Kamakana's Reviews > Mars Trilogy

300615: this is edgar rice burroughs's first published work, the first three mars (barsoom) books, A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, The Warlord of Mars, combined in one, collecting his serials in 1912. i read one lit crit that declares it is barsoom and john carter that burroughs loved most, began with, figured out plot before it became formulaic...

i am trying to read this as if the intervening century of pop culture did not exist, but this is not possible. this work, this pattern, this mythic resonance, is everywhere, and too much of our familiarity is with degraded iterations, film, copies. according to some critics, burroughs was somewhat consciously devising mythology, built out of his familiarity with greek and latin sources, combining this with particularly modern, deliberately american, myths of the early 1900s... and somehow, after less than success in many many jobs: he caught lightning in a bottle and knew how to make it pay...

burroughs had no artistic pretensions, much of his concerns seem to have been monetary, much of his work was built out of worlds someone previously invented, much of his work was eventually repeating itself... on the other, other authors of his time might have done, thought, written, work that is similar: but he is the one we remember... and this is where it all began. barsoom. john carter. as a child, as a youth, i had never read burroughs, read comics, saw films, inspired by him- at least until one called 'greystoke, the legend of tarzan'- so i have only ever gone on received wisdom...

this is a mistake, mostly. this is where those cliches come from, before they were cliche. i remember years ago reading 'princess of mars' and thinking- 'this would make a great movie!'. hollywood made a not-very-good-version a few years ago, but that is not the one i imagined, mostly i thought in animated terms. vibrant, colourful, extravagant, all of this in costume, production design, plots, acting... the mistake denigrating burroughs might come true later, in next volumes, in other series, if you have expectations of character growth or innovative plots. here, in 'princess of', after a somewhat realistic, western us desert setup, we get to barsoom by simple fantastic desire, and without much intro meet both the noble savages he can so impress, and the love object, the Girl, that our first person will love, fight for, rescue over and over, first in this trilogy in some great adventures, later, in further books i understand less interesting ways...

fun, without qualifiers, this. i wonder why john carter's amazing capabilities, his fighting skill, his honour, his way with animals- his idealized, self-declared wondrous self- does not bother me as much as those of more recent noxious super heroic characters. i can think of a few books unfinished or even just barely begun, where the narrator is insufferably conceited, too perfect for words. probably i can read this because it is fun, not rounded characters, not meaningful politics, not realistic, in any manner. this is a long collection, i did not skip, i did lose track sometimes, but the order of action, the goals to achieve, the result, does not seem to matter, and i think it is very much a waking dream, a birth (starts naked, stays naked), adventures (default mode of life), love and hate (immediate, absolute, consistent), death (but not fear of), the desire and love for the Girl (despite how many other Girls want him) ... makes me not want to break the spell cast by reading other ERB, but too late, this was not the first of his series read, this is a three, glad to read it, now have a better idea what fantastic pulps were...but not likely to ever read it again...

this would make a great movie...