Tarzan the invincible — Edition Insights

Cinematic Cutting and Multiple Plot Strands

The foreword explicitly compares Burroughs's method to film editing, and the excerpts confirm that the narrative jumps between distinct locations and character sets. One passage follows a sullen party returning from Opar to find their camp demoralized by a sentry's story of a demon. Another shows little Nkima emerging from a hollow tree to shout threats at the passing column. A third finds Tarzan stretched on Tantor's back, meditating on the disappearance of La. These fragments illustrate how Burroughs withholds the grand pattern until the strands converge. The technique creates suspense not by linear progression but by cross-cutting among simultaneous crises.

The Opar Setting and Its Atmosphere

Opar is presented as a city of crumbling ruins, brown-stained altars, and a mysterious long-drawn scream that seems part of the place itself. A prisoner in a cell with a cement-like floor looks out at a courtyard where an altar stands, uncertain whether a moving shape is man or beast. The description emphasizes decay and menace: the city is a remnant of an ancient Atlantean colony, but the excerpts focus on its immediate physicality—hard surfaces, shadowy darkness, distant stars. The priestesses are mentioned as rivals, but the text gives more sensory weight to the architecture and the uncanny scream than to their characterization.

Tarzan's Relationship with Tantor and Time

One of the most distinctive passages in the excerpts describes Tarzan lying on Tantor's head, chin in cupped hands, engaging in silent communion. The narrative then reflects on Time as a master that drives civilized man but is measureless to Tarzan and Tantor. This philosophical aside is unusual for an adventure story and suggests a contemplative dimension to Tarzan's character. The beasts of the jungle, the text says, acknowledge no master—least of all Time. The passage positions Tarzan outside the frantic pace of human ambition, aligning him instead with the elephant's restful stability. It is a moment of stillness that contrasts sharply with the surrounding action.

Readers approaching Tarzan the Invincible should watch for how Burroughs orchestrates his three groups: the political schemers, the Opar priestesses, and Tarzan. The excerpts give only partial views of each, but the foreword promises that they will eventually intersect. Pay attention to the role of little Nkima, who appears as a comic-relief commentator, and to the way Opar's atmosphere—its ruins, its scream, its altar—functions almost as a character. The novel's length (over 76,000 words) suggests ample room for Burroughs's characteristic pacing between action and reflection.

I’ve often thought Tarzan’s silent bond with Tantor carries the same hushed gravity I find in the quieter folds of The Day of Resis — Themes and Context. Both books breathe through their characters’ wordless loyalties, that old ache of duty without applause. A librarian notices such echoes, tucked between chapters like pressed leaves.