Yes, she does need to be rescued a number of times, but she's brave, intelligent and takes her turn in saving Waldo's life a few times. Though hardly realistic from a real-world point-of-view, Waldo's gradual transformation into Thandar comes across as very believable. Waldo gradually builds up some muscle mass and becomes more capable and confident, which helps when he finds himself having to continually rescue the girl from unwanted cave men suitors. Nadara renames him Thandar and teaches him a little woodcraft. Nadara is a beautiful cave girl who mistakenly thinks of Waldo as brave when the man helps her escape enemies through pure dumb luck. Aside from the problems of food and shelter, he's also in constant danger from hungry panthers and violent cave men. But when he's washed off a ship and tossed alone onto a remote Pacific island, he's quickly made aware of his shortcomings when he has to survive on his own. Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones (of the Boston Smith-Jones, of course) is a spoiled, physically weak scholar who has no knowledge of anything practical and thinks of physical exertion or violence as beneath him. The plot zips along like a bullet and it's stuffed with action. One of ERB's early novels, this one has a fun premise with an unusual protagonist. Nadara is a more capable heroine than most Burroughs women. But that shouldn’t deter a Burroughs fan, because his strengths are on display as well. The plotting gets ever sloppier as the story goes along, with ever more unbelievable coincidences. Upon this foundation of questionable values, the old master builds a mostly thrilling narrative that succeeds despite a relatively prosaic setting for an ERB adventure-nary a dinosaur or a carnivorous plant man in sight, just cavemen, pirates, and the occasional panther. Washed up on the shore of a South Pacific island, delicate asthmatic Boston blue blood Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones transforms into the powerful warrior Thandar the Brave due to the love of a good woman and the restorative benefits of a primitive lifestyle.Įdgar Rice Burroughs simultaneously denigrates the life of the intellectual, venerates the hard-won practical virtues of a frontier lifestyle, and upholds the innate superiority of Anglo Saxon nobility. This is basically a gender-swapped Tarzan with the POV at a gender-swapped Jane. John Alden Smith-Jones had despatched to the ,South Seas in search of his missing son, emerged from the forest into a view of the valley and the cliffs a cave man and his mate clambered over the brow of the latter and disappeared toward the hills beyond. P68: Just as the men from the yacht, which Mr. P64: "Very well," she replied "you may come if you wish, though it is neither necessary nor as I wvould have it." P60: The first one she dodged, and as the arm went up to strike again, Thandar threw his spear-arm far back and with a mighty forward surge drove his light weapon across the hundred feet that separated him from Flatfoot It was an awful risk-there was not a foot to spare between the hairy breast that was his target and the beautiful head of the fair captive. must have circled back toward the brook for some reason but by far the greatest cause for rejoicing was the fact that Nadara's trail alone was there. P46: It was foolish, of course, and he fully realized the fact but his silly mind would insist upon attributing them to the cave girl-Nadara.
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