I had started this a bit ago, but decided to finish it before the weather got too cold. I’m talking about the next entrance in the Tarzan canon, book #6: Jungle Tales of Tarzan. The stories ran as monthly additions in Blue Book magazine from September 1916 through August 1917, and were published together as a book in 1919.
This one is a bit of a departure from the others for two reasons. It is a collection of short stories, and it takes place when Tarzan is younger, before he meets Jane. On the one hand, it is interesting because we get to engage with the more primal Tarzan. On the other hand, the short stories vary in effectiveness from “what the heck am I reading?” (“Tarzan’s First Love”) to “that’s pretty cool” (“The End of Bukawai”). Overall, it’s definitely on the lower end of Tarzan books. Read it for completion’s sake, but don’t expect to be all that excited about it. I think the biggest problem is that the short story format takes away one of the great strengths of Burroughs’ writing: 3-4 concurrent stories that come together in the end in a satisfying way.
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