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Bill Hillman's

Volume 490

Edgar Rice Burroughs'
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

Art by J. Allen St. John
Part I: Publishing History ~ Summary ~ Cast ~ Chapters I-VII
Historiated Initials ~ Decorations ~ Interior Line Art ~ US Paperback Covers

PUBLISHING HISTORY (USA)
Written by ERB between September and October 1915

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In the forgotten city of Opar, the bloodied sacrificial altar of the Flaming God stood above vaults piled high with the gold destined for fabled, lost Atlantis. There La, the beautiful high priestess, still dreamed of Tarzan, who had escaped her knife before. Around her, the hideous priests vowed that he should never escape again. For now Tarzan was returning, and they were waiting for him. Tarzan planned  to avoid La and the priests. But he could not avoid the earthquake that struck him down in the vaults and left him without memory of his wife or home—only with what memory he had had as a child among the savage apes who reared him. 

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 From the November and December 1916 issues of ALL-STORY WEEKLY, this is more like it! I started these reviews with some of the lesser known books in the series and, well, there`s a reason why those later books are not as well known. They`re not very good, particularly when compared with the earlier entries. JEWELS OF OPAR, on the other hand, is a lot of fun to breeze through. It doesn`t have a linear plot as much as a tangle of threads weaving in and out (Burroughs basically sets a dozen characters loose in the jungle and has them bounce off each other for a hundred and fifty pages), but the writing itself has much more energy and enthusiasm than the latter half of the series showed. There is more description and detail, and plenty of vivid incidents which may not be plausible but are still dramatic (a rhino in a trench fighting seven lions may be something that wouldn`t happen in real life, but it`s a wild image.) And the final paragraph is in effect a wonderful punchline that leaves the reader knowing something which the puzzled characters will never learn.

For me at least, the most interesting aspect of Tarzan is his duality. He`s unique in the world, the only one of his kind. He can enjoy an art gallery in London with Jane, while not being really happy in the constricting clothing and stuffy interiors. Yet back among the great apes or his Waziri, he`s also somehow not fully at home either. Tarzan is the classic misfit and outsider, living in two worlds but not wholly of either. This is something that was lost after the tenth book or so, where the Apeman apparently abandoned his family and went back to a simplistic jungle life. In JEWELS OF OPAR, he comes back on horseback "from a tour of inspection of his vast African estate" and then spends "the afternoon in his study, reading and answering letters". Yet the very next night, he`s droppng naked out of a tree onto a deer because he just HAS to kill something himself and devour some blody flesh.

Tarzan is actually more savage than his tribe of Waziri, since they will not eat some of the odd items he enjoys and they prefer their meat cooked. The Apeman enjoys fresh meat, uncooked and unspoiled (hey, Tarzan, how`s that trichinosis going lately?) While in later books, our boy seems to live entirely on raw meat and river water, here Burroughs is still taking time to mention that Tarzan eats a wide variety of prey, including "beetles, rodents and caterpillars".  Once or twice, there is mention of fruit, which may not be as macho as raw flesh but which is useful to prevent scurvy.

The tangled events in the story spring from the misdeeds of a renegade Belgian officer, Albert Werper, and his uneasy alliance with a vicious Arab cut-throat named Achmet Zek. Werper is weak and greedy, more an opportunist than the outright predator Zek is. Tarzan has returned to steal a hundred ingots of gold from the hidden treasure vaults of Opar (hey, the Oparians don`t even know about the gold and wouldn`t have any use for it if they did, so Tarzan feels it might as well be put to good use on his plantation, right?). Werper ends up with a pouch of incredibly valuable gems (thus, the book`s title). Tarzan gets away with the sacred sacrificial knife of the Flaming God and so has a steaming La chasing him with fifty of her brutish followers. Meanwhile, Jane has been abducted by the Arabs, who think they can get a good price for her in a harem somewhere, and a giant Waziri warrior named Mugambi* is tracking that party with determination to rescue Jane and avenge his slain tribesmen. So there are a lot of people chasing each other back and forth through Afriica, and a lot of agita.

To complicate things just a bit more, Tarzan has been conked on the head by falling rubble and suffered one of his occasional amnesiac episodes, where he has forgotten all about everything that happened since his puberty. More than a few commentaries have wondered if, deep down, the Apeman doesn`t welcome these memory losses and perhaps subconsciously cause them. It`s  a great way to forget all his responsibilities and problems, just being a hairless ape running through the jungle for a while.

Opar itself is one of the great lost civilizations in pulp fiction. Crumbling and nearly ruined, the last surviving outpost of one of Atlantis` colonies, Opar has a population of males who sound a lot like stereotyped Neanderthals. Short, stocky, with long powerful arms and bent legs, the Oparians also have interbred with the apes. In fact, they speak Mangani and have some of the apes living with them. (I`d love to see National Geographic do a special on these guys.) Yet, somehow through some real stretching of credulity, the females are still gorgeous beauties "descended from a single priestess of the royal house of Atlantis who had been in Opar at the time of the great catastrophe. Such was La."

You have to like La, she`s got such a hopeless life. Incredibly beautiful but condemned to eventually have to choose a mate from the Opar galoots, she has spent her life sacrificing people in cold blood on the altars of the Flaming God. As soon as she sees Tarzan, she`s smitten with lust and becomes a "pulsing, throbbing volcano of desire" (Yowza!). But of course, Tarzan isn`t interested in her in the least and she decides to torture him to death. I think we`ve all had relationships like that.

By the way, doesn`t it seem odd that Tarzan doesn`t respond at all to La? Here`s this completely luscious woman rubbing her body all over him for hours, kissing him all over, fervently pleading with him to love her, they`re both essentially naked.. and yet the Apeman just smiles and goes to sleep. What the heck? At this point, Tarzan is going through one of his amnesiac periods where he has absolutely no memory of Jane and yet he doesn`t react to La a bit. Maybe Burroughs was just trying to tease the readers without having the editor reach that old blue pencil...

Much of what seemed tired and unexciting in the later books is here presented with real conviction. When Tarzan leaps on a lion to kill it with only a knife, it seems as extremely dangerous as it should be presented. The Apeman takes bruising punishment as the furious cat rolls about and it`s not the ho-hum routine stunt it seems to be later on. ("To have loosened for an instant his grip there, would have been to bring him within reach of those tearing talons or rending fangs, and have ended forever the grim career of this junglebred English lord.")

 Although Burroughs himself quickly tired of Jane Clayton (even intending to kill her off in TARZAN THE UNTAMED), she brings a focus and center to the Apeman`s life that he badly needs. Without her, he slips back into being a one-dimensional character not much more complicated than his usual film persona. And frankly, Jane is very likeable, a down to earth lady who can take care of herself even when dealing with Arab slavers or hungry lions. Her presence is sorely missed after the halfway point of the series.

*Mugambi is another character who deserved to be used much more in the books. He first saved Tarzan`s life in THE BEASTS OF TARZAN, became initiated into the Waziri tribe, and seems to accompany the Apeman and Jane as a bodyguard and companion. "Now Mugambi had been in London with his master. He was not the unsophisticated savage that his apparel proclaimed him. He had mingled with the cosmopolitan hordes of the greatest city in the world; he had visited museums and inspected shop windows; and, besides, he was a shrewd and intelligent man." I would have liked to see Burroughs do a story where Tarzan gets in trouble in London and Mugambi has to go bail him out.

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The eight original St. John plates shown here are supplemented with the
Frank Parker and St. John illustrations
which were used in the original newspaper serialization of the novel.

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Chapter Titles Used in the Newspaper Serialization I. The Renegade II. The Priests of Opar III. The Coming of Achmet Zek IV. The Jewel Chamber V. At the Bungalow VI. Empty Seats VII. The Belgian's Spoor VIII. Escape? IX. Three Beasts X. Abducted Again XI. The Pouch of Jewels XII. Taglat and the Lion XIII. Out of the Frying Pan --- XIV. --- Into the Fire XV. Memories

I. The Renegade	II. The Priests of Opar

III. The Coming of Achmet Zek	IV. The Jewel Chamber

V. At the Bungalow

VI. Empty Seats

VII. The Belgian's Spoor

Continued in Part 2: ERBzin-e 491

More Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar covers and information are featured at:
 https://www.angelfire.com/trek/erbbib/erb1915.html
 https://www.angelfire.com/trek/erbbib/erb1915a.html

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