors kills Tarzan’s adopted gorilla mother, and in revenge Tarzan stalks him for a couple days before garroting and stabbing him to death.  (You can understand Tarzan was upset that his gorilla mother was killed, but this poor black warrior thought he was just hunting an ordinary gorilla.)

Tarzan later goes on to regularly terrorize this black village, regularly killing the black warriors in order to take their weapons and jewellery.  From Chapter 12:

 …he [Tarzan] commenced picking up solitary hunters with his long, deadly noose, stripping them of weapons and ornaments and dropping their bodies from a high tree into the village street during the still watches of the night. 

 These sections of the book reminded me of the flavor of Conan the Barbarian. Just like Conan, Tarzan is portrayed as a savage and brutal barbarian.  You are rooting for him, because he is the protagonist, but you’re also chilled by his level of casual cruelty and violence.  But also, as with Conan, the target audience for these books (12 year old boys) no doubt also get a little thrill from the dark savagery.  (These are the pulps, after all, so the chilling savage violence is part of the appeal.)  

But this angle of Tarzan the barbarian is dropped once Jane and her family arrive in the jungle.  From this point on, Tarzan is portrayed as a perfect gentleman and protector.

The in story explanation for this is because Tarzan recognizes Jane and her family as being white just like himself, and thus he feels an affinity for them that he did not feel for the black Africans, and that causes him to act much more chivalrous around them than he did with the black tribesman.  But I also felt like there was a rather sudden change in Tarzan’s character at this point in the story from brutal to noble, and I’m not entirely sure the in-story explanation was sufficient to account for it.  (Or did I miss something?) 

Accompanying Jane is her father Professor Archimedes Q. Porter and his best friend Samuel T. Philander.

Professor Archimedes Q. Porter is portrayed as the quintessential comically absent minded professor.  In our first introduction to him, he and Mr. Philander get lost in the African jungle, but instead of worrying about how they are going to find safety, they are arguing about the 15th century conquest of Spain:

Several miles south of the cabin, upon a strip of sandy beach, stood two old men, arguing.

Before them stretched the broad Atlantic. At their backs was the Dark Continent. Close around them loomed the impenetrable blackness of the jungle.

Savage beasts roared and growled; noises, hideous and weird, assailed their ears. They had wandered for miles in search of their camp, but always in the wrong direction. They were as hopelessly lost as though they suddenly had been transported to another world.

At such a time, indeed, every fiber of their combined intellects must have been concentrated upon the vital question of the minute—the life-and-death question to them of retracing their steps to camp.

Samuel T. Philander was speaking.

“But, my dear professor,” he was saying, “I still maintain that but for the victories of Ferdinand and Isabella over the fifteenth-century Moors in Spain the world would be today a thousand years in advance of where we now find ourselves. The Moors were essentially a tolerant, broad-minded, liberal race of agriculturists, artisans and merchants—the very type of people that has made possible such civilization as we find today in America and Europe—while the Spaniards—”

“Tut, tut, dear Mr. Philander,” interrupted Professor Porter; “their religion positively precluded the possibilities you suggest. Moslemism was, is, and always will be, a blight on that scientific progress which has marked—”

“Bless me! Professor,” interjected Mr. Philander, who had turned his gaze toward the jungle, “there seems to be someone approaching.”

Professor Archimedes Q. Porter turned in the direction indicated by the nearsighted Mr. Philander.

“Tut, tut, Mr. Philander,” he chided. “How often must I urge you to seek that absolute concentration of your mental faculties which alone may permit you to bring to bear the highest powers of intellectuality upon the momentous problems which naturally fall to the lot of great minds? And now I find you guilty of a most flagrant breach of courtesy in interrupting my learned discourse to call attention to a mere quadruped of the genus Felis. As I was saying, Mr.—”

“Heavens, Professor, a lion?” cried Mr. Philander, straining his weak eyes toward the dim figure outlined against the dark tropical underbrush.

“Yes, yes, Mr. Philander, if you insist upon employing slang in your discourse, a ‘lion.’ But as I was saying—”

“Bless me, Professor,” again interrupted Mr. Philander; “permit me to suggest that doubtless the Moors who were conquered in the fifteenth century will continue in that most regrettable condition for the time being at least, even though we postpone discussion of that world calamity until we may attain the enchanting view of yon Felis carnivora which distance proverbially is credited with lending.” (from chapter 16)

Okay, yes, the oblivious intellectual is a cliche comic stereotype.  But this is pulp fiction after all, so we’re going with the easy comic stereotypes.  And even though it’s not particularly inventive, it works.  These scenes get the laughs that they’re designed to get. (At least in my opinion.)

Also accompanying Jane and her father is Jane's admirer, the gallant young English Lord Greystoke (real name William Clayton).  Once Tarzan meets Jane (and the two immediately fall in love), this will of course set off a love triangle, where Jane will have to choose between the well-mannered young English aristocrat, and the savage virile manly jungle man.

But it gets even crazier, because as it happens, Lord Greystoke is actually Tarzan's cousin.  (This is, of course, an incredible coincidence, but these are the pulps, so incredible coincidences are all part of the genre.)  Tarzan is actually the real Lord Greystroke, but because Tarzan and his parents disappeared in the jungle 21 years ago, Clayton now has inherited the lordship that should belong to Tarzan.

But aside from creating a family soap opera, Edgar Rice Burroughs is using the contrast between Tarzan and Lord Greystoke to explore the themes of heredity and environment.  Tarzan and Lord Greystoke both have the same genes, but Tarzan's jungle upbringing has turned him into a superhuman, whereas Lord Greystoke's aristocratic upbringing has made him sort.

Sidenote: I'm indebted to Mari Ness's review of Tarzan for pointing out this theme. I didn't actually catch what Burroughs was trying to do on my own reading.  Although I should have.  Because now that I think about it, it was pretty obvious all throughout the book. There were several passages that go out of their way to contrast Tarzan's jungle life with the life of his uncle and cousin.  Take, for instance, this passage from chapter 9:

But, be that as it may, Tarzan would not ruin good meat in any such foolish manner, so he gobbled down a great quantity of the raw flesh, burying the balance of the carcass beside the trail where he could find it upon his return.

And then Lord Greystoke wiped his greasy fingers upon his naked thighs and took up the trail of Kulonga, the son of Mbonga, the king; while in far-off London another Lord Greystoke, the younger brother of the real Lord Greystoke’s father, sent back his chops to the club’s chef because they were underdone, and when he had finished his repast he dipped his finger-ends into a silver bowl of scented water and dried them upon a piece of snowy damask.

So anyway, a love triangle is set-up.  Of course, we all know that Jane is destined to end up with Tarzan.  That's just common pop culture knowledge.  But the thing is, William Clayton (the pretender Greystoke) isn't actually a bad guy.  He's got a good heart.  

In one of my weekly reading vlogs, I wondered what William Clayton's character arc would end up being.  I mean, he's portrayed as a likeable character, but obviously he's not going to end up with Jane, so what was going to be his arc?

Oh, how naive I was.  I had no idea how the story would actually end.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Back to the jungle.

Jane and her family are rescued by the French Navy, and sail back to America.  Tarzan gets left behind, because he's stuck in the jungle nursing one of the French officers back to health.

The French officer and Tarzan then journey together into civilization.  Tarzan learns how to speak French, and then eventually English.  The French officer also discovers who Tarzan really is, and discovers that Tarzan is the real Lord Greystoke.

[By the way, here's an interesting little bit of pop culture trivia for you--there's actually no "Me Tarzan, You Jane" dialogue in either the book or the movies.  That's actually one of those famous misquotes (see article HERE).  When Jane and her family are in the jungle, Tarzan communicates with them only by writing.  (Tarzan had actually learned to read and write by studying the books left behind by his dead parents--I know, I know, but just go with it.  As Mari Ness would say, it's that kind of book.)]

Back in America, Jane is being forced into marriage by an evil rich man.  (Did I mention this was pulp fiction?)  But Tarzan shows up, now speaking fluent English, and saves Jane from the marriage.

Jane is now free to marry whom she chooses, but she once again finds herself between the gentlemanly William Clayton and the virile Tarzan.  After some agonizing indecision, she chooses Clayton.

Tarzan accepts her choice.  He gives her and Clayton the money that he got from the buried treasure.  (Did I mention that there was a buried treasure in this book as well?  No?  Well you can't expect me to cover everything in a short summary.  As Gore Vidal says in his essay, there is actually a lot of plot in this short little book.)

And then Tarzan leaves.  Tarzan also keeps secret that he is the true Lord Greystoke, allowing Clayton to keep the title, and the money, and Jane.

Wait, what?

Jane ends up with Clayton, and not Tarzan?  That can't be right, can it?

Oh, wait.  I forgot there are 23 other books left in this series.  If I want to see how Tarzan and Jane eventually get together, I suppose I need to go read the next book.

The Reading Experience

In his essay on Tarzan, Gore Vidal explicitly links it to childhood reading, and says that although James Bond and Mike Hammer have adult appeal, Tarzan is strictly for the kids.

And this seems pretty much in line with everything else I've read on Tarzan.  By all accounts, this stuff was considered something strictly for the young boys back in its day.  (What do you suppose was the target audience for these books back in the day?  11 and 12?  Or possibly 8 and 9?)

To me, however, the prose style doesn't read like something written for children.  The sentences seem a little bit too complex, and the vocabulary seems a bit too high for an 11 year old.

I think this is just another example of how popular prose style has gotten simplified over time.

I've made the same observation in my reviews of other classic boys adventure books Treasure Island and The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood.  It's interesting to compare these books with modern children's literature like The Animorphs and see how different the prose style is.

I'll quote a bit of Tarzan of the Apes below, and you can make up your own mind.

Extended Quotation

Tarzan of the Apes lived on in his wild, jungle existence with little change for several years, only that he grew stronger and wiser, and learned from his books more and more of the strange worlds which lay somewhere outside his primeval forest.

To him life was never monotonous or stale. There was always Pisah, the fish, to be caught in the many streams and the little lakes, and Sabor, with her ferocious cousins to keep one ever on the alert and give zest to every instant that one spent upon the ground.

Often they hunted him, and more often he hunted them, but though they never quite reached him with those cruel, sharp claws of theirs, yet there were times when one could scarce have passed a thick leaf between their talons and his smooth hide.

Quick was Sabor, the lioness, and quick were Numa and Sheeta, but Tarzan of the Apes was lightning.

With Tantor, the elephant, he made friends. How? Ask not. But this is known to the denizens of the jungle, that on many moonlight nights Tarzan of the Apes and Tantor, the elephant, walked together, and where the way was clear Tarzan rode, perched high upon Tantor’s mighty back.

Many days during these years he spent in the cabin of his father, where still lay, untouched, the bones of his parents and the skeleton of Kala’s baby. At eighteen he read fluently and understood nearly all he read in the many and varied volumes on the shelves.

Also could he write, with printed letters, rapidly and plainly, but script he had not mastered, for though there were several copy books among his treasure, there was so little written English in the cabin that he saw no use for bothering with this other form of writing, though he could read it, laboriously.

Thus, at eighteen, we find him, an English lordling, who could speak no English, and yet who could read and write his native language. Never had he seen a human being other than himself, for the little area traversed by his tribe was watered by no greater river to bring down the savage natives of the interior.

High hills shut it off on three sides, the ocean on the fourth. It was alive with lions and leopards and poisonous snakes. Its untouched mazes of matted jungle had as yet invited no hardy pioneer from the human beasts beyond its frontier.

But as Tarzan of the Apes sat one day in the cabin of his father delving into the mysteries of a new book, the ancient security of his jungle was broken forever.

At the far eastern confine a strange cavalcade strung, in single file, over the brow of a low hill.

In advance were fifty black warriors armed with slender wooden spears with ends hard baked over slow fires, and long bows and poisoned arrows. On their backs were oval shields, in their noses huge rings, while from the kinky wool of their heads protruded tufts of gay feathers.

Across their foreheads were tattooed three parallel lines of color, and on each breast three concentric circles. Their yellow teeth were filed to sharp points, and their great protruding lips added still further to the low and bestial brutishness of their appearance.

Following them were several hundred women and children, the former bearing upon their heads great burdens of cooking pots, household utensils and ivory. In the rear were a hundred warriors, similar in all respects to the advance guard.

That they more greatly feared an attack from the rear than whatever unknown enemies lurked in their advance was evidenced by the formation of the column; and such was the fact, for they were fleeing from the white man’s soldiers who had so harassed them for rubber and ivory that they had turned upon their conquerors one day and massacred a white officer and a small detachment of his black troops.

(***ENDQUOTE*** From the beginning of chapter 9.  It goes on, but you get the idea hopefully).

Connections With Other Books I've Read

A few years ago I read and reviewed The Scramble for Africa: 1876-1912 by Thomas Pakenham.  (One of my favorite books of all time, by the way.  Highly recommended if you ever come across a copy.)  In that book, Thomas Pakenham talks at length about the horrible atrocities committed by the Belgians in the Congo.  It was very depressing reading.  But then another whole part of the book was about the international campaign to try to stop the Belgian atrocities in the Congo.  British and American humanitarians organized a huge campaign to try to raise public awareness of what was happening in the Congo, and pressure the Belgian government.  (For more information see, for example, the Wikipedia article on the Congo Reform Association.)  

Edgar Rice Burroughs must have been influenced by this public awareness campaign, because throughout Tarzan of the Apes he repeatedly references the Belgian atrocities in the Congo.

For whatever reason, in the first few chapters, Burroughs seems reluctant to name Belgium directly.  I'm not sure if he was concerned about his liability, or what, but he simply talks about reports that "another European power" or "a friendly European power" were up to questionable things in the Congo region.

But then, halfway through the book, Burroughs drops all coyness, and starts calling out King Leopold II and the Belgians directly.  

For example, in chapter 21, when describing how a savage African tribe had been made even more savage because of what the Belgians did to them, Burroughs says:

To add to the fiendishness of their cruel savagery was the poignant memory of still crueler barbarities practiced upon them and theirs by the white officers of that arch hypocrite, Leopold II of Belgium, because of whose atrocities they had fled the Congo Free State—a pitiful remnant of what once had been a mighty tribe.

In my 2016 review of The Legend of Tarzan, I praised the movie for integrating historical details about the real Scramble for Africa and the Belgian Congo into the Tarzan legend.  But as it turns out, I was overly generous in crediting the movie with that innovation.  That historical background is baked right into the source material.

 

********************

In my review of The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, I mentioned that:

The idea that an adversary can be hidden somewhere in the room, unseen and unseeable, and can jump out to attack us at any moment is something that definitely triggers our primitive panic impulses.  (I suppose their must be an evolutionary fear trigger here--the fear of unseen predators lurking in the bushes.)

Burroughs is of the same opinion as me.  Hidden predators in the jungle definitely tap into our fear centers--as described perfectly by one of the characters on page 185 of Chapter 24:

“I don’t know about that,” said Lieutenant Charpentier. “I never thought much about fear and that sort of thing—never tried to determine whether I was a coward or brave man; but the other night as we lay in the jungle there after poor D’Arnot was taken, and those jungle noises rose and fell around us I began to think that I was a coward indeed. It was not the roaring and growling of the big beasts that affected me so much as it was the stealthy noises—the ones that you heard suddenly close by and then listened vainly for a repetition of—the unaccountable sounds as of a great body moving almost noiselessly, and the knowledge that you didn’t KNOW how close it was, or whether it were creeping closer after you ceased to hear it? It was those noises—and the eyes.

Other Odds and Ends

* If you've been reading everything in this review so far, no doubt you've noticed that the portrayal of native Africans is a bit problematic.  

I don't want to spend too much time on this, because as far as criticisms go, this is low-hanging fruit.  (I don't expect anyone to give me a reward for recognizing that a pulp fiction adventure book from 1912 is politically incorrect.) But I guess it should at least be noted for the record.

But then, it should also be noted that, as Mari Ness puts it in in her review:

But for all his racism, Burroughs also spends a significant amount of time critiquing white colonialism, blaming it for most of Africa’s problems. He specifically calls out whites for exploiting black labor and workers, and slams Leopold II, King of the Belgians, calling him that “arch hypocrite,” accusing him of approving torture and blaming him for the destruction of the Congo Free State and a proud culture. That culture is black, and if Burroughs does not exactly see it as equal to the glories of America (nothing, to Burroughs, is equal to the glories of America) he strongly disapproves of its destruction.

* I'm not sure if I'm going to continue with the other books in the Tarzan series or not.  I don't think I'd find any of the other books out here in Vietnam, but some of the sequels are available on Project Gutenberg.  (Not all, but some of them.)  And I did order a Kindle for precisely the purpose of trying to make use of all the free stuff on Project Gutenberg.  Maybe I'll try out some of the other books.  I'm not sure yet.

* Digging around on the Internet for background information on this book, I'm starting to get contradictory information about whether or not it was serialized.  Some websites say it was, some websites say it wasn't.  Some people say that although it was originally published in the pulps in 1912, it was published as a whole story, and not serialized.  Wikipedia, as of  this writing, says "serialized".

Tarzan of the Apes is a 1912 story by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the first in the Tarzan series. It was first serialized in the pulp magazine The All-Story beginning October 1912 before being released as a novel in June 1914.^[1]

 I don't know. But if you do, let me know in the comments.

Rating: 

8 out of 10 Stars.  Keep in mind, of course, that all books are rated against their genres, and not against any objective standards of good.  It's a cheesy pulp fiction book, but as a cheesy pulp fiction book, I'd rate it about 8 out of 10 against the other books in the same category.

Weekly Reading Vlogs:

October 9, 2022 Tarzan of the Apes p.1-20

October 16, 2022 Tarzan of the Apes p.20-102

October 23, 2022 Tarzan of the Apes p.102-116

October 30, 2022 Tarzan of the Apes p.116-162

November 6, 2022 Tarzan of the Apes p.162-170

November 13, 2022 Tarzan of the Apes p.170-224

Video Review (Playlist HERE)

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Book Review

Weekly Reading Vlog #88: The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan p.162-172, The Odyssey p.116-168

(Weekly Reading Vlog)    

Books (62 pages this week)

The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan p.162-172 (10)

The Odyssey by Homer p.116-168 (52)

Podcasts and Audiobooks: (Not mentioned in the video)

Revolutions Season 4: The Haitian Revolution  2nd Listening From: 4.06- The Second Commission To: 4.07- The Citizens of June 20 (from Revolutions Podcast)

After finishing Tarzan, I've been reviewing it on the Youtube audiobook HERE.

Also to supplement The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan, I've been re-listening to some of his lectures from Introduction to Ancient Greek History with Donald Kagan, and also relevant episodes from The History of Ancient Greece Podcast.

Videos from this week:

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Book Review https://youtu.be/3v5ZhY1RNLg

This Week in Booktube (not all of these were mentioned in the video, but these are the booktube videos I've watched this week) docs, pub:

Brandon's Bookshelf: My Deconversion Story! How I Left Christianity & Became An Atheist | Sunday School #2 https://youtu.be/J1ANw26EAgA

CPL Radio: Book of the Day - Who Wet My Pants? by Bob Shea, Illustrated by Zachariah Ohora https://youtu.be/3wX_af7gOaE

CPL Radio: Book of the Day - Dune by Frank Herbert https://youtu.be/o9vXB0mNeSE

CPL Radio: Book of the Day - Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday https://youtu.be/UTTrf6eO5xg

CPL Radio: Book of the Day - The Whittiers by Danielle Steel https://youtu.be/IyQaegbXS-0

CPL Radio: Book of the Day - The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien https://youtu.be/eYFtxHRlkFI

CPL Radio: Book of the Day - Revenge by Michael Cohen (ENCORE PRESENTATION) https://youtu.be/3pmDg50RG-I

Steve Donoghue: The BookTube Thanksgiving Tag! https://youtu.be/9bMU90-vWMU

William's Library: Garden Of Beasts By Jeffery Deaver Review https://youtu.be/NT5NdYEab0E

jim's books reading & stuff: 1 Minute review: The Inspector and Silence by Håkan Nesser https://youtu.be/tfsPCUs6qjc

For more information about what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE.

Q: Skills for Success: Reading and Writing 4: Units 1-4 Review

(Supplementary Materials for Specific Textbooks--Q: Skills for Success: Reading and Writing 4)

* Quizlet: Units 1-4 Vocabulary Q Skills Reading and Writing 4

* Kahoot: Q-skills 4 R&W consolidation 1-4 , q-skills 4 R&W -consolidation 1-4

* Taboo (vocabulary 1-4): docs, pub 

* Doraemon PowerPoint Game: drive, slides, pub (using the Doraemon PowerPoint Template)

I found this video and this video useful when teaching a lesson on Subordinate Clauses.  

MAIN CLAUSES AND SUBORDINATE CLAUSES | Independent Clauses and Dependent Clauses | Clauses Quiz

What is a subordinate clause? | Oxford Owl

I'm going to index these videos along with my material for Subordinate Clauses.

Here is a link to a Kahoot game I did when teaching a lesson on Subordinate Clauses: Subordinate Clauses by swilson2132

I'm going to index this game along with my material for Subordinate Clauses.

Subordinate Clauses

(TESOL Ideas and Worksheets Subdivisions)

* LINK: Kahoot Game for Subordinate Clauses

* LINK: video on Subordinate Clauses

Relative Clauses:
* Omitting the Relative Pronoun 
* Relative Clauses: Who and Which Grab the Card Game
* Relative Clauses Guessing Game
* Relative Clauses Scrambled Sentences
* "-er Nouns" for Relative clauses
* Hurricane: Relative Clauses
* LINK: This is the House that Jack Built
* Relative Clauses Scrambled Sentences 2
* Board Race for Relative Clauses
* Relative Clause with Who Slideshow
* General Knowledge Quiz for Relative Clauses

* Relative Clauses with "This is the House that Jack Built"

* Relative Clause Board Race

* Relative Clauses: Grammar ESL Listening

Subordinate Clauses with Past Continuous: 

* Past Continuous: Find Your Partner
* Past Continuous Cards for Conversation
* Crossword Puzzle for Past Continuous
* While + Past Continuous Slideshow
* While+ Past Continuous Scrambled Sentences
* Write Your own Sentence: While + Past Continuous + Past Simple
* While + Past Continuous + Past Simple Scrambled Sentences
* While + Past Continuous + Past Simple Slideshow
* Past Simple versus Past Continuous Crossword Questions

Make a Homoraph Quiz

(TESOL Materials--Homonyms Homophones and Homographs)

Google: docs, pub

Make a homograph quiz for the other group.  Write down two pairs of definitions for a pair of homographs.  You can use a dictionary if you need to, or you can just use your own knowledge.  Don’t write the answer down.  The other group will have to guess the answer:

Example:

____________ (noun) an organization or place where you can borrow money, save money, etc

____________ (noun) the land along the side of a river

Here is a quizlet quiz on Homonyms.  The original by is Homonyms by sunshine8769.  I also made a copy on my own quizlet account HERE.  

I'm going to index this game along with my material for Homonyms Homophones and Homographs.

Weekly Reading Vlog #87: The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan p.96-162, The Odyssey p.1-116

(Weekly Reading Vlog)    

Books (182 pages this week)

The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan p.96-162 (66)

The Odyssey by Homer p.1-116 (116)

Podcasts and Audiobooks: (Not mentioned in the video)

Revolutions Season 4: The Haitian Revolution  2nd Listening From: 4.05- The Citizens of April To: 4.06- The Second Commission 4 (from Revolutions Podcast)

After finishing Tarzan, I've been reviewing it on the Youtube audiobook HERE.

Also to supplement The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan, I've been re-listening to some of his lectures from Introduction to Ancient Greek History with Donald Kagan, and also relevant episodes from The History of Ancient Greece Podcast.

Videos from this week:

Trip to Ba Ria City, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, Vietnam https://youtu.be/gCEtiQPgiw0

This Week in Booktube (these aren't mentioned in the video, but these are the booktube videos I've watched this week) docs, pub:

Steve Donoghue: Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life Dissected! https://youtu.be/yXcDqCKATyw

Steve Donoghue BroTube: 5 Do and 5 Don't Pieces of Life Advice! https://youtu.be/aMglfMLdlBM

Book Time With Ryan: A BIG Announcement for this Channel https://youtu.be/lSIMVF2pnqs

Daniel Greene: I Got A Copyright Strike and Now Have To Stop… https://youtu.be/2PZTBj5SXTE

For more information about what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE.

Here is a link to a Kahoot game I did when teaching a lesson on Homonyms: Homonyms by danesensei.

I'm going to index this game along with my material for Homonyms Homophones and Homographs.

I found this video useful when teaching a lesson on Homographs.  

It's a bit boring for the students to watch straight through, but I put it up in the background when they were working on these crossword puzzles for homographs.

150+ Common Homographs - Confusing Words with the Same Spelling but Having More than One Meaning

I'm going to index this video along with my material for Homonyms Homophones and Homographs.

Homograph Crossword Puzzle

(TESOL Materials--Homonyms Homophones and Homographs)

Made using Crossword Puzzle Maker

Crossword Puzzle: drive 

Answers: drive

Trip to Ba Ria City, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, Vietnam

(Travelogues--Vietnam)

(For more information about these videos, see HERE)

Trip to Ba Ria City, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, Vietnam

Started: The Odyssey by Homer (I actually started this book on Friday, November 18, but I was travelling then and so didn't have the opportunity to post.  Also, this is a re-read.  I've read it before way back in 7th grade.)

Weekly Reading Vlog #87: The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan p.96-162, The Odyssey p.1-116

Jokes Using Homonyms, Homophones and Homographs

(TESOL Materials--Jokes, Homonyms Homophones and Homographs)

Slides: slides, pub

When teaching a lesson on Homonyms, I decided to go through all my old jokes to see what jokes I had that featured homonyms.  As it turned out, most of my jokes were based on bad puns.  (Especially if you include homophones, homographs, and most importantly, near homophones--e.g. cheater/cheetah.)

The jokes in this lesson are self-cannibalized from HERE, HERE and HERE.

Homonyms, Homophones and Homographs

(TESOL Ideas and Worksheets Subdivisions)

* Jokes Using Homonyms, Homophones and Homographs

* Homograph Crossword Puzzle

* LINK: 150+ Common Homographs - Confusing Words with the Same Spelling but Having More than One Meaning

* LINK: Kahoot Game: Homonyms by danesensei

* LINK: Quizlet Game: Homonyms by sunshine8769

* Make a Homoraph Quiz

Has Duolingo gotten that bad? I'm personally finding the basics are still the same even after the re-design.

— Joel Swagman (@JoelswagmanJoel) November 13, 2022

Ah, yeah. I was only halfway through, but I had a similar problem. When Duolingo transferred my progress over, they started me in a similar spot on the tree, but it was apparent that I had missed some vocabulary in the reshuffling. I resolved the problem...

— Joel Swagman (@JoelswagmanJoel) November 14, 2022

...by just resetting to the beginning and starting over. I was feeling like it was time to consolidate my vocabulary anyway.

— Joel Swagman (@JoelswagmanJoel) November 14, 2022

P.S.

Follow my progress on Duolingo HERE, and the quizlet I use to consolidate my Duolingo vocabulary HERE.  

For the last time I blogged about Duolingo, see my 2017 post: Struggling to Study Vietnamese.  (I've since started and stopped Duolingo several times since writing that post.)

Weekly Reading Vlog #86: Tarzan p.170-224, The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan p.1-96

(Weekly Reading Vlog)    

Books (150 pages this week)

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs p.170-224 (finished) (54)

The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan p.1-96 (96)

Podcasts and Audiobooks: (Not mentioned in the video)

Revolutions Season 4: The Haitian Revolution  2nd Listening From: 4.03- Free and Equal To: 4.05- The Citizens of April 4 (from Revolutions Podcast)

In preparation for my review of Herodotus, I've been reviewing it by listening to the audiobook HERE.

After finishing Tarzan, I've been reviewing it on the Youtube audiobook HERE.

Videos from this week:

Started: The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan https://youtu.be/1nM--Ijoajo

The Histories by Herodotus (Translated by Tom Holland): Book Review https://youtu.be/_Hgs3liwe_k

Currently Reading List as of November 13, 2022 https://youtu.be/q969qCT9iVw

This Week in Booktube (these aren't mentioned in the video, but these are the booktube videos I've watched this week) docs, pub:

jim's books reading & stuff: 1 Minute Review: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead https://youtu.be/PaSLy0wat4U

Brandon's Bookshelf: My top ten Books On Atheism! | New Series! | Sunday School #1 https://youtu.be/cLQNe7oa4zw

Steve Donoghue: A Stevestream about COPING! https://youtu.be/h7B-RnJa_AE

Steve Donoghue: What's that you say? A Book? By ME? https://youtu.be/cUaLM8j_Sio

CPL Radio: Book of the Day - Philip and Alexander by Adrian Goldsworthy https://youtu.be/rCpa3VYI6hs

William’s library: Georgian WW2 Memorial On Texel https://youtu.be/nFGH4wCr848

Mindy's Book Journey: October Wrap Up: https://youtu.be/j8enkUDcmfo

Dane Cobain: October 2022 Reading Wrapup [14 BOOKS] https://youtu.be/oqbZIbnbKSE

For more information about what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE.

Currently Reading List as of November 13, 2022

Links to everything mentioned:

William's channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC58dmRPQlaJAfsUEz7PM68w

William's comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMOgTeR5VKE&lc=UgyhRYxyABFAy6Z1zlR4AaABAg

The Histories by Herodotus: Book Review http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-histories-by-herodotus-book-review.html

The Complete Stories of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Book Review

http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-complete-stories-of-oz-by-l-frank.html

Started: Teaching Speaking: A Holistic Approach by Christine C. M. Goh, and Anne Burns 

http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2018/07/started-teaching-speaking-holistic.html

Started: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language by David Crystal 

https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2019/03/blog-post_18.html

Tiếng Việt 123: Vietnamese for Beginner http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2020/02/started-tieng-viet-123-vietnamese-for.html

Started: The Grammar Book: An ESL/EFL Teacher's Course by Marianne Celce-Murcia and Diane Larsen-Freeman [Second Edition]

http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2020/07/blog-post.html

Started: The Bible 

https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-bible-this-will-be-mostly-re-read.html

Started: Leviticus 

https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2022/03/started-leviticus-this-is-re-read.html

Started: Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language by Christine Nuttall

https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2022/07/blog-post.html

Started: Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2022/10/blog-post.html

Started: The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan 

https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2022/11/youtube-video-player.html

For the last time I did a video like this, see HERE

The Histories by Herodotus: Book Review

Translated by Tom Holland

(Book Review--Classics, History)

Started: September 21, 2021

Finished: November 2, 2022

(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.) 

Background Information

Originally written in 430 B.C., The Histories by Herodotus is the longest ancient Greek text to survive into the modern world.  

[In my review of The Iliad, I mentioned that given how laborious it was to transcribe and preserve long texts in the ancient world, it's a minor miracle that the entire epic has survived into the modern world intact.  But since Herodotus is almost twice the length of The Iliad, I suppose that same observation is doubly true in this case.]  

This book also supposedly established the genre of history the Western World.

Historical records and chronicles had existed before Herodotus, but Herodotus was apparently the first author who attempted to write history as literature.   In other words, Herodotus told history as a story (W).

As a story-teller, Herodotus gives us access to material that nowadays would be outside the domain of serious historians.  Herodotus gives us the internal thought processes of his historical figures.  He also recreates the dialogue and speeches of historical figures.  It is very much like reading a story instead of a chronicle.

In addition to adding in dialogues and internal monologues for his characters, Herodotus's histories are also filled with many outlandish tales that couldn't possibly be true.  

For these reasons, Herodotus reputation was mixed even among the ancients themselves.  Cicero famously called Herodotus "the father of history", but Plutarch called Herodotus "the father of lies".  Thucydides (the other famous ancient Geek historian) was apparently very critical of Herodotus's methods.

 But although Herodotus's habit of mixing tall tales and legends with actual history makes him problematic for serious historians, for the casual reader it makes him all the more entertaining. 

Where Herodotus was getting his information from is still a source of speculation and debate among scholars.  Herodotus himself was Greek, but claimed to have travelled extensively, and interviewed many different people for his history.  But as Herodotus gives descriptions of people and places further and further away from the Greek homeland, he relates such outlandish things that it seems impossible that this history is based on any serious research.  But then again, in the ancient world, how would you get accurate information about distant lands?

The book's structure is notoriously difficult to summarize.  Herodotus goes off on so many digressions, that often it's difficult to tell what his main point is.  (Translator Tom Holland calls Herodotus's Histories "a great shaggy dog story"--i.e. a story which frustrates the reader's expectations by refusing to ever get to the point, and instead goes off on multiple tangents within tangents .)  But that said, the beginning of the book is (mostly) focused on the origins of the Persian Empire and the history of the Persian conquests, plus extended ethnographic description of all the people's living in and around the Persian Empire.   (There's also a long digression all about Egyptian history, geography and culture in book 2).  

The second half of Herodotus is all about the great wars between the Persians and Greeks--you know, all the cliches you learned about in 6th grade history-- the 300 Spartans, Battle of Thermopylae, the battle of Marathon, etc.

Why I'm Reading This Book Now / My History With this Book

I am ashamed to admit that I am only now, in my mid-40s, just getting around to Herodotus for the first time.  I should have read him years ago.

Herodotus is the kind of book that most ancient history buffs read when they are still in their adolescent years.  (For example Tom Holland, the translator of my edition, says that Herodotus “has been my constant companion since I was twelve”.)

Maybe I’m being too hard on myself.  After all, most normal people probably never get around to reading Herodotus at all.  But then, most normal people don’t go around calling themselves ancient history buffs. 

So, why has it taken me so long to get around to Herodotus?

Well, like Tom Holland, I first developed a love of ancient history around the age of twelve years old.  At this time, I became aware of Herodotus, and his importance as an ancient history source. And there was a time in middle school when I actually intended to read Herodotus.  I never managed to get around to it, but he was definitely on my reading list back then.  

But then, a couple years later, by the time I had started ninth grade, my interest in ancient history generally had narrowed to an interest in the Roman empire exclusively.  I was no longer interested in the whole of the ancient world, only the Romans.  (When I was younger, I had a tendency to define myself by having narrow niche interests in certain things, rather than desiring to read broadly.)

So in high school, I attempted to read the ancient Roman historians.  But the ancient Greek historians were no longer on my reading list.

And then in college, my interests shifted completely, and I decided I was more interested in modern history and the age of revolutions.  And then Herodotus was completely off of my radar.

In the years since college, a lot of my history nerd friends have been reading Herodotus, and blogging about it.  

One of my old college friends posted on Facebook a few years back that he loved Herodotus because he could open the book up to any random page, and always find something fascinating to read about.  It made me think I should read Herodotus myself.

Also, friend of this blog Phil Christman read Herodotus about 10 years ago, and made a couple of blog posts about it, the first of which was entitled “Herodotus is so fun”.  (Unfortunately Phil has since deleted all of the posts on this old blog, including the posts about Herodotus, so they’re no longer available.  But I read them at the time, and at the time it was yet another nudge for me that I really should read Herodotus one of these days.)

But my personal interest in the ancient Greek world didn’t fully return until I, on a whim, picked up the historical novel Alexander: Child of a Dream by Valerio Massimo Manfredi.  Which set me off on reading a whole series of - books - about - Alexander - the - Great.

Although the conquests of Alexander the Great mark the end of the classical Greek city state era, all of these books about Alexander the Great made references to the Greek world and history which Alexander inherited.  It officially rekindled my interest in ancient Greek history, and made me regret that I had never really read up on any of the ancient Greek sources.

For example, in my review of Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault, I said:

There is also a very rich portrayal of the ancient Greek world.  Mary Renault, a classicist who has written many books on ancient Greece, knows the world of her characters very well.  Before writing her trilogy on Alexander the Great, she had already written on book on the Peloponneisan War (W), and one book on the aftermath of the Peloponneisan War (W), and she weaves in these rich historical details about Athens and Sparta in with her story of the rise of Macedonia.

(After having read this book, I feel like I really want to read more about ancient Greek history.  I probably want get to it anytime soon, but Mary Renault creates the feeling of such a rich world that I feel the desire to learn more about the Peloponneisan Wars.)

With my interest in the Greek world back on, in 2016, I watched Introduction to Ancient Greek History with Donald Kagan, and reviewed it on this blog.  I said in my review:

I regret to say that I've never read Herodotus or Thucydides.

I was probably to young to read them when I was fascinated by ancient history in my adolescents, and by the time I was older I had moved onto other interests.

I still have them on my list of books to read before I die.

The problem, as always, was getting ahold of a decent copy out here in Vietnam.  

I did a little bit of research on the Internet, and discovered that most people were recommending The Landmark Herodotus (A) as the only way to approach Herodotus.  Apparently The Landmark Herodotus has all sorts of in-texts maps and illustrations to make the confusing geography of Herodotus actually understandable.  But the problem was that The Landmark Herodotus was not sold in Vietnamese bookstores.

In 2018, I lamented:

... I've been told that to attempt Herodotus, you need a version with really good maps in it.  And good luck finding that out here in Vietnam.

However, shortly after writing that, I found out that there was a new translation of Herodotus by author Tom Holland.  (According to Wikipedia, Tom Holland's translation actually came out in 2013.  But I only found out about it around 2018).

I had previous read Rubicon by Tom Holland, and loved it. Tom Holland had a real talent for writing readable prose.  So I trusted that Tom Holland would also make Herodotus entirely readable.

On my next trip back to America, I stumbled upon Tom Holland's translation of Herodotus in a bookstore, and decided to buy it.  (I would have bought The Landmark Herodotus if the bookstore had had that instead, but they didn't, so I went with Tom Holland's version.)

Even after I had a copy in-hand, it still took me a couple years to get around to it.  (I'm a slow reader, and it takes me forever to get through a book, so I always have a long TBR.)   But I finally started it in September, 2021.

The Reading Experience

The first piece of good news is that Tom Holland’s translation is entirely readable.  I'll quote a section below to illustrate this, but for now just trust me that if you’re intimidated by this book, fear not, Tom Holland’s translation is completely accessible.

As I mentioned above, apparently The Landmark Herodotus is highly praised because of all the in-text maps and illustrations.  In Tom Holland’s edition, the maps are all buried at the back of the book.  So presumably this involves more flipping back and forth between the main text and the maps then you would have to do in The Landmark edition.  But… it’s doable.  You have to do a bit of flipping around with the maps, but the book is still entirely accessible, and it didn't spoil my reading experience.

(Most of the time, you don’t really need the map anyway.  I mean, it’s nice to know where these cities are located on the map, just for visual reference, but it’s usually not a complete necessity to follow the overall narrative.)

And speaking of flipping back and forth… there are also a lot of endnotes at the back of the book.

I’ve complained about endnotes before on this blog (HERE, HERE, HERE, etc). Given the choice, I would much prefer that the notes go as footnotes (at the bottom of the page) rather than endnotes (at the back of the book).  I find it cumbersome to always be flipping back and forth.

However, I should really stop complaining about this, because there’s nothing to be done about it.  Endnotes are the way it’s done now.

(Book critic Steve Donoghue mentioned on one of his Youtube videos that absolutely nothing gets published with footnotes nowadays--publishers will only use endnotes.  The reason is apparently because publishers are worried about scaring away potential buyers by putting in footnotes.  So the notes are buried in the back now, so that they’re less noticeable when you’re browsing through the pages at the bookstore.)

Tom Holland's edition has a lot of notes.  Each page has multiple reference numbers on it, all directing the reader to the endnotes in the back. Some of the notes contain valuable supplemental information, but a lot of the notes are Tom Holland just chatting with you.  For example, sometimes Tom Holland will have an endnote to simply point out that Herodotus is unusually opinionated in a certain section, or to point out that Herodotus appears to be changing topics suddenly.

For the most part, I enjoyed Tom Holland’s frequent endnotes.  It gave me the feeling of having a chatty scholar standing over my shoulder commenting on the book as I read it.  But… constantly flipping back and forth was a pain.  

When I read this book, I ended up having to use two bookmarks--one to mark my progress in the main text, one to keep my place in the endnotes.

(Update: Actually I didn't realize this until I was in the middle of writing this review, but it turns out that the end notes are not by Tom Holland.  They're by Paul Cartledge (W).  This information was actually directly on the cover of the book, but for whatever reason I didn't absorb it while I was reading.  I had been imagining these notes as the voice of Tom Holland the whole time.  I mean, usually the translator does his own notes, right?  Is it a bit strange to have another person come in and do the notes?)

As for the content of the book itself...

Before reading this book, I had watched a video of Tom Holland talking about Herodotus on Youtube [LINK HERE] in which Tom Holland describes his experience of reading Herodotus over the years.  Tom Holland says that when he was twelve, he was impatient with Herodotus because he just wanted Herodotus to hurry up and get to the point, but Herodotus never got to the point.  But then, over the years, Tom Holland came to appreciate all the tangents that Herodotus went off on--he came to realize that the fact that Herodotus took forever to get to the point wasn't something to be frustrated by, it was something to treasure, as you luxuriated in all the fascinating information in these weird and wonderful tangents.

(Tom Holland makes the same point in written form in his translator's preface to this edition.)

I’m glad I listened to this before I read Herodotus, because it helped me adjust my expectations perfectly.  Had Tom Holland not warned me that the work would be full of digressions, and that the digressions were to be enjoyed rather than to be a source of irritation, I might have become impatient with Herodotus myself.  But since Tom Holland had given me full warning, I just let myself go with Herodotus and tried to just enjoy following his digressions wherever they might lead.

I referenced above a friend of mine who said that he loved Herodotus because there would be some sort of interesting anecdote on every page, and that’s not too far off actually.  This history is chock full with weird and bizarre stories, and you can find one on just about every page.  (Although in the video I linked to above, Tom Holland actually puts forth an exception to this: Tom Holland says that Herodotus is dreadfully boring whenever he’s describing rivers--everything else is fascinating.  And I’d go along with Tom Holland’s assessment.)

However for the modern reader (a.k.a. me), there are two problems.

The first problem is that although all the individual anecdotes are interesting enough on their own, there’s no overall narrative momentum.  There are no plot threads or character arcs that the reader gets to follow over the whole of the narrative.  So there’s nothing to pull the reader along and keep them hooked on turning the pages.  While I always found Herodotus pleasurable reading, I didn’t always find him compelling reading--there was nothing to keep pulling me back to the book, and over the course of the past year I consequently found myself going through a few reading slumps with this book where I stopped reading it for stretches.

I also think that Herodotus's discursive narrative structure makes it difficult to fully absorb him--or at least to remember him.  Now that I’ve come to the end of the book, I feel like I can’t remember most of the anecdotes that took up the beginning of the book.  (Although I suppose this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  It means that Herodotus lends itself to re-readings.  And in fact I’ve noticed that many of the people who love Herodotus seem to love reading and re-reading him.)

The second issue is, as with any ancient history, there’s the difficulty of relatability.  This is both a positive and a negative.  On the one hand, the strangeness and exoticism of ancient history has always been the main attraction in the first place.  The harsh and violent life of the ancient world is fascinating to read about.  (Dan Carlin, when discussing Herodotus’s narratives, goes on and on about this--he talks about how can’t possibly imagine how the human psyche could withstand the horrors of ancient warfare, and how that disconnect between the civilized humanity of modern life and the brutal humanity of ancient life is a source of endless fascination to him.)  But on the other hand, this same strangeness can serve to keep the reader at arm’s length from the narrative.  The morality of the ancient world seems so far removed from that of the modern world that it's hard to identify with the motives of any of the characters.  This prevents full immersion in the narrative.

Both of these factors actually reminded me of the feeling of reading the historical narratives from the Old Testament.  The Old Testament histories also feel like a bunch of anecdotes that are individually strange and fascinating on their own, but which lack an overall narrative coherence, and are difficult to relate to.  So I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re already familiar with the Old Testament histories from Sunday School, you may already have a good idea of what it’s like to read Herodotus.  

[Although there are important differences as well.  The Old Testament narrative is very sparse in its details.  Herodotus gives loads of extra narrative descriptions and details than can be found in the Old Testament histories--an interesting difference in style which I noted before in this blog post HERE.  So in that regard, Herodotus also provides an interesting point of comparison to the Old Testament histories.]

My Reading Journey

I started reading this book in September 2021 when we were still in the midst of the corona virus lockdowns here in Vietnam.  This worked out well for me, because I was stuck at home with nowhere to go.  I kept busy (I was working full time, and had kids).  But I was also able to keep multiple large books easily at my elbow for whenever I had a free minute to read.  And for the first several months, I made slow but steady progress on Herodotus.   

By January of 2022, I was still slowly inching my way through this book (on page 424 out of 639).  But I began to get worried that I had completely forgotten most of the anecdotes in the first half of the book.  

This was partly a result of my reading so slow.  But, as I mentioned above, I also believe Herodotus's style of just relating tangent after tangent also makes it difficult to organize and remember all the information that he's giving you.  So from the week of January 30, I tried to refresh myself on the early chapters of Herodotus by listening to the audiobook on Youtube.  (The version on Youtube is the LibriVox recording, which uses the A.D. Godley translation.  The A.D. Godley translation is also, for the record, completely accessible.)

Once I returned to in-person teaching in the spring, I found it difficult to keep reading Herodotus.  Especially because Herodotus involved so much flipping back and forth between the main texts and the maps and the endnotes, which made it difficult to read during my lunch breaks--which was now when the majority of my reading happened.  So I mostly stopped reading this book from May to September.  But then I became worried that if I didn't make a concerted effort to return to this book, I might never finish it.  So I focused on this book in October, and managed to finish it up.

I'm a bit embarrassed about how long it took me to get through this book.  (According to readinglenth.com, the average reader can finish this book in 13 hours, and it took  me 13 months!)  But then, I say that about every book I read.  My slow reading speed and lack of focus is a perpetual source of embarrassment to me.  I will endeavor to have better focus on the books I read in the future!

While I was reading Herodotus, I also took the opportunity to do a couple supplemental projects related to Herodotus.

In podcasting, I listened to King of Kings by Dan Carlin.  (Most of this podcast is essentially just Dan Carlin retelling Herodotus's narrative.)

In comic books, I read 300 by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, which is also a retelling of Herodotus's narrative.

Summary of the Contents 

Oof!  Boy, is there a lot of stuff in this book.  It's difficult to summarize.  

As I mentioned above, the structure of this book is a bit difficult to figure out.  I've heard a couple different theories as to what Herodotus's original purpose was.

One theory is that Herodotus originally intended this book as a travelogue of the ancient world.  That would explain why sections of it are so heavy on ethnography and geography.  But as Herodotus started narrating all the lands of the Persian Empire, he found himself naturally just falling into a history of the Persian Wars.

Another theory is that Herodotus's main purpose all along was to retell the story of the Persian and Greek Wars, but he just couldn't resist going off on tangents about everything along the way.  (This second one seems the most inline with what Herodotus himself says in his own introduction, but if this is really Herodotus's purpose, it's a bit hard to see how he could get so off topic.)

Book 2 of these Histories is a long digression all about Egypt--80 pages in my edition.  Because it's so long, and because it's so unconnected to anything else, the notes in my edition say that this may have started out as a different work.  That is, Herodotus had probably earlier written up a treatise on Egypt as a separate work, and then only later incorporated it into his larger Histories.

For those of us interested in narrative history, Herodotus's lengthy ethnographies and geographies might at first glance seem to be boring.  Except that Herodotus has picked up so many ridiculous tall tales about all of the peoples and places that he's describing that it's actually pretty entertaining.  I mean, probably completely useless as history, but entertaining nonetheless.

**************

Given Herodotus's reputation as the earliest Greek historian, I was disappointed to discover how little information there was on the early history of Greece.  I had been expecting to learn all about things like the origins of Athens and Sparta, and the democratic revolution in Athens, etc.  But none of that is in here.

Herodotus is much more interested in chronicling the origins of the Persian Empire than he is in recounting the origins of the Greek world.  I guess, since his audience was Greek, maybe Herodotus assumed they already knew their own history, and the Persian history would be more exotic to them.

Because no equivalent of Herodotus has survived from the Persian world, this means that historians are entirely reliant on Herodotus for the origins of the Persian Empire.  (When I was first listening to Dan Carlin's King of Kings podcast, I was surprised by how reliant he was on Herodotus for the stories of Persia.  Shouldn't he be using some Persian sources for this?  But it turns out, there are no Persian sources.)

As for Greece:

It turns out  that for events in early Greek history, like the origins of democracy in Athens, were reliant on later historical writers like Aristotle and Plutarch.  Even though these writers came after Herodotus, they were looking back to earlier times.  (And had, presumably, access to other early sources that have not survived to us.)

Although...

If you look up the Democratic Revolutions in Athens (Wikipedia article HERE), they actually cite events which are in Herodotus.  This is the overthrow of the Athenian tyrants, and the reforms of Cleitsthenes.

This seems to be, at least according to secondary sources, one of the great turning points in Athenian democracy, but Herodotus mentions it in such an off-handed way that I didn't realize it's importance.  (Herodotus devotes only a couple sentences to Cleisthene's reforms out of a 639 page history.  It's easy to miss their significance.)

Extended Quotation

Now, it so happened that this Candaules had the most all-consuming obsession with his own wife--so all consuming, in fact, that he actually believed her to be by far the most beautiful woman in the world.  It happened as well that among his bodyguards there was one man, Gyges, Dascylus’ son, for whom the king had a particularly soft spot, and whole ear he was endlessly bending, sometimes about weighty affairs of state and sometimes, to a quite obsessive degree, about the desirability of his wife.  In no time at all, indeed, Candaules was being led into making Gyges a fateful--and fatal--proposition.  “I can see that you still need convincing,” he said, “no matter how much I keep harping on about my wife’s stunning looks.  Fine--since I suppose it is always easier to trust the evidence of one’s own eyes, rather than just believing what one is told--here is what I want you to do: set things up so that you get the chance to see her naked.” 

“Master,” cried out Gyges in horror, “what a monstrous suggestion! Ogle my mistress nude? What--when a woman has only to remove her clothes to shed her sense of self-respect as well? There are certain time-honoured principles that everyone needs to heed--and one of them is this, that a man should always look to his own.  I certainly need no convincing that your wife is beautiful beyond compare. But please, I beg you--do not ask me to take this illicit action.”

Yet even as Gyges dug in his heels, terrified of the possible consequences if he did not, the king replied by telling him to show more backbone. “There is no need to be scared of me, Gyges, or of my wife. I can assure you, I am not doing this to entrap you, and as regards my wife--well--no harm will come to you from her, I promise. I have a plan, you see--one that will guarantee she never even realizes that you have been spying on her. I am going to station you behind the open door of our bedroom--and then, when I come to bed, my wife will come in close behind me. Right beside the entrance there is a chair--as as my wife starts removing her clothes, garment by garment, and laying them down on it, so you will have the opportunity to look her over in detail.  Then, when she crosses from the chair to our bed, with her back still to you, you can slip out through the door--making sure, of course, not to let her spot you.”

Realizing that he was cornered, Gyges gave in.  When Candaules judged that he could reasonably retire for the night, he led Gyges to his bedroom--where, sure enough, they were joined a few moments later by Candaules’ wife. Gyges watched her come in and disrobe. Then,  as she turned her back directly on him, and headed over to the bed, he slipped out from his hiding place.  But the woman caught a glimpse of him as he was leaving....  ***END QUOTE***

(From pages 6-7 of my edition.  The story goes on, but I don't want to quote too much.  You get the idea).

I think this little quotation perfectly illustrates a number of things I've already talked about in my review:

* Hopefully this quotation illustrates how accessible and easy to read Tom Holland's translation is.  If you've been intimated by Herodotus, as I was for a long time, you have nothing to fear from this edition.

* Note that even though there's no supernatural or fantastic elements in this little story, the whole thing is obviously a tall tale.  I mean, you don't have to be a trained historian to suspect that this isn't historical.  You can just feel that this is a folktale.  And the whole of Herodotus is like that.

* Note also that, as I mentioned above, it's exactly the type of little fable that might appear in The Old Testament, but Herodotus's narration style is much more detailed and chatty than the Biblical narrative.

* Typical of Herodotus, this whole story is part of a tangent within a tangent within a tangent.  Herodotus wants to tell the origins of the Persian Empire, but before he gets to that he wants to tell the story of the Lydian king Croesus, but then before he gets to Croesus, he wants to tell the story of how the kingship of Lydia passed out of the hands of the bloodline of Hercules and into Croesus's family.  Which is what this little story about Candaules and his wife is ultimately leading up to.

Links

* I've mentioned Blogging the Canon a few times before on this blog (he's a blogger I've been following since I discovered his review of Kim years ago.)

Anyway, his review of Herodotus is interesting.  Check it out HERE.

* Also since I'm always referencing about Steve Donoghue on this blog, I should link to his review of The Tom Holland Herodotus HERE.  And his video review HERE.  

Commonplace Book

* p.121-122: Egypt is Crazy Opposite Land

* p.227-228: The Argument Against Monarchy

* p.367: The Benefits of Democracy (5.78)

* p.466-467 Herodotus as a Philosopher (Book 7 Chapter 46)

Rating:

8 out of 10.  I know that I should really give this book a 10 out of 10, since it's a foundational document of Western Civilization.  But I rate these things on how interesting they were for me to read personally, not on it's broader cultural importance.  And I felt like although it was definitely very interesting in sections, I had to force myself to keep reading for other sections.  There was, as I mentioned above, no overall narrative momentum.

Weekly Reading Vlogs: 

September 19, 2021 Herodotus Introduction i-xxxviii, main text 1-72

September 26, 2021 Herodotus p.72-120

October 3, 2021 Herodotus p.120-152

October 10, 2021 Herodotus p.152-226

October 17, 2021 Herodotus p.226-244

October 24, 20201 Herodotus p.244-278

October 31, 2021 Herodotus p.278-286

November 7, 2021 Herodotus p.286-314

November 14, 2021 Herodotus p.314-318

November 21, 2021 Herodotus p.318-324

November 28, 2021 Herodotus p.324-328

December 5, 2021 Herodotus p.328-344

December 12, 2021 Herodotus p.344-366

December 19, 2021 Herodotus p.366-376

December 26, 2021 Herodotus p.376-380

January 2, 2022 Herodotus p.380-392

January 9, 2022 Herodotus p.392-408

January 16, 2022 Herodotus p.408-412

January 23, 2022 Herodotus p.412-416

January 30, 2022 Herodotus p.416-424

February 6, 2022 Herodotus p.424-426

February 13, 2022 Herodotus p.426-428

February 20, 2022 Herodotus p.428-450

February 27, 2022 Herodotus p.450-452

March 6, 2022 Herodotus p.452-470

March 13, 2022 Herodotus p.470-472

March 20, 2022 Herodotus p.472-480

March 27, 2022 Herodotus p.480-482

April 3, 2022 Herodotus p.482-484

April 10, 2022 Herodotus p.484-486

April 17, 2022 Herodotus p.486-494

April 24, 2022 Herodotus p.494-538

July 24, 2022 Herodotus p.538-548

July 31, 2022 Herodotus p.548-550 

October 23, 2022 Herodotus p.550-579

October 30, 2022 Herodotus p.578-614

November 6, 2022 Herodotus p.614-639

Video Review (Playlist HERE)

The Histories by Herodotus (Translated by Tom Holland): Book Review