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A review by scrooge3
Jane by Robin Maxwell
3.0
This is not a book for Tarzan purists. This is akin to watching a movie adaptation of a beloved story. The elements are all there: baby raised by apes in the African jungle grows into a man who falls in love with a cultured woman. But author Robin Maxwell reinterprets and rearranges every detail of Edgar Rice Burroughs' creation to the point of almost unrecognizability. (There is a framing story that attempts to explain away the incompatibilities, but this seemed hollow, at best.)
Which is not to say all the changes are bad. In fact, I loved that Jane was an independent, intelligent woman, way ahead of her time, and not just the McGuffin Burroughs used to move his plot forward. I also liked that the great apes turned out to be a lost tribe of homo erectus; a more plausible scenario for them having language and being able to raise Tarzan. I also liked that baby John Clayton learned to speak and read rudimentary English from his real mother before being taken in by the great apes. This answers the question of how a feral child could learn language. However, I thought it improbable that he would completely forget his infancy and language during his years with the apes.
What I didn't like was that Maxwell deleted characters, changed characters, and shifted timelines from Burroughs' canon for no apparent reason. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this book, though, was Maxwell's near obsession with sex. Yes, it's not at all unlikely Tarzan would have no sexual hangups and be ready to mate with the first female of his species. But to have it shoved in our faces just seemed wrong. It was as if this was a racy Harlequin romance rather than an adventure story. I could accept Jane being portrayed more modern than the original books, but I think the book took it too far. Even an enlightened woman of the late 19th Century would not, I think, behave, or certainly write about, what might be considered a risque manner even by today's standards.
If one is willing to overlook the incompatible timelines and characters, this book does give one a reasonably exciting adventure, just as a Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movie had virtually nothing to do with the Burroughs' books, yet was entertaining for what it was.
Which is not to say all the changes are bad. In fact, I loved that Jane was an independent, intelligent woman, way ahead of her time, and not just the McGuffin Burroughs used to move his plot forward. I also liked that the great apes turned out to be a lost tribe of homo erectus; a more plausible scenario for them having language and being able to raise Tarzan. I also liked that baby John Clayton learned to speak and read rudimentary English from his real mother before being taken in by the great apes. This answers the question of how a feral child could learn language. However, I thought it improbable that he would completely forget his infancy and language during his years with the apes.
What I didn't like was that Maxwell deleted characters, changed characters, and shifted timelines from Burroughs' canon for no apparent reason. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this book, though, was Maxwell's near obsession with sex. Yes, it's not at all unlikely Tarzan would have no sexual hangups and be ready to mate with the first female of his species. But to have it shoved in our faces just seemed wrong. It was as if this was a racy Harlequin romance rather than an adventure story. I could accept Jane being portrayed more modern than the original books, but I think the book took it too far. Even an enlightened woman of the late 19th Century would not, I think, behave, or certainly write about, what might be considered a risque manner even by today's standards.
If one is willing to overlook the incompatible timelines and characters, this book does give one a reasonably exciting adventure, just as a Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movie had virtually nothing to do with the Burroughs' books, yet was entertaining for what it was.