A Review, Part 6: Chessmen Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
February 16, 2009
Edgar Rice Burroughs On Mars
A Review
The Chessmen Of Mars
Part 6
by
R.E. Prindle
The Golden Handcuffs
And now comes the part that readers find the most fascinating, that of the contest on The Field Of Honor. Gladiatorial contests are frequent occurrences in the novels of ERB. This one seems to combine Arthurian influences as well as Roman.
Burroughs’ tenure of a couple years at the Chicago Harvard Latin School must have made an indelible impression on him. The recurrent, one might say underlying, Homeric influence from the Odyssey of Homer would indicate that the school concentrated on that work of Homer although not on The Iliad as there seem to be few references to the latter poem. In later years ERB would complain that he had learned Latin before English cramping his English style.
Perhaps, but I don’t see anything glaringly wrong with his English style. His psychology makes him a little stiff but that’s not through a lack of understanding English. It would be nice to know the curriculum of the Latin School and what texts he did study. Late in life when he wrote I Am A Barbarian his background as evidenced by the reading list he appended was shallow while not mentioning the great classical scholars. Still Roman themes are a recurring motif in the corpus. About this time he was rereading Plutarch’s Lives that compares the lives of various Greeks and Romans so that the Lives may have been a text at school. Especially as he says that while rereading it he discovered that Numa was the name of a Roman king while he thought he had invented the name for the Lion.
Also Arthurian references pop up in Chessmen. In 1912 when his editor Metcalf of Munsey’s asked him to write a medieval story that turned out to be the Outlaw Of Torn he claimed to have little knowledge of the period. Now, the Manatorian party leaving the city after Gahan entered is more reminiscent of Arthurian stories than Roman. The city of Manator itself also has a decidedly Camelot feel. The party’s subsequent return and capture of Tara and Ghek has more of the courtly flavor than the Roman. In 1928’s Tarzan, Lord Of The Jungle ERB would create a medieval society of lost Crusaders deep in the heart of darkness. So while he claimed to know nothing of medieval themes in 1912 by this time he seems to have done some reading in the field.
In many ways Manator bears a great resemblance to Mythological, Graustarkian and Ruritanian stories that he did admire as a young man. Combining all those influences with the Oz of Baum we have Manator.
Thus in addition to Roman gladiatorial contests we also have a similarity to medieval battle melees where the favors of women were of paramount importance.
Here we have the great mock battles and actual battles to the death played out on a gigantic Jetan board. Burroughs modifies the Earthly game of Chess to create a similar Martian game of Jetan complicated by the grotesque addition of battles to the death between the live ‘pieces.’ Indeed as is explained there had been games recorded in which the only survivors were the the two female prizes and one of the Jeds. Once again mimicking Arthurian literature ERB describes sword blows that cleave the opponent through the brain pan down to the breast bone. ERB seems to delight in the most violent and gruesome details. And lots of them.
A-Kor, his cellmate, fills Gahan in on what he must do to enter the games conveniently giving the latter enough money to bribe his team, get this, while returning the remainder to his purse.
The strategy is all very probable. The number of slaves from Gathol in Manator is enormous so Gahan has no difficulty in enrolling a team of Gatholians who will be fighting for their freedom. Gahan is famiiar with Jetan as played elsewhere on Mars on a board so he has no difficulty with strategy. The main change in strategy is that when a piece captures another the pieces then draw swords and fight to the finish. Thus a piece can successfully evade capture negating strategy.
Relying on the prowess of his men and his own incomparable swordsmanship Gahan then makes a drive directly for the opposing Jed, U-Dor.
Can it be a coincidence that he who stands between himself and Tara is a man called U-Dor (door)? Considering the important roles doors play in these stories it would seem that U-Dor is one more door he must hack his way through to get to his objective.
The only other work I’ve seen where doors were so important was the old TV show, The Mod Squad. In that TV series doors of every description were constantly being slammed; not just closed but slammed. I haven’t quite figured out ERB’s obsession with doors as yet.
While Chess and one imagines Jetan are supreme games of strategy Gahan seemingly abandons the fine points and gamesmanship and makes a drive straight for U-Dor. ERB says he was a good Chess player while I have never played to perhaps the moves he describes are possible especially as any move is good or bad depending on which player is the better swordsman. Gahan is the best so he experiences no difficulty in reaching U-Dor who he cuts down.
Tara and he are seemingly reunited. But while Tara thought she killed I-Gos he was only wounded. Present at the games he denounces Gahan and Tara who flee as aforesaid to the pits. Then begins the spectacular double climax; that of Gahan/ERB’s triumph over John the Bully/O-Tar and the subsequent triumph of Gahan/ERB over Frank Martin/O-Tar.
2.
To a large extent Chessmen is an examination of ancestor worship. Certainly the Taxidermist of Mars preserved ancestors going back at least five thousand years to the reign of O-Mai. ERB explains Gahan’s and perhaps his own ideas on the significance of ancestors.
Gahan, a man of culure and high intelligence held few if any superstitions. In common with nearly all races of Barsoom he clung more or less inherently, to a certain exalted form of ancestor worship, though it was rather the memory of legends of the virtues and heroic deeds of his forefathers that he deified rather than themselves. He never expected any tangible evidence of their existence after death; he did not believe that they had the power either for good or for evil other than the effect that their example while living might have had on following generations; he did not believe therefore in the materialization of dead spirits. If there was a life hereafter he knew nothing of it, for he knew that science had demonstrated the natural phenomenon of ancient religions and superstitions.
The above is probably as close to a confession of faith as ERB is going to give. It is certainly one that I can accept for myself. The above may also be a reference to spiritual seances in which dead ancestors supposedly spoke through mediums. Harry Houdini was debunking such seances around this time much to the chargrinof ERB’s literary hero, Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame, who did believe is such ancestral contacts.
There may be a joke in that case when Gahan arose from O-Mai’s bed ululuing and putting the fear of God into O-Tar exposing him as a coward.
Having thus disposed of O-Tar/John ERB turns to debunking O-Tar/Martin.
When Gahan was playing his joke on O-Tar I-Gos stole Tara away. He delivers her to O-Tar who is so smitten that he decides that he will marry her and take his chances with this she-banth.
O-Tar immurs Tara in a tower not unlike the story of Rapunzel. Her location is pointed out to Gahan who then makes a perilous climb of the tower in order to tell her that no matter what it looks like on the morrow’s wedding date he will rescue her and she is not to commit suicide.
While talking to her through the grated window a eunuch sleeping at the foot of the bed awakes moving toward him sword in hand. Tara instead of shrinking back removes her little blade from her harness running the eunuch through the heart.
There must be significance to this scene as ERB is retelling the story of both John and Martin. If Emma was with ERB on the corner and abandoned him to his fate by walking on it would appear that ERB never forgave her while having Anima trouble ever after. Here he rectifies the situation by having Tara come to his defense acting with a both a blade and heart of steel. Thus not only has his Animus surrogate Gahan proved John/O-Tar to be the coward but Tara the Anima figure defends Gahan/ERB from a similar attack by John absolving his Anima.
We now go to the wedding. Of course, having read the book several times in my case we know the story so I will just follow it. In the book John Carter tells ERB the details after the fact.
I-Gos has allied himself with Tara and Gahan against O-Tar. Before the wedding O-Tar retires to the Hall of Ancestors to commune with the dead. I-Gos has let Gahan into the hall where he sits as though stuffed on a stuffed Thoat. When O-Tar pauses beside him Gahan falls on him striking him on the forehead with the butt of a heavy spear.
Thus we establish that at this point O-Tar has become Frank Martin. Just as Gahan/ERB proved O-Tar a coward by merely rising in O’Mai’s bed and making weird noises so now he reverses the situation in Toronto. Instead of ERB being struck on the forehead Gahan/ERB strikes O-Tar/Martin in the same place leaving him for dead.
Now, this is strange. Donning O-Tar’s Golden Mask Gahan goes foth in O-Tar’s guise to marry Tara. The Golden Mask undoubtedly refers to Martin’s money bags to which ERB undoubtedly attributes whatever success Martin had with Emma. Why Gahan/ERB wore O-Tar’s mask is fairly clear but why ERB would have isn’t. Also if O-Tar hadn’t recovered from the blow Gahan would have been married to Tara in O-Tar’s name.
Perhaps ERB in a reversal means to imply that Emma would actually have been marrying him but won by Martin’s ‘golden mask.’ By the process of reversal then ERB would have recovered and stolen Emma from Martin on the altar so to speak. Or, as he actually did.
The symbolism of the golden handcuffs then would mean that the proposed wedding of Emma and Martin would have a mere commercial transaction. Or, perhaps, he felt himself attached to Emma for financial reasons when he’d rather not be. Complications, complications.
While the two antogonists Gahan and O-Tar are staring each other down the ‘cavalry’ Gahan sent for has arrived. Carter and troops from Helium, Gathol and Manatos arrive to end the story.
O-Tar himself then falls on his sword like a true Roman thus redeeming his miserable life. Perhaps ERB is saying that that is what Martin should have done- left the couple alone rather than constantly interfering.
3.
Conclusions
If as Sigmund Freud argued dreams are based on wish fulfillment the Chessmen of Mars proves his case. In this series of dreams or nightmares ERB attempts to reverse the results of the three greatest disasters of his life.
John the Bully and Frank Martin are a matter of history. That ERB links his fiancial disaster with these two earlier disasters indicates that he knows he has crossed the line in his mistaken purchase of the Otis estate. He knows that he as no way out as he has the ‘cavalry’, John Carter and the united forces of Helium, Gathol and Manatos come to the rescue. In the final denouement of this error in 1934’s Tarzan And The Lion Man even the cavalry can’t help. Tarzan/ERB leaves the burning castle of God a defeated man.
His great dream of getting back to the land and becoming a Gentleman Farmer has crashed to the ground. His attachment to his fantasy can be traced in his letters with Herb Weston. Weston warned him as strongly as friendship would allow that it would be a mistaken approach to farming in any other way than on a factory basis with profit firmly in mind. ERB chose to ignore this sound advice probably believing that between books, magazines and movies his future was golden.
Unfortunately for himself his income crested in this very year, 1921. Undoubtedly because of his strong anti-Communist stance and his resistance to the Semitism being imposed on him his sources of income came under attack. Nineteen twenty-two was the last year he received income from movies until 1927-28. Publishing difficulties with McClurg’s and G&D increased. His long time publisher, McClurg’s, even refused outrightly to publish his opus of 1924, Marcia Of The Doorstep.
His foreign royalties once so promising slowly dried up because of political pressures. Later in the decade his troubles with McClurg’s became so intense that he was forced to abandon that long standing relationship. No other major publisher would touch him. Why, will probably never be clear. After a tentative stab with a less established publisher he turned to forming his own publishing company. This move was apparently successful enough to float him through the early part of the thirties before the spring of his inspiration began to dry up.
In a desperate attempt to save Tarzan he attempted many expedients, none successful. He incorporated himself to protect his income from creditors. He subdivided a portion of Tarzana, he attempted to sell off acreage, he tried to turn part of the estate into an exclusive golf club, he turned part into a movie lot attempted to lease that out, he invited oil geologists to find oil on his land. He invested in airplace engines and airports. Nothing came of anything. In the end the magnificent estate slipped through his hands.
A premonition of all this can be found in the The Chessmen Of Mars. Even the name of the story indicates the he is involved in a chesslike game of many moves.
Stress was now to be ERB’s other name.
A world famous figure, nominally rich, still retaining many of the trappings of wealth he had gone from prince to pauper, regained his princely stature and now slipped back to the role of a prince in exile from the Promised Land.
Nothing daunted he went on working. In the end his magnificent intellectual property, Tarzan Of The Apes, would always save him from a fate worse than death. A form of wish fulfillment in itself, I guess.
Post 5: The Chessmen Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
February 10, 2009
Edgar Rice Burroughs On Mars
A Review
The Chessmen Of Mars
Part 5
by
R.E. Prindle
The Taxidermist Of Mars Part 2
To return to the arrival of Gahan, Tara and Ghek at Manator. The three have been drifting before the wind for days as they have no propeller to move them. Tara is in dire straits badly needing water and food. Landing some disntace from Mantor Gahan decides to enter the city in search of food and water. He is espied on his approach and a trap set.
I am assuming that Manator represents LA and Burroughs is decribing his arrival there in 1919.
Porges was the ERB trailblazer while to my knowledge he is the only researcher allowed in the archives to this date. Robert Barrett seems to have had a close relationship with Danton Burroughs, ERB’s grandson, and Danton released snippets to him from time to time but there is no evidence in Barrett’s wrtings in the Burroughs Bulletin that he has spent any time in the archives.
Not even Bill Hillman who has done so much for Danton and ERB, Inc. has been allowed to work int he archives. Danton promised HIllman documentation for some time but never found the time to send it. I once talked to Danton by phone and he indicated he was withholding access for ‘effect.’ I didn’t ask what effect. He did release a valuable snippet to me though. So, to a very large extent one is forced to combine Porges’ seminal but fairly meager information with what was happening in Burroughs’ life as reflected in his novels.
One of the areas that have troubled me is the relationship of ERB’s rival with Emma, Frank Martin, both before and after their marriage.
Martin was disgusted with Burroughs who he thought, correctly I believe, didn’t actually want Emma but didn’t want anyone else to have her either. I think it probable that ERB wanted to keep Emma on the shelf indefinitely as the result of the confrontation with John the Bully.
Driven to desperate measures Martin drew ERB to New York on his father’s private rail car and attempted to have him murdered in Toronto.
That attempt failed. ERB in defiance married Emma against her family’s wishes a few months after the attack. Now, what was Frank Martin’s reaction to the wedding? Did he resign himself to the reality or did he interfere in the marriage any way he could?
We have a couple facts that indicate that at the very least he kept an eye on the couple. Hard facts. Martin’s associate or stooge was a man called R.S. Patchin. He was on the trip to New York and present at the assassination attempt in Toronto. In 1934 aftr ERB divorced Emma Patchin showed up in LA and sought ERB out for what appears to be the first time since 1899. Did he just happen to be in town at that moment or was he acting as Frank Martin’s agent?
Before we answer that let us consider Patchin’s next appearance in ERB’s history.When ERB died in 1950 Patchin sent a condolence letter to the family specifically recalling ERB’s bashing in Toronto. That is why we have a good record of the event. Sometime between 1934 and 1950 Martin died so Patchin was operating on his own. In his note he reminded the family of the Toronto incident that might be considered as even gloating perhaps.
The interest of Martin and Patchin then appears to be malevolent. If Martin and Patchin appeared at one of these unpleasant occurrences then it follows that perhaps Martin was working against ERB’s interests from 1900 at the the time of the wedding on.
Martin may have driven ERB and Emma out of Chicago in 1903. In 1907 and ’08 when ERB impregnated Emma twice in close succession that may have been a defensive move against Martin. The angry ex-suitor very likely then continued his machinations behind the scenes after ERB’s literary success finally driving ERB from Chicago for good in 1919.
Now, Chicago was a movie making center before the rise of Hollywood. Many of the important movie people in LA originated in the Windy City. It is not improbable that the son of a railroad magnate who owned his own private rail car knew some of them. As starlets were starlets then as now it is not inconceivable that Martin spent time in LA part of each year. Thus, when ERB moved to LA which Martin would have known in advance it is conceivable that he planned his revenge. The trap was laid so innocuously that as in his entry into Mantor Gahan/ERB wasn’t aware of the trap until he was completely in its meshes with little chance of escape left.
That ERB was an impetuous lad given to snap decisions must have been known to anyone who observed him as closely as Martin must have. ERB left Chicago to seek twenty acres 0n which to raise his hogs. Instead he was shown the 540 acre estate of General Otis of the LA Times. As I understand it ERB did not seek the estate but that notice of it was brought to him. There was the bait. The bait was too attractive. ERB bought the estate and was hooked. The trap was sprung.
ERB went on a spending spree of magnificent proportions without realizing what the costs were and how vulnerable his income was. Now saddled with care he had to struggle to find time to keep up his writing. Publishing became more difficult for him while his movie revenues came to a halt in 1922, the year after Chessmen. Whether you look at it like the impetuous Burroughs, who acted first and thought later, merely mad a very bad decision or whether he was lured into buying the estate he either was trapped or trapped himself. Chessmen would indicate that he believed he had been trapped.
In any event he was moving with the big boys in LA according to the big guys’ rules. That is a very difficult transition to make. The big boys play rough.
Let us see how ERB portrays Gahan’s entry into Manator. His entry is noted by a sinister unknown figure from the walls. We never hear of this figure again. He just disappears from the story. Gahan’s entry into the city is unopposed. He merely enters the unguarded gate and begins walking down a street. There the three figures dogging him split up. The figure who spotted him follows him from a distance, another runs ahead so that Gahan is caught in the jaws of the vise. The third figure parallels him keeping him in sight.
When they wish him to enter a building the man ahead creates the sound of a patrol approaching from the front. A door stands conveniently open. Gahan ducks in. This door may represent his buying the Otis estate. As the patrol draws closer Gahan retreats around a corner into a hall. someone of the patrol enters the door forcing Gahan farther along the corridor. The figure retreats closing the door behind him. Gahan now finds the door locked. He is trapped in the corridor. He must go forward. Thus ERB having bought Tarzana has no choice but to live with his mistake.
He proceeds down the hall in this charade of doors that is part and parcel of ERB’s psyche. Gahan is directed on his way by being compelled to enter the only unlocked door. Finally he approaches a bank of doors all locked except door number 3 that is standing open. Yes, this scene was repeated in 1934’s Tarzan And The Lion Man but more of that later. Gahan enters hearing the door click shut leaving him absoltuely no exit. His course has been downward. He is now in the pits of Manator.
He is now directed to a room with a table parallel with the wall. He sits down. Gas is emitted from holes in the wall sedating Gahan. He passes out. How clever, Gahan ruminates when he comes to, I have been good and roundly caught and not a hand was laid on me. We too marvel at the masterful description of Gahan’s capture. In real life ERB is saddled with an estate too large for his income and spending habits and which is slowly consuming him. Thus when he awakes from the sedation he finds a giant ulsio, the Martian Rat knawing on his arm. One assumes that if Gahan hadn’t wakened when he did he might have had his limbs consumed. Had ERB just become aware of his predicament? Was the game now on?
Nicely done, great atmosphere and from we readers’ perspective a great story. But now let’s backtrack a little before we move on. This is really quite a story.
2.
While the Jetan game is the most fascinating aspect of this novel for perhaps most people the game itself may be the game within the game, so to speak, the story within the story. The whole Manator story may be considered as a game of chess in which each episode is a move in the game. Remember in the framing story ERB had finished a game of chess with Shea. The Secretary turned in leaving ERB ruminating about his loss and blowing smoke at the head of his king- the head. As he does so John Carter walks in. He tells ERB, in the latter’s own persona, that Chess is similar to Jetan on Mars. So, smoking the head of his king very likely gave ERB the hint to construct the story along the lines of Chess. Thus the opening gambit, the first move is Gahan’s entry into the city countered by the mysterious figure who engineers his capture.
As ERB comtemplated how he had gotten into his Tarzana dilemma he may very well have compared his situation to a game of chess that must be played well if he were to extricate himself unharmed.
He has chosen to present his problem in the form of a dream. Because in dreams as he has a character in Fighting Man Of Mars say, you can’t get hurt.
In Gahan’s entry ERB creates a bizarre dream image of balconies full of people observing his progress but who seem oblivious of it. Soon we learn that I-Gos the taxidermist of Mars spends his life stuffing these dead people who populate this strange city. In dreams of course all the participants have no real life; like the dead past they have no volition.
Apparently this novel is activating dreams in me. The other night I dreamt I was walking down a boardwalk as in old Chicago with the crazy ups and downs. As I mounted a higher part of the boardwalk I was accosted by six thugs. As they were discussing what to do with me I was paralyzed with fear not unlike ERB before John the Bully. Then I said to myself: This is a dream and I can’t get hurt in a dream. So saying I grabbed the closest thug and threw him through a plate glass window. Turning quickly I grabbed a second thug and hoisted him over the railing. The remaining three, there must have been only five, were paralyzed in their turn. Then I grew bored and woke up.
So ERB in the same way is examining his dream world but tweaking it from his daytime consciousness. His real life is being interpreted through his symbolism.
That in 1921, the time he wrote this story, one knows that he was already in deep trouble is because in 1934 when he was already going through the trauma of battling MGM, the Communists, and divorcing Emma and marrying Florence he replicates his entry into Manator in his entry into London and the City Of God. The bit with the three doors, the third being open and clicking quietly shut behind him is an exact duplication of Tarzan And The Lion Man. In that novel he enters a prison where he finds his Anima ideal, Rhonda, already imprisoned. In this one he is chained beside A-Kor(rock spelled backwards). In Lion Man the strange creature is God; in this one the Taxidermist Of Mars. There is no reason not to believe ERB is going through some real stress.
When the effect of the gas dissipates, first he dispatches an ulsio, The Giant Rat Of Mars (echo of Sherlock Holmes and the Giant Rat Of Sumatra?) he notices that the table that had been parallel to the wall is now vertical to it. At the far end he notices the key to his manacles. Here he employs his classical education by recalling the story of Tantalus. In that story Tantalus was standing in water with fruit trees above him but could neither eat or drink because water and fruit receded before his grasp.
Thus the solution to ERB’s problem is frustratingly just beyond his grasp as he stretched out manacle biting into his ankle. I believe this image probably refers to his childhood fixation of John The Bully that he can’t quite consciously recall or resolve. Part of the story develops around the fixation in the form of Gahan’s contest with O-Tar the Jeddak. O-Tar represents John the Bully as well as Frank Martin.
In Gahan’s predicament then ERB represents his own psychological dilemma.
I will give another example from my own dreams. Several years ago I had this wonderful dream that I thought was so spectacular that I wrote it up as short story. Anyone interested can read it at reprindle.wordpress.com. It’s called The Hole In The Sky.
http://reprindle.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/pages-lifted-from-the-memoirs-of-far-gresham-92183/
At the time I was struggling to resolve my own central childhood fixation. I thought an image my mind employed so amazing that it was the only literary image I had ever had that I thought was completely original. We’ll see.
In this dream my fixation appeared as a giant Gordian Knot three or four feet in diameter. There’s a real fixation for you. I hadn’t been able to unravel this knot so now Alexander like I was going to cut it. I had this giant pair of scissors so huge I could lean on the handles like a crutch. I could see the problem and had the tool in my hands to resolve it but I couldn’t manipulate the huge tool. Two guys offered to help so instead of of helping me with the scissors they picked up the knot with a rod running through it.
I didn’t recognize the two but they were obviously the ones who gave me the fixation not unlike ERB and John the Bully. They stood grinning mockingly at me holding up the fixation. I struggled with scissors then asked them for help. In response they laughed and shook the knot at me. I had to give up.
Just to show how the dreaming mind works I later discovered that the image that I thought was so original was based on a scene from a 1957 movie I’d seen. So twenty or twenty-five years later I duplicated a scene from The Incredible Shrinking Man in a dream. Richard Matheson who wrote the wonderful I, Legend also wrote the equally wonderful, Shrinking Man.
In the movie the Man had shrunk down to the size where a now giant spider was attacking him. He was about to fight the spider using a needle but he had to cut the thread with a now giant pair of children’s scissors. In attempting to manipulate them he knocked the needle over the edge of the table.
So there you have it. Just tell your story; don’t worry about being original; it can’t be done. So ERB employs Greek mythology to creat his image. I can’t say he was conscious of it anymore than I was in mine but so many of his details fermented in his mind for decades before they spilled out onto the paper.
Gahan sits back down in exasperation. then he notices the doors to his prison have been left open. No matter, he can’t leave chained to the wall. He marvels at the diabolical cleverness of his captors. They intend to totally frustrate him. So ERB in real life was caught in a trap where while not in a jail he was effectively imprisoned.
As Ghek at this point becomes mere foolery in the story I’m going to ignore his doings unless tangential.
To further the story A-Kor is arrested and chained next to Gahan. He provides Gahan with the information that will allow the latter to organize his Jetan team and bring the story to its denouement. In the meantime Gahan is brought from the pits to be interviewed by O-Tar along with Tara and Ghek who have been captured. There Ghek uses his hypnotic powers to allow Gahan and Tara to escape to the pits together. ERB uses a device that seems to have been a favorite. There is a curtain over an opening behind the throne they escape through. Opar has the same arrangement through which Tarzan and La emerge in, I believe, Tarzan The Invincible.
In the pits the couple encounter I-Gos who explains his grisly business and solves the mystery of the immobile viewers lining the streets. The scene then follows in which Gahan is locked in the storeroom at the very bottom of the pits of Manator or the equivalent of the brain stem.
Separated from Tara the interlude of the Jetan game occurs in which Tara was the prize for the winners of the game. I will deal with Tara and the game in Part 6. Tara and Gahan return to the pits. It does seem a bit strange that Tara never recognized Gahan in his panthan guise. But, there you have it, anything goes in a dream story.
The couple find their way to the quarters of O-Mai an ancient Jeddak who died five thousand years previously. His quarters are believed to be haunted so that in 5000 years they are the first to enter with the possible exception of I-Gos. Now, I’m not going to say that ERB ever read Isis Unveiled by Madame H.P. Blavatsky written in 1877 but consider this passage on page 560 of Vol. I:
…Tcharaka, a Hindu physician, who is said to have lived 5,000 years B.C., in his treatise on the origin of things, called Usa…
ERB also mentions something called usa. I thought perhaps it meant United States Of America which, indeed, it may double as but the singular connection of Usa and the 5,000 year old Tcharaka is singular. ERB was friends with L. Frank Baum and as David Adams points out Baum was into the occult which is clear from his writing so that he may very well have been familiar with Madame B and encouraged ERB to read Isis unveiled which is quite a book. I merely point out the coincidence.
It is here in this dismal past of truly ancient history that ERB chooses to attempt to resolve his fixation with John the Bully. In the character of O-Tar he has conflated John and Frank Martin so that in eliminating John he hopefully eliminates Martin at the same time. It would seem that these two psychological facts exist in his mind as closely related or in another word, one. At this crucial turn in his later life the fear caused by John and the imputation of cowardice ERB endured as a child that conrolled the nature of his response to problems has to be met if he is to successfully meet the challenges of Tarzana. That Frank Martin may be operating against his interests behind the scenes, he who followed behind Gahan as he entered Manator, is evident because ERB associates his marriage to Emma in this context. The figure who followed Gahan and disappears from the story now reappears in an aspect of O-Tar. In ERB’s mind both John and Frank would be rats. Thus we have both the cowadice issue in O-Mai’s quarters that prove John is a coward and Gahan/ERB isn’t and the marriage scene where Gahan in O-Tar’s disguise steals Tara/Emma away.
Gahan and Tara explore O-Mai’s quarters that are spooky enough. A group of warriors playing cards appear as lifelike just as I-Gos arranged them. Initially taken back Gahan slowly realizes that they are the work of the Great Taxidermist of Mars.
They discover the mummy of O-Mai lying on the floor where he died with his foot caught in the bedding. This is a terrific dream image. We know it is a dream because Tara and Gahan can see in the dark. In dreams yours eyes are closed hence you are in the dark but you can see clearly with an inner light whether deaming of sunlight or the pits.
I-Gos becomes aware that they are there. He informs O-Tar who sends his troops down to get them. The incredible legends associated with the place have them terrorized. Thus when they enter spotting the four warriors weird screams fill the chamber. Panicking they flee.
Now comes the crucial test of O-Tar/John. He ridicules his warriors who then challenge him to go. There’s no backing out so off he goes. He is given the treatment by Gahan swooning away for over an hour. He of course invents a story for his delay and returning empty handed which is proven false by I-Gos. Thus he is a self-convicted coward. In the way the mind works ERB would have exonerated himself of the charge if this had been real life. As it wasn’t we can only guess how effective it was.
While Gahan was concentrating on O-Tar in O-Mai’s quarters I-Gos spirited Tara awaypresenting her to O-Tar/Martin who becomes enamored of her. She haughtily rejects him so offending him that he makes her the prize of the Jetan game to be shared by the whole winning team. Gets worse and worse.
Now comes the piece de resistance of the story; the part everyone concentrates on. That’s in Part 6.
I, Dynamo 