A Review: Pt. II, The Prague Cemetery By Umberto Eco
November 26, 2011
A Review
The Prague Cemetery
Part II
by
Umberto Eco
Review by:
R.E. Prindle
Umberto Eco
Part II
Tracing The Racial Memory
For what is history but the attempt to remember or reconstruct the racial past and therefore one’s own pre-history. For as the ancients said: The unexamined life is not worth living. Where better to begin than with the origins of life.
The key fact of existence on earth is that the planet is a huge dynamo generating an electro-magnetic field. In other words the core of the planet is moving at a different rate of speed than the outer layers. There could be no life without this fact. The movement of the core also generates a combination of the elements hydrogen and oxygen we humans call water which is extruded to the surface creating the oceans.
Isaac Asimov describes the human body as big sack of water where H2O comprises very nearly the whole body. So, in contradiction to the ignorant Semitic model ‘dirt’ has no part in the composition of the body.
It is said that the early atmosphere was 100% hydrogen. Thus the extrusion of water and its evaporation must have freed oxygen atoms. As air is 21% oxygen, that fixes the origin of life at the time when oxygen displaced hydrogen in the atmosphere to the extent of 21% at which level it remains today. That also means that if the percentage varied by very much life as now constituted could not survive.
All matter can be deconstructed into its constituent chemical atoms, primarily four gases. While hydrogen and oxygen are the bases of life forms, a dozen or so other trace elements are used in the amounts that were in the sea when life began. All were therefore dissolved in water. It therefore follows by a chain of those atoms proto-life was formed. As life is activated by electricity it follows that electricity was imparted from the electro-magnetic field, the sun or possibly activated by an electrical charge from lightning in conjunction with the electro-magnetic field.
Thus life, a single cell, was formed in the ocean waters which as everyone knows is salty. Hence human are salty. From then in some mysterious process not yet discovered the single cell evolved into all the myriad forms of life that have been and are. At some point ocean forms evolved into land forms which became increasingly complex until one has the human form the most evolved and complex of all. Just because the process can’t be described in full as yet doesn’t mean that Evolution isn’t a reality.
The Thought Original World Island
The World Island, Pangaea, is said to have to have begun breaking up 250 million years ago. The planet is said to be about four billion years old so in all probability the land mass was not the same for that entire time period. Pangaea was an intermediate period. As the planet is essentially a top spinning freely in space all the rules of physics pertaining to tops apply.
If you have a water filled top with solid bits in it when you spin the top the solid bits will be drawn to the upper hemisphere. This is what happened to the land mass of the earth. The rotational stresses were such that the surface cracked into large plates that began drifting North. Hence today the land mass forms a circle around the North Pole. Above Russia and Siberia long transverse islands have pulled away from the main mass to gravitate further toward the Pole.
The Disintegration Of Pangaea
Africa occupies the central position of Pangaea so that as the continents moved they were essentially split off from Africa. Asia moved up and curved around the Pole. The Atlantic Rift separated North and South America moving them to the North and West. India split off moving East and North to collide with Asia forcing the great transverse mountain range of the Himalayas up. And of course Indonesia and Australia trailed out across the ocean to their current stations. Antarctica was drawn South to form that Pole.
As the parcels separated whatever life there was must have traveled on their respective parcels. Thus, even though it may be said the life began in Africa the various life forms must have evolved separately on their land masses.
Full Displacement
There have been several mass extinctions not least of all that which occurred at the end of the last ice age when, for instance, many life forms including horses, mastodons, saber tooth tigers and possibly humans disappeared from the Americas. Huge death rate. The remains of least tens of thousands of mammoths were killed and in Siberia and the American North frozen quickly enough and permanently enough to preserve their flesh which was still edible, although gamey, when the bodies were unearthed in recent times.
As this disaster occurred as recently as probably ten thousand years ago it must have left a memory trace in the traditions of humans
We are told that Homo Sapiens came into existence about 150- 200 thousand years ago in Africa. This may possibly or probably be true but it cannot be stated positively. What can be known is that the earliest remains of Homo Sapiens have been found in Africa. At any rate at the beginning of the Age Of Leo dawned, Ages are how the ancients kept track of immense reaches of time, every part of the Earth bore some human population. These populations were in different evolutionary states. The least evolved human species was in Africa. The East of Asia was populated by Mongols who are evidently a sterile branch of the human species. Europe had a population but not a large one of Neanderthals and various human races while the population flooded out of the previously exposed Mediterranean Basin gathered around the shores of the sea, most notably at the effluence of the Nile.
Now, the ancestors of the Folk of which Eugene Sue speaks were centered somewhere in Central Asia probably around the Aral Sea. This was the great hive from which the Aryans were to spread across the World.
There are many, many legends of these distant times such as Atlantis, the land of Mu and Shambala., the last of which was located in Central Asia. These legends must have some basis in fact; the imagination of man is incapable of creating anything out of whole cloth; whatever man believes must have been suggested to it by actual circumstances.
While little is known of the actual origins of the Aryans that can be ascertained as fact is that beginning around the year 2000 BC the Aryans began to move out of their hive lands. We know that they moved West into the Middle East and South into India. There is no reason not to believe that bands or hordes didn’t also move East into China.
The first migrations into India and the West did so with a fully developed religious system or world view, a Weltanschauung. This means that the system and view were well developed in the Hivelands before the Aryans began their migrations. Thus the similarities between the Hindu religion and the Homeric religion were probably deviations from the old time Hive religion adapted to their specific new conditions.
It is possible that there was cross fertilization between India and Greece but since the entire North from Greece to Northern Europe to Iran/Persia and India were invaded and dominated by the Aryans I think it is just as likely that the core beliefs were common to all the Aryans shifting forms to adapt to religions established in the occupied areas.
Thus while I can offer no proof, I think it probable that Shambala did exist and that it was the Aryan home citadel. In legend Shambala was on an island in the middle of a lake in what is now the Gobi Desert. At the end of the ice age both the Caspian and Aral seas were much more extensive than they are while the Gobi may have been wet also. It seems more probable that a temple city may have been on an island of either of those two more expansive seas. Still the legend is the legend. Increasing desiccation would in any event have forced population dislocations in Central Asia. In any event about the year –2000 the Aryans began to move. However they were located, whether strung out from the Himalayas to the Caspian or whatever, one branch crossed the Hindu Kush down into India. Wherever the Aryans went they wrote these huge long Weltanschauungs, at least after writing reached them which they don’t seem to have had on their own.
Because the Indian books were written in Sanskrit and because Sanskrit was determined to be the most ancient Aryan language words common to the Aryan languages were said to be derived from Sanskrit. This needn’t be the case. I think it more likely that since all Aryans derive from the same stock the language was their common inheritance from the Hivelands. Thus while there may have been contacts between Greek and Indian the similarity more likely reflects the common religious heritage of both peoples. Thus, the Indian Aryans wrote their huge corpus while at about the same time the Greeks were composing their own version of the national epic in Greece and Troy.
Over the centuries the various hordes descended into Persia and Anatolia while when the Scyths appeared in Southern Russia they were then nomadic rather than settlers. Assuming that the Aryans of the Shambala period were sedentary it follows then that climatic conditions forced the Folk into a different economic niche. That the Scyths were of the same Aryan stock as the Greeks is evident from their metal working.
Scythic Goldsmithing
After the Scyths we have the Celtic migrations many of whom ended up at the End of the World in Ireland. Along the way they caused havoc in Anatolia where they were known as the Galatians, harassed the Greeks, gave the Romans the willies from their settlements on the Po and finally became the Gauls of what would become France then came the German tribes who would establish themselves in Northern Europe.
When the Aryans migrated into more populous areas they lost their identity. Probably mere hordes, those who reached China were completely absorbed just as later Jewish migrants to China being few in relation the Chinese were also absorbed. Depending on the size of the Indian contingent they were able to shape the mores of the India with its huge Black population but were absorbed racially. The caste system came into existence as a result of the Aryan’s desperate attempt to maintain racial purity.
Even in the Middle East the Aryan influence has been diluted and all but extinguished. The Aryans of Iran are now adherents to the alien Semitic religion of the Arabs.
Over several centuries the Aryan tribes were able to conquer the Romans but in the process destroyed the Roman Civilization bringing about the long social reorganization of society known as the Dark or Middle Ages. It is here in the German or Frankish conquest of France that Eugene Sue must begin his novel of The Mysteries Of The Folk.
It’s a pity the novel has never been translated into English because Sue must cover the whole of European history including the period of the Crusades. The Indian and Greek epics had long been written when the now European Aryans began the third great national epic, the story of Chivalry of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. This is one huge story. The Vulgate-Lancelot alone runs to several thousand pages with numerous very long branches.
Now, the roots of the Arthurian epic still date back to the Homeric epic while receiving input from myths and legends from the Aryan Hivelands. There is then continuity from the very beginning, so to speak.
The Arthurian epic is a curious European recreation of the Indian books and the Homeric cycle with a Semitic add layer of course. In addition to curious crises at the intra changeover of the Piscean Age. We are not talking of the personal astrology of the newspapers here. Astrology was once a serious part of astronomy. We are talking of the great Astrological religious system that began development eons ago. If you wish to believe Sumerian mythology or sources it has vague memories of tens of thousands of years previously. I have no reason to question the veracity of these Sumerian sages. An age, of course, is one twelfth segment of the Great Year of 25 thousand something years. Thus after the cycle of twelve ages Pisces will once again return. The symbol of Pisces is of two connected fish swimming in opposite directions, perhaps indicating Dionysian androgyny. Thus halfway through the age the archetype of the age changed from the male domination of Jesus to the female archetype of Mary in Southern Europe and Diana in Northern Europe. This actually happened.
In the South Mariolatry emerged while in the North Diana replaced Merlin in Pagan circles. According to the legend Vivian (Diana, Artemis) The Lady Of The Lake, charmed Merlin into revealing all his magic to her. Once she obtained it she threw a hex on Merlin entombing him either under a rock or in a tree. Thus Diana replaced Merlin as the pagan archetype of the Piscean Age. Artemis in Greek, Diana in Latin and Vivian with the Norse, the Virgin Huntress, Mistress Of the Animals and The Lady Of The Lake who abhorred the company of men, became Northern Europe’s ruling archetype or Anima while the Virgin Mother became that of the South.
Having eliminated Merlin, Vivian then kidnapped Lancelot as a boy (because she was the Virgin Huntress and couldn’t bear her own son) taking him to her enchanted palace beneath the lake where as the Alpha female she taught him to be a preeminent knight or the Alpha male in Arthur’s court. Arthur was a creature of Merlin but lost the use of the latter’s magic when he was entombed. Thus Arthur was unprotected against Vivian’s purloined magic.
As Lancelot was Vivian’s or Diana’s creature there had to be conflict between the two halves of the Piscean Age. That was naturally caused by a woman, Arthur’s flirtatious wife, Guinevere. As a result the golden age of the Round Table came to an end.
The Arthurians were acquainted with some Homeric traditions that I have not found in the mythological sources. Thus the Arthurian cycle was a continuation in the mold of the Homeric cycle. Vivian or Artemis in Greek, was traced back to the Greek Peloponnese or Lacedaemon. Lacedaemon means the Demon or Lady Of The Lake. So Diana, in Roman Myth or The Lady as she appears in Dumas’ Three Musketeers. But, I can’t find any extant record of the myth.
Arthur and his characteristics can be traced back into the Caspian and Aral Hivelands of the Aryans so that the three traditions come together in the Arthurian cycle of Europe. The cycle also combines Gallic legends of Britain bringing in that great Aryan race.
This is the rich stew then that Eugene Sue had to work with in his mysteries of the Folk. My ancestors and yours. The Arthurian cycle was active from c. 1060 to 1300. Malory is a late compilation. When the Crusades ended and the Templars were suppressed the period ended. Thus the second half of the millennium began.
We will skip the intervening history until the great European upheaval of the Enlightenment and French Revolution.
Eugene Sue
2.
The Jews In Europe
As Eco’s story is centered around the Jews concerning the Protocols of Zion and the Dreyfus case it will be necessary to say a few words concerning their history to set the stage.
I hope I have demonstrated the persistence of the racial memory in my brief tracing of the movements of the Aryans. Their motif is the scientific explanation of nature which they have pursued with varying success in all their movement from the Hivelands to India and Great Britain and from there to North America and Australia and New Zealand. The scientific goal has never been lost sight of.
There is no other people on Earth with a stronger racial memory and an inflexible but criminal will than the Jews while at the same time, like the Aryans, they have recorded their goals in print. They too persist doggedly in the attempt to realize their plan.
Briefly the place and time the tribe came into existence can be pinpointed if their writings are accurate. That place was Ur of the Chaldees and the time was the transition from the Age of Taurus to the Age of Aries c. 2000 BC. Their pedigree goes back no further than that. They are an artificial Semitic creation; they have no roots in antiquity.
Challenging the authority of the Chaldean astronomers the Jews were expelled from Ur for their impertinence. Thus they were born of disappointed expectations; their future was cast; they were doomed to disappointed expectations.
However they knew how to push their luck to the limit; call it chutzpah.
Skipping over two thousand years of conflict we find the Jews established throughout the Roman Empire challenging the Romans for supremacy. Defiant of Roman authority even in the capitol Rome, the Jews taxed their fellows sending the gold to Jerusalem which they established as their capitol contra Rome. Hence the famous Rome-Jerusalem dichotomy. While their prophet Jesus counseled them to cede temporal authority to Rome- render unto to Caesar that which is his and unto God his own- open rebellion began which was crushed, the people killed or dispersed, Jerusalem leveled with Jews being forbidden to set foot in the city again. An early version of the final solution.
Briefly, we next find the Jews in Spain. Here the Roman Catholic Church has established itself and for superstitious reasons granted the Jews an invaluable monopoly, that of loaning money at interest. A one of a kind gift. Wheedling their way into another monopoly, that of being royal tax farmers, they did indeed farm their Spanish cattle, not unlike the Greek and Italian situation today. This was an intolerable situation that took a long time to culminate but in 1492 the Jews were expelled from Spain. This was a crushing blow for them.
Due to the Spanish expulsion and various other expulsions Jews migrated into the sparsely inhabited area of Eastern Poland which then included Byelorussia and the Ukraine, later to be called the Pale Of The Settlement.
Then, the worst catastrophe ever hit the tribe. The Northern Europeans began to assert their birthright of free inquiry while at the same time rejecting the Judaeo-Christian incubus. It was called the Enlightenment. Aryan scientific thought asserted itself against the Semitic stultification throwing the Semitic religions- Christianity, Judaism and Moslemism- into an atavistic status of a prior and lower intellectual state.
The Enlightenment would quickly result in the French Revolution which was to change the course of both Jewish and Aryan history. With the Revolution came the emancipation of the Jews. They were placed on an ‘equal’ footing with the Europeans. Emancipation was more quickly achieved in France while in Central Europe it moved in stages reaching fulfillment after the 1848 revolution.
It was then that Europeans became aware that equality was a one way street; it was not what the Jews were after. In the reaction about 1875 the German Wilhelm Mars invented the term anti-Semitism and the stage was set for the Protocols of Zion and the Dreyfus Affair.
In the wake of the Revolution Eco’s heroes Eugene Sue and Alexander Dumas were born whose novels filled Eco’s imagination and memories with their fantastic works.
We’ll move in that direction in Part III.
A Review: Beau Ideal By P.C. Wren
October 5, 2009
A Contribution To The
ERBzine ERB Library Project
The Beau Ideal Trilogy Of
P.C. Wren
Beau Geste~Beau Sabreur~Beau Ideal
Review by R.E. Prindle
Part I. Introduction
Part II. Review of Beau Geste
Part III. Review of Beau Sabreur
Part IV. Review of Beau Ideal
The first novel of the trilogy signifies a good, beautiful or noble deed. The deed being the Geste brothers taking the odium of the theft of the sapphire on themselves. The second, Beau Sabreur, meaning the Noble Warrior or Fighter. The story then centers on its Lancelot like character, De Beaujolais with attention to the noble actions of subsidiary characters. Hank and Buddy fit in as noble warriors also. Beau Ideal then centers on the noble ideals that activate the characters and are part of Western Culture as against that the the others.
I will put the dramatic first chapter second begin with the second section called The History of Otis Van Brugh, perhaps meant to be a Gawaine type. Beau Ideal is Otis’ book as the first was that of Michael Geste and his brothers and the second that of De Beaujolais.
Otis, Hank and Mary are brothers and sister with a last sister who remained at home in Texas. Their father was a brute of a fellow who drove all his children from home except the last sister. Wren himself must have had a wretched father because all the fathers in the trilogy are failed men, fellows who don’t have a grip on the meaning of really being a man.
Neal, or Hank Vanbrugh, refused to put up with it taking to a wandering life. On the road he met Buddy where they became pals ending up in the Legion.
Otis and mary being younger subsequently left Texas to lead a peripatetic ex-patriot life of the well to do. The history of Mary, Hank and Buddy has been given in Beau Sabreur.
When Otis left De Beaujolais he tried to reach the French contingent in the fort. Along the way he ran into Redon who filled him in. Otis was to try to reach the fort to request them to assist a detached unit fighting their way to the fort. He succeeds.
In the process Redon diverting the attack away from the fort is shot by friendly fire. Both he and Otis were dressed as Moslems. Otis attempts to reach Redon but is shot falling unconscious outside the fort. Thus when the French are massacred he is the sole survivor.
He returns to England where psychologically shattered he is stopped by a policeman. While being interviewed he is conveniently rescued by the leading ‘alienist’ of England. Given refuge in his asylum Otis discovers Isobel whose mental health is destabilized because her husband John Geste is in the penal battalion of the FFL. She implores Otis to find John and bring him back alive. Here’s a beau ideal. Ever loving Isobel Otis agrees to sacrifice his happiness to go back to Africa to find John.
What a guy! Otis joins the Foreign Legion with the intent of being sent to the penal battalion called the Zephyrs. He joins and succeeds in being sent to the Zephyrs. Now we return to the opening chapter.
Anyone who ever fancied joining the Legion, and the notion was discussed a lot down to the sixties of the last century when I was launching my bark upon the waters, should have read Erwin Rosen’s In The Legion first. The Legion was unconcionably cruel to its soldiers in everyday life let alone the penal battalion. As an example, the Legionnaires complained of excessive marching. They were required to do thirty miles a day carrying 50 lbs. or more with pack and rifle. One really has to read Rosen’s description to realize the horror. Those who dropped out were left where they fell. Arab women found them subjecting them to horrid tortures.
This became so common that the Legionnaires were given leave to slaughter the Arab women as a lesson. This they did with a vengeance. Rosen was shown a purse by a fellow soldier made from the severed breast of a woman. Rosen said they were common at one time; an example of what can happen when civilization meets savagery. Civilization is lowered but savagery isn’t raised. The Beau Ideal is lost.
One of the punishments Rosen mention was called the Silo. As he describes it these were holes dug into the ground with a funnel put where the victim had to stand exposed to the blazing sun during the day and freezing cold at night.
Wren converts the idea of these silos into an actual underground grain storage unit capable of holding several men. In his version the funnel was closed off admitting no light. As the story opens several men are sweltering in the pit. A Taureg raid was made on the penal colony building a road near the pit that killed the whole contingent so that no new supplies were lowered. The men are dying one by one.
Otis is in the silo the next to last survivor. He discovers that the other survivor is none other than John Geste. On the point of expiring a scout from Hank and Otis’ tribe, or headquarters, discovers the silo and hauls the two out. Coincidences and miracles just naturally go with the desert.
The scout take them to a member tribe of the federation. Both are now wanted men by the FFL with no hope of salvation. They have no alternative but to get out of Africa hopefully avoiding France.
I can’t ask you to guess who was in the camp because you wouldn’t. Remember the Arab dancing girl Otis met in Beau Sabreur? She’s the one and she’s still in love with Otis. Wren names her the Death Angel. Wren was heavily influenced by E.M. Hull’s The Sheik. Maud in Beau Sabreur was mad about sheiks, overjoyed when she won one in the person of Hank. Of couse Hank was an American sheik and not an Arab one, much as Hull’s sheik was in reality half English and half Spanish.
So, perhaps Otis and the Death Angel are revenants of the Sheik and Diana from Hull’s novel. In this case the woman has power over the man but the sexual roles remain the same as the king trumps the queen every time as Larry Hosford sings. If you don’t lose track of who you are it’s true too. Otis doesn’t lose track of who he is. Revisit the story of Circe and Ulysses.
The tribe that rescues Otis and Geste is a rival of Hank Sheik’s but a subordinate member of the confederation. Hank has organized a sort of United Emirates of the Sahara of which he serves as President for life but without any democratic trimmings. In a parody of the Sheik then the Death Angel demands ‘kiss me’ of Otis. He’s not so easy to deal with as Diana. Even with the Death Angel’s knife at his breast he refuses.
In the meantime the Zephyrs reclaim Geste and he goes back to his old job of building roads. Rosen’s account of the FFL compares with Burroughs’ account of his army days. ERB too was put to work building roads, complaining of moving or perhaps breaking huge boulders. Both his experience and that of the penal colony of the FFL are quite similar to the chain gangs of the old South of the United States.
Even when not of the Zephyrs the Legionnaires were given detestable tasks unbefitting the dignity of soldiers. According to Rosen the men were required to clean out sewers in the Arab quarter of Sidi Bel Abbes. That’s enough to make anybody desert. And then get sent to the penal battalion. Crazy, crazy world. Rosen’s In The Legion is well worth reading if you like this sort of thing. Download it from the inernet. Only a hundred pages or so.
Geste then has to be re-rescued. This forms the central part of the story along with Otis’ struggles with the Death Angel. Hank and Buddy get windof the two FFL captives coming to investigate. Otis then discovers his long lost brother. It is settled then that Hank and Buddy will give up their Sheikdom to return to pappy’s farm, or ranch.
Even though Hank and Buddy are powerful sheiks they are still deserters from the Legion so getting out of Algeria is a problem. Rosen tells a story of a deserter who made it back to Austria where he became a rich and successful manufacturer. He made the mistake of exhibiting his manufactures in Paris in person. There he was recognized by his old officer who arrested him sending him back to Africa. There he died. So Hank and Buddy run the risk of being recognized and arested on the way out of Africa as well as Otis and Geste.
Geste’s rescue is effected. The quartet successfully exit Africa arriving safely back in Texas. However the Death Angel’s help was necessary. To obtain that help Otis promises to marry her. He doesn’t want to but a Beau Ideal is a Beau Ideal and so he is going to honor his commitment. On the eve of departure the Angel gives Otis a locket she wears as a good luck charm. Very bad move. The locket contains pictures of her mother and father. Otis examines the mother with some interest then turns his attention to the father….
Should I ruin a perfectly good ERB ending for you? Sure, why not? I’ve got a little sadistic streak too. Everyone was using this one. No fooling now, the Death Angel was Otis’ sister because dear old Dad was her mother’s wife; he was known as Omar out there on the burning sands. Well, there’s a revelation, not that keen sighted readers like you and I didn’t see it coming from miles away. You can see a long way out there in the desert.
Hank, Buddy and Otis’ excellent African adventure is over. The whole episode was like watching a movie except real. But, back in Texas it may as well have been a dream. The old codger is still living as the troop of Mary and De Beaujolais, Hank and Buddy and Otis assemble at the ranch, John and Isobel are there too. Sister Janey is still waiting on her father.
Well, Hank has Maud, De Beaujolais has Mary, Geste has Isobel but Buddy’s staring at the moon alone. Still there’s Janey and that’s a match made in heaven but Dad won’t let her go and Janey waon’t leave without his consent. Otis intervenes pushing Janey toward Buddy then turning to face down his Dad for the first time in his life.
Pop doubles his fist moving to deck Otis. Otis holds up the locket like a cross before Dracula stopping the old man in his tracks. Confronted with the truth the old fellow buckles giving his son the triumph. So the Beau Ideal triumphs.
That’s all there is, no more verses left.
A Review: Tarzan And The Jewels Of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs
August 19, 2009
Themes And Variations
The Tarzan Novels Of Edgar Rice Burroughs
#5: Tarzan And The Jewels Of Opar
by
R.E. Prindle
Part 1:
On The Road To Opar
I have put off reviewing this Tarzan several times. I like it but I find it difficult. This may have been the first Tarzan book I read, probably in 1950. While I have always liked Tarzan And The Ant Men and Tarzan The Terrible Opar was always my favorite.
Of course in 1950 one’s choice was limited to eight or ten, not including the first, so I read the later novels only recently. Tarzan And The Lion Man is my current favorite. Opar was written in 1915 about a year after the commencement of The Great War, the occupation of Haiti and war scares with Mexico. This was also after ERB’s first spurt that ran from 1911-1914. The latter year emptied the pent up reservoir containing the residue of his early reading and experiences. That period may be described as ERB’s ‘amateur period.’ The latter part of 1914 began what may be described as his professional life as a writer. The spontaneous automatic period was over; he had to think out his stories. That meant he had to do some new reading. Opar coincided with his completion of reading Gibbon’s Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. What effect that may have had on Opar I’m not sure.
At the foundation of ERB’s approach to his stories are the three titles of Twain’s Prince And The Pauper, Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy and Wister’s The Virginian. After 1914 he would refer to Jack London and write a series based on the style of Booth Tarkington. While he continued to produce during the twenties, the period was also one of intense reading that produced the magnificent stories of the early thirties. That need not concern us here.
While his favorite three books were the rock on which he built his church, the Oz stories of Baum contribute to the superstructure as they do so prominently in Tarzan And The Jewels Of Opar. The second chapter is even titled: On The Road To Opar. ERB only left out the yellow brick and changed the Emerald City to Opar. It is clearly indicated that Opar is based on the Emerald City.
Rather than being emerald Opar is red and gold. La, the high priestess of Opar can be considered a combination of Baum’s Ozma and Rider Haggard’s She.
The Baum connection is strengthened by the fact that, as I believe but can only conjecture at this point, Burroughs visited Baum at his Hollywood home during ERB’s residence in Southern California in 1913. One guesses but it is probable that ERB got some pointers from Baum on how to keep the Tarzan series going as Baum was producing volume after volume of Oz stories. In point of fact Baum had run out of ideas in 1910 attempting to close off the series. He was compelled to restart the series in 1913 at the insistence of his fans.
Burroughs had effectively closed the Tarzan series with The Son Of Tarzan. Son is a favorite of a lot of people but for me it’s pretty much a rehash of the first three stories; I call the four The Russian Quartet after the villains of the series. Tarzan was already old in Beasts Of Tarzan but by Son he had to come out of retirement. There was no future then, so the Big Bwana had to be reborn. The old Tarzan ended with Son; the new Tarzan began with Jewels Of Opar. A fine new beginning it was.
The Ballantine edition of 1963 prefaces the story with a quote titled: ‘In Quest Of A Lost Identity’, that might easily be changed to ‘A Search For A New Identity’, for in fact, Burroughs old identity had been lost when he gained success and riches. ERB wanted to go forward not back:
Tarzan staggered to his feet and groped his way about among the underground ways of Opar. What was he? Where was he? His head ached, but otherwise he felt no ill effects from the blow that had felled him. He did not recall the accident, nor aught of what had led up to it.
At last he found the doorway leading inward beneath the city and temple. Nothing spurred his hurt memory to a recollection of past familiarity with his surroundings. He blundered on through the darkness as though he were traversing an open plain under a noonday sun.
Suddenly he reached the brink of a well, stepped outward into space, lunged forward, and shot downward into the inky depths below. Still clutching his spear, he struck the water and sank beneath its surface…
Tarzan loses his memory at great stress points in Burroughs’ life. They take place at Opar in underground caverns surr9unded by a wealth of gold. One might think then that they are related to Burroughs’ financial success and through La to his sex life.
One must bear in mind that ERB came into the beginnings of his success just as he was edging into the mid-life crisis. Given a reasonable amount of money in 1913 he reacted in a nouveau riche manner. Remembering back to 1899 and his private railcar trip to NYC and back he tried to relive it with Emma. His trip with Frank Martin troubled his memory. He recalled it 1914 when he took the job on the railroad in Salt Lake City. In 1913 he packed the family aboard with all his belongings and rode out to Los Angeles and San Diego. He may very well have rented a whole Pullman car for himself and family that would be equivalent to a private car but we don’t know for sure at this time. We only know that he was fixated on a private car and that he rode first class.
We can be sure that he was realizing all his dreams as fast as he could earn the money to pay for them or perhaps before he had the money.
He was moving through uncharted territory thus ‘he blundered on through the darkness as though he were traversing an open plain under a noonday sun.’
ERB has his eyes wide open but the unfamiliar demands being placed on him were equivalent to darkness: he couldn’t be sure whether he was making the right decisions. ‘What was he? Where was he.’ This is a dilemma of the newly successful. And then by late 1914, early 1915 he realized that he was in over his head.
Suddenly he reached the brink of a well, stepped outward into space, lunged forward, and shot downward into the inky depths below. Still clutching his spear, he struck the water and sank beneath the surface…
What? Of course. McClurg’s released the first Tarzan as a book in 1914 treating the release in what seems a peculiar way. The contract had been signed, apparently perpetual and unbreakable, ERB, Inc. only bought it out in the fifties, so he must have realized that he had been had. He committed the same error in 1931 when he signed his contract with MGM so he didn’t learn much over the years.
His contract would certainly have been a contributing factor but there may have been other sources that put him in over his head. It is significant that Tarzan didn’t drop his spear; he was still capable fo defending himself.
Now, one would have to believe that Burroughs was at least famous in Chicago. By 1917-18 Tarzan was a household word recognized it seems by everyone. It would be odd indeed if sexual temptations weren’t placed before him. Literary groupies surrounded authors then as groupies did musicians in the ’60s.
La herself is a repressed sexual image while the novel abounds in sexual images. Perhaps signficantly when the rutting elephants charge the priests of Opar Tarzan takes refuge in a tree high above the ruckus. Even then the rutting elephants try to uproot his tree to bring the Big Bwana to earth but do not succeed. One may infer that while temptation was strong ERB remained faithful to Emma.
However by 1918’s Tarzan The Untamed, note the title, Jane is killed while Tarzan’s eye immediately wanders forming a near dalliance with another woman. It was also at this period that ERB walked out on Emma. As told in Tarzan The Terrible, note the title, and Tarzan And The Golden Lion Tarzan and Emma were separated through those two novels and Tarzan The Untamed.
So, Jewels of Opar may be describing the dark side of success when the master tempter attacks you at your most vulnerable plus Burroughs was in full blown mid-life crisis by 1914-15.
The forces of change were shaking him like a terrier shaking a rat. His situation was terrible and wonderful at the same time. So, with Tarzan And The Jewels Of Opar he launched himself on his career as a professional writer.
Part 2.
The novels of Burroughs previous to Opar had flowed from his experience and early reading. The reading had provided the framework that ERB fleshed out with his interests, ideas and experience in essentially an allegorical form. David Adams quite justly points out that Burroughs relies quite heavily on a fairy tale format although it took me a long time to recognize it. ERB’s wonderlands are lands of enchantment as much as that of Mallory’s and Pyles Arthurian England. That is certainly clear in this book.
Now Burroughs has to actually invent and construct a story from scratch. Once again he relies on his reading. The first chapter titled The Belgian And The Arab encapsulates his reading and perhaps watercooler discussions of the Belgian administration of the Congo with the depredations of the Arab slaver Tippu Tib as gleaned from Stanley’s two tremendous adventures, Through The Dark Continent and In Darkest Africa.
In the first Stanley encountered Tib on the upper Congo, Lualaba he calls it, when Tib was just beginning to extract the Congo tribes for slaves. A few years later Stanley encountered Tib on his way across the Congo from the West to East. By that time Tib was halfway across the Congo basin toward the West depopulating it on his way. In this story Achmet Zek is based on Tippu Tib while Albert Werper, the Belgian, meets him well into the Congo moving up river as in Stanley’s In Darkest Africa.
Werper, as a Belgian, epitomizes King Leopold of Belgium’s administration of the Congo. For a few decades the entire Congo Free State as it was then known was his personal possession Tippu Tib or no. As such he had to make it pay and make it pay he did. Rubber was the engine of that prosperity. As the tree was not yet cultivated as Firestone would in Malaya, the Africans were required to collect balls of rubber from the wild. Not naturally inclined to collect rubber some harsh disciplinary measures were required to give them incentive. One method if they failed to bring in their quota was to cut off their right hand. Seemingly counter-productive it was nevertheless effective although there were a lot of Africans walking around with only a left hand. In Leopold’s defense the method was suggested by Africans themselves.
Leopold made money but incurred the hatred of Africans while giving himself an atrocious reputation in Europe and America. The Belgians removed the Free State from his administration after which it became known as the Belgian Congo. Thus Burroughs unites two men of evil reputation in the Belgian Albert Werper and the Arab Achmet Zek. They naturally conspire evil.
ERB also leans on Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness for his opening episode. Heart Of Darkness was Conrad’s most famous work and it may be said his reputation has been founded on it. A sensation when published it is or was still widely read today.
The opening scene takes place at the Stanley Pool where the Congo begins its descent from the plateau. Perhaps the post was the nascent Stanleyville. Werper commits his crime then flees into the jungle where he is captured by the Arab Achmet Zek/Tippu Tib.
The Belgian and the Arab are two of a kind forming a natural partnership with Zek being the senior partner. Zek may have been able to carry on his depredations without hindrance except for the Great White Lord of the jungle, Tarzan. Thus Burroughs rectifies the situation in his imagination. Prior to Werper Zek had no way to reach the Big Bwana but with the European Werper he has an entree.
Jane, of course, will be captured to be taken to the North to Algiers or Tunis to be sold into a Moslem harem. That would have been a nifty trick from the Congo to the Mediterranean. The walk alone might have taken a year or more.
So, as the chapter ends the plan is to kill Tarzan giving Zek a free hand and capture Jane.
Part 3.
Chapter two ‘On The Road To Opar’ introduces what will be a recurrent theme in Tarzan’s life- insolvency. In this case the Big Fella has made a bad investment, not unlike Burroughs’ habit, and been wiped out. Being now impoverished he has to recruit a new fortune by taking several hundred pounds of gold from the vaults of Opar.
Tarzan justifies himself:
…the chances are that they inhabitants of Opar will never know that I have been there again and despoiled them of another portion of the treasure, the very existence of which they are as ignorant of as they would be of its value.
Thus, the Zen question, are you stealing from someone if you take what they don’t know they have or its value somewhere else? I would be interested in ERBs justification of what seems to be a felony. After all Tarzan isn’t going to show up with a brassband and waving banners; he’s going to sneak in and out hopefully unnoticed. It’s too late to ask now.
The raid on Opar may have reflected ERB’s financial condition after 1913-14’s stay in San Diego. He had to write another Tarzan novel to recoup his finances.
As Tarzan is about to leave, Zek and Werper have concocted their plan. Werper is to gain admittance to the household under guise of being a lost great white hunter and prepare the way for Zek. Werper posing as the Frenchman Frecoult overhears Tarzan and Jane discussing Opar quickly realizing there is more at stake here than killing Tarzan and selling a White woman into a Sheik’s harem in the North.
He warns Zek while following Tarzan on the road to Opar.
Chapter 3 is titled The Call Of The Jungle. As On The Road To Opar reflects Baum’s Oz stories so the Call Of The Jungle resonates rather well with Jack London’s Call Of The Wild. the jungle that Tarzan inhabits is a wonderful place, no bugs, no mosquitoes. In Africa the land of fevers that would still be unknown if Europeans had not invaded the continent Tarzan never has one. We know that ERB read Stanley. That explorer speaks of no romance of the jungle. For him it was a dark dank horrible place he couldn’t get out of fast enough. He not only suffered terrible fevers but so did everyone else. Yet in Burroughs’ imagination the jungle becomes a paradise.
Perhaps that might reflect thte lost paradise of America conquered by industrialism and cities. Perhaps in its way it represents the White City of the Columbian Exposition as opposed to the Black City of industrial Chicago. Idaho vs. Chicago; something of that order.
Now hungry Tarzan kills a deer with his favored bare hands method plunging Dad’s knife deep into its heart. Dad’s knife and plunging it into the heart of its victim. There’s an image. ERB had a terrible relationship with his father. Perhaps he visualized the relationship as his father killing him with heartaches. Haven’t actually worked out the meaning yet. Interrupted by a lion he retreats to a tree with a haunch between his strong white teeth. Another sexual image. Now, here we have another psychological problem. Tarzan is a very unforgiving guy, petty even. Having been disturbed in his dinner which surely must have been a frequent occurrence in the jungle, he is not going to let the lion eat his kill in peace. Up in his convenient tree he finds another tree nearby bearing hard fruit. Not the soft mushy kind but hard. He bombards the lion until it leaves the kill.
The lion slinks off after his own game, a lone African witch doctor. Tarzan doesn’t care if the lion kills the African but just as his dinner was disrupted he wants to punish the lion by depriving him of his. So just as the lion mauls the African Tarzan jumps on the lion’s back and kills him merely for interrupting the Big Guy’s dinner. You know, that’s capital punishment for a very minor offence. This is a little excessive to my mind.
What does it say about ERB’s own state of mind? Was he also unforgiving and draconian in his revenges? ERB himself mostly stood in his relationships as the African to the lion. There is a certain irony in the symbol of MGM being Leo The Lion. In his last major confrontation with MGM, Leo mauled ERB pretty badly. There was no room left for revenge in that struggle.
The mauled witch doctor had appeared in Tarzan Of The Apes. He recognized Tarzan but was unrecognized by the latter.
In his youth he would slain the witch-doctor without the slightest compuncition, but civilization had had its softening effect on him even as it does upon the natives and races which it touches though it had not gone far enough with Tarzan to render him either cowardly or effeminate.
From this we may infer that ERB believed Europeans and Americans to have become effeminate and cowardly. Perhaps so.
The witch doctor reminds him of Mbonga’s village of the old days when they made Tarzan the god Munango-Keewati and now he makes a prophecy:
…I shall reward you. I am a great witch-doctor. Listen to me, white man! I see bad days ahead of you…A god greater than you wil rise up and strike you down. Turn back, Munango-Keewati! Turn back before it is too late. Danger lurks ahead of you and danger lurks behind; but greater is the danger before. I see…
And then characteristically he croaks. Werper was behind and Opar ahead. But what was danger to the Big Bwana; danger was his life. Of course ERB could have been talking about himself as well. Certainly by this time ERB must have realized that success and fame was going to be no bed of roses. He needed more money to continue his new life style. Could he get it now that his first spurt was finished. He had been warned by his editor Metcalf that most pulp writers had success for a couple years but then exhausted their sources. He must have feared that he was already there.
A new period of anxiety loomed before him, probably debt behind. As Tarzan is about to lose his memory, stress may have been addling ERB’s brain. Nevertheless impelled by necessity- onward.
Part II in another post.
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.
I, Dynamo 