Explore York Libraries & Archives Catalogue

Guardian Review

"Dash it," said John Clayton, Lord Greystoke. "These beastly Europeans mistreat the blacks even more than we do. There will be a mutiny, I'll be bound." "Oh John, my love," said Lady Alice, bursting into uncontrollable sobs as the mutineers landed them ashore. "What's to become of us now we've been stranded in this savage jungle?" Clayton stiffened his upper lip, quickly fashioning a castle out of fallen lumber before shooting a pride of lions for dinner. The months passed slowly, and Alice had abandoned hope of rescue when a large 300lb ape battered at the door. "Faith, we are doomed," she cried, swooning in terror. "'Tis a shame she never recovered to see our baby," Clayton murmured to himself, stretching a panther skin into a lampshade and looking at his time-piece. "Gosh, is that the time? I'd better conveniently expire myself." Kala had dropped her baby, and her shoulders heaved with anthropoid despair. "Never mind" said Kerchak, the great ape, handing over the hairless creature they had found in the abandoned castle. "Have this one instead." Tublat did not like the simple boy thing his wife had brought home. Yet Kala loved her Tarzan dearly, and as the years slid by he blossomed into a superior intelligence, effortlessly slaughtering every animal he encountered with his bare hands and swinging from tree to tree with muscular, film-star panache. Prowling through the jungle one day, Tarzan came upon an abandoned castle. He did not realise the desiccated skeletons were his parents and so paid them scant attention. Instead he picked up a book. What were these strange markings? What did "N is for Negro" mean? Within 20 minutes Tarzan had taught himself to read and write. Bolgani the Gorilla interrupted his learning; within minutes the pair were locked in mortal combat. The battle was fierce. Bolgani breathed his last and Tarzan's head was barely attached, hanging by the thread of his jugular vein. "Oh, poor Tarzikins," Kala wept, drawing him to her hairy breasts. Tublat hollered with rage. How he loathed his adopted son! He smote him hard, but Tarzan avoided his smiting and twisted his jugular vein around Tublat's throat. "Never underestimate the Oedipus complex," he laughed. Tarzan subjugated every beast in the jungle and lorded over the stupid black natives with his good looks and cunning; but in his heart he longed to meet his own kind. "What are we doing here?" Professor Porter enquired. "How would you know?" his beautiful 19-year old daughter Jane replied. "You are an absent-minded professor." "We are lost," wailed Clayton, now Lord Greystoke since the disappearance of his uncle. "The sailors have stolen our treasure and left us in the scary jungle. But we have each other!" Jane sighed. How she yearned for a tall, fit stranger with flowing locks. Tarzan watched them, enjoying a movement in his breechcloth he did not understand, yet not displeased that his manhood which had hitherto seemed trifling compared to other apes was growing larger. Yet how could he convey his feelings, if he could not talk? He would worry about that later: first he must dig up that large chest those sailors had buried. The Professor and Clayton were in peril. Tarzan wrote a hurried note for Jane - "Me Tarzan, You Jane, Me Have You" - and raced through the trees to rescue them. Jane's heart leapt when she read the note, but joy turned to despair as a lioness grabbed her arm and dragged her into the undergrowth. Tarzan grunted with happiness as he slit the lioness's throat and held Jane in his arms. "Oh, Tarzie," she purred, toying with his flowing locks and admiring his diamante necklace. "You could be an Olympic swimmer. Or the lead guitarist with Spinal Tap." Their bliss was short-lived. A French captain D'Arnot had appeared from nowhere and been abducted by cannibals. "Blast," Tarzan said to himself, "Now I'll have to rescue him as well." "Oh father, I am so sad," Jane cried. "Tarzie has not returned and our boat has come to take us back to America." "Je suis inconsolable qu'elle est partie," said Tarzan, having learnt French while he was nursing D'Arnot. "Je will goer en Amerique to find her." "Je peux teller que vous etes vraiment un gent, parce que vous ne mangez pas de personnes comme les darkies," D'Arnot replied. "Je bet que vous etes vraiment le long perdu fils de Lord Greystoke." "Ha," sneered the wicked Canler. "Now you'll have to marry me as your father has lost the treasure." "Not so vite," Tarzan hollered, leaping through the branches to rescue Jane from a forest fire. "I have the treasure." Jane's heart raced as Tarzan kissed her passionately. Yet bestiality was one thing, marriage to a simian quite another. "I am promised to Clayton," she sobbed, "though I do not love him. I cannot have sex with another species, however much I want to." Tarzan saw Clayton's happiness and could not bear to reveal his true aristocratic identity. "I'm an apeman, I'm an ape ape man, I'm an apeman the apeman," he sang, swinging his way out of the book and into the sequel. John Crace's Digested Reads appear in G2 on Tuesdays. Caption: article-Digtarz.1 "Oh, poor Tarzikins," [Kala] wept, drawing him to her hairy breasts. Tublat hollered with rage. How he loathed his adopted son! He smote him hard, but Tarzan avoided his smiting and twisted his jugular vein around Tublat's throat. "Never underestimate the Oedipus complex," he laughed. "Je suis inconsolable qu'elle est partie," said Tarzan, having learnt French while he was nursing D'[Arnot]. "Je will goer en Amerique to find her." "Not so vite," Tarzan hollered, leaping through the branches to rescue [Jane] from a forest fire. "I have the treasure." Jane's heart raced as Tarzan kissed her passionately. Yet bestiality was one thing, marriage to a simian quite another. - John Crace.