The ears, which were slightly above the eyes and closer together, were small, cup-shaped antennae, protruding not more than an inch on these young specimens. Their noses were but longitudinal slits in the center of their faces, midway between their mouths and ears.
There was no hair on their bodies, which were of a very light yellowish-green color. In the adults, as I was to learn quite soon, this color deepens to an olive green and is darker in the male than in the female. Further, the heads of the adults are not so out of proportion to their bodies as in the case of the young.
The iris of the eyes is blood red, as in Albinos, while the pupil is dark. The eyeball itself is very white, as are the teeth. These latter add a most ferocious appearance to an otherwise fearsome and terrible countenance, as the lower tusks curve upward to sharp points which end about where the eyes of earthly human beings are located. The whiteness of the teeth is not that of ivory, but of the snowiest and most gleaming of china. Against the dark background of their olive skins their tusks stand out in a most striking manner, making these weapons present a singularly formidable appearance.
Carter acknowledges that he made most of the reported observations later, for he is warned by the rattling of accoutrements of an advancing adult warrior of the same species, riding upon an eight-legged thoat and bearing down on him with a lance that would have impaled him had his reflexes and newfound jumping ability not allowed him to leap high and out of harm’s way.
This technique -- giving a detailed physical description of each new creature upon its first appearance -- is one that Burroughs repeats throughout the story and indeed through all of his subsequent John Carter stories. While using this almost scientific descriptive technique, as opposed to a more impressionistic one, slows the narrative down momentarily, it has the effect of implanting the fully described alien image vividly on the imagination of the reader, and may represent at least one piece of the puzzle to Burroughs’ accomplished ability to make Barsoom come alive in the mind of the reader.
As Carter leaps out of the way of the oncoming lance, flinging himself thirty feet into the air, his remarkable ability to “sak” (‘jump’ in Barsoomian) provokes Tars Tarkas, the leader of the group of “Tharks”, the green Martian adults, to come forward and make gestures of peace, which Carter reciprocates, and he is then taken peacefully by the Tharks to their encampment, where the next phase of his adventure begins.
This opening sequence reveals much about Burroughs’ style and peculiar narrative gifts. Much has been made of the fact that he dispenses with any attempt at scientific explanation of John Carter’s passage to Mars, and this is often referred to as a liability. Very little has been written about the very spiritual nature of how Burroughs engineers the passage; how John Carter experiences death or at least a deathlike state in the cave in Arizona; how he is unsure whether he has passed into the afterlife; and how he then feels an intense longing for Mars before being drawn there and awakening naked, a newborn, among the newborn Tharks.
With images of death and rebirth; of peculiar creatures at the first moment of their lives paired with Carter at the first moment of his advent on Barsoom, Burroughs deftly propels the reader through time and space to a moment of rebirth which the reader shares with Carter -- a moment of spiritual and corporeal renewal on a new world. Earth is left behind; Carter does not mention it, he does not think of it; he does not yearn for it. He is, by implication, precisely where he is meant to be, and the reader is right there with him, ready to explore, ready to be immersed in a world which thus far has just begun to be revealed only in one small way -- an ochre desert, and an incubator, and fifteen foot high green warriors.
Continuing the story.....
Tars Tarkas and the Tharks take Carter to the foot of nearby mountains and into a ruined city, where one thousand Tharks are encamped. Carter the observer provides detailed -- but never so lengthy as to interrupt the force of the narrative -- descriptions of what he sees; the males, the females, the children, the city.
Carter is taken by Tars Tarkas, whom Carter discerns is vice-chieftain of the community, to Lorquas Ptomel, the chieftain. Because of the lower gravity, Carter encounters difficulty walking and finds himself “skipping and flitting about among the chairs and desks like some monstrous grasshopper.” This results in one of the warriors grabbing him:
I was roughly jerked to my feet by a towering fellow who laughed heartily at my misfortunes.
As he banged me down upon my feet his face was bent close to mine and I did the only thing a gentleman might do under the circumstances of brutality, boorishness, and lack of consideration for a stranger's rights; I swung my fist squarely to his jaw and he went down like a felled ox. As he sunk to the floor I wheeled around with my back toward the nearest desk, expecting to be overwhelmed by the vengeance of his fellows, but determined to give them as good a battle as the unequal odds would permit before I gave up my life.
My fears were groundless, however, as the other Martians, at first struck dumb with wonderment, finally broke into wild peals of laughter and applause. I did not recognize the applause as such, but later, when I had become acquainted with their customs, I learned that I had won what they seldom accord, a manifestation of approbation.
Having proved his mettle, Carter is granted status as an “honored prisoner.” This scene too hints at one of Burroughs’ unique gifts. The physical challenge met by John Carter is predictable; the reaction of the Tharks is not. Burroughs intrigues the reader as he allows the exposition -- in this case the Thark code of honor and ethics -- to spring from the action and create in Carter a moment of epiphany. Think how much more effective this is than simply having Carter explain that the Tharks so respect fighting valor that it trumps their notion of friend or foe? It is vivid, and Carter’s epiphany is shared by the reader, and Thark culture comes alive for the reader.
Carter is turned over to Sola, a Thark female, for training in the language and ways of the green Martians. She takes him to her quarters, then calls in the creature that will be Carter’s watchdog and guardian, Woola, the calot:
It waddled in on its ten short legs, and squatted down before the girl like an obedient puppy. The thing was about the size of a Shetland pony, but its head bore a slight resemblance to that of a frog, except that the jaws were equipped with three rows of long, sharp tusks.
Sola stared into the brute's wicked-looking eyes, muttered a word or two of command, pointed to me, and left the chamber. I could not but wonder what this ferocious-looking monstrosity might do when left alone in such close proximity to such a relatively tender morsel of meat; but my fears were groundless, as the beast, after surveying me intently for a moment, crossed the room to the only exit which led to the street, and lay down full length across the threshold.
And so within a few short chapters, Burroughs establishes John Carter’s narrative voice and with it his character; transports him to Mars via a death/rebirth scenario; and shows Carter twice surviving physical threats. This is a pattern that is essential to Burroughs’ approach -- Carter is threatened occasionally, and each threat proves to be a trial which advances him on the scale of Thark culture, allowing him to win additional allies, gain stature, and progress in his new world. The narrative does not rely on major action sequences; rather the reader is pulled forward with astonished delight as each new detail of the strange world of Barsoom is revealed, and roots for John Carter as the story reveals different aspects of his intelligence, courage, and humanity.
Most importantly, the reader is on the journey with Carter -- for the most part the reader encounters Barsoom as Carter encounters it, with the only concession to exposition being that Carter frequently reveals knowledge of Thark culture out of sequence--drawing on later-acquired knowledge when describing his first encounter with different aspects of the society. Burroughs’ choices in how he layers in the exposition are deft--he repeatedly finds just the right mixture of current scene description; latter-acquired knowledge; and character respons
e to the surroundings.
Burroughs, the first-time author dealing with creation of an entire planet and host of planetary cultures, is off and running with a narrative that matches the same deftness that John Carter manages in his achieving a special status among the Tharks.16
Half a continent away from Burroughs’ Chicago home, in New York, the vividly compelling early chapters of his story quickly caught the eye of Burroughs’ first publisher.
The Sale
On August 14, 1911, Burroughs mailed the partially finished 43,000 word manuscript to Argosy Magazine, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York City. It was only 10 days later when Thomas Newell Metcalf, the managing editor of All-Story (a sister publication of Argosy), replied with a provisional approval and notes requesting that Burroughs speed up the beginning in order to get John Carter to Mars without delay. Burroughs responded immediately, completing the story and mailing in a 63,000 word manuscript on September 28, 1911.
There followed a period of impatient waiting for Burroughs, until on November 4 Metcalf made an offer of four hundred dollars for first serial rights only--Burroughs would retain all other rights. Burroughs accepted, with the caveat the he hoped to earn better rates for future stories, and on November 4, Burroughs received a check in the amount of $400, representing the equivalent of six months salary. While falling short of full salvation, Burroughs fortunes, it seemed, had finally taken a turn for the better.17
To Burroughs, it all seemed very easy. He made the decision to make writing his career, but was, as he put it, “canny enough not to give up my job.”18
First Publication
The story appeared in the February 1912 edition of All-Story as Under the Moons of Mars. All-Story promoted it to the readers as “a surprisingly vivid interplanetary romance.” The theme of “romance” would again be emphasized as Part 1 of the series was entitled: “Under the Moons of Mars: Part I, the Romance of a Soul Astray.” 19
The story thrilled the readers of All-Story, hundreds of whom wrote in to praise it, and its serial run, which began in February 1912 and ran for six months, including the month of April, when America was convulsed over the story of the sinking of the Titanic. It concluded in July, the story ending on a cliffhanger note, with Carter marooned on Earth and Dejah Thoris left behind on Mars:
I can see her shining in the sky through the little window by my desk, and tonight she seems calling to me again as she had not called before since that long dead night.
I think I can see, across that awful abyss, a beautiful black-haired woman standing in the garden of a palace, and at her side is a little boy who puts his arm around her as she points to the sky toward the planet earth.
I think I see them, and something tells me that I shall soon know.
Burroughs’ immediate impact was undeniable. All-Story circulation jumped, and the magazine was flooded with letters of approbation. These came at a time when the entire pulp industry was under pressure to evolve, as rising costs were threatening the viability of the 10 cent, 192-page formula. So strong was the response to Burroughs’ story, that Munsey decided to use it as the launch pad for a long-contemplated experiment that was necessary to the magazine’s survival -- a price increase from 10 to 15 cents per issue.20 Such an increase needed the strongest possible launch position, and the readership increase experience by All-Story during the five month run of Under the Moons of Mars was just that boost. And so it was that in July 1912 Munsey increased the price from 10 to 15 cents, and at the same time increased the page count from 192 to 240.
What differentiated Burroughs from other authors of the day?
In his History of the Scientific Romance Sam Moskowitz writes:21
Those who have gained a stereotyped concept of Burroughs as a writer who conveys his plot line on a nonstop Jetstream of action, moving his characters along so swiftly that readers cannot react to his laws, are in great error. The fascination of Burroughs rests in the careful delineation of the setting in which he has placed his characters and the sharpness with which he etches them, presenting their weaknesses as well as strengths, their eccentricities, philosophies, and environmental shapings. A character may be villainous in motivation, but nevertheless strikingly courageous. A hero may do a foolish or unbecoming deed through pride or vanity. Political expediency may turn enemies into allies and then into firm friends.
The “careful delineation” that Moskowitz refers to is indeed one of the particular aspects of genius that Burroughs displays, for it includes two competing components--completeness on the one hand, and brevity on the other. Burroughs carefully seeded his stories with exposition of the world encountered, delivering the details in manageable doses that never derailed the forward momentum of the story, and never overwhelmed the reader. In doing so, he created a world -- Barsoom -- that contained more detail in terms of flora and fauna, natural history, cultural and political history, and geography than virtually any imaginary world, yet did so in lean, fast-moving novels of 60,000 to 90,000 words. (For reference -- the Lord of the Rings novels average more than 200,000 words each.)
In Donald Maas’ acclaimed analysis of the techniques of best selling authors, The Fire In Fiction, he writes of setting:22 “You must instill the soul of a place into your characters’ hearts and make them grapple with it as surely as they grapple with the main problem and their enemies.” This formulation seems to precisely capture the manner in which Burroughs creates an immediate and ever deepening bond between John Carter and Barsoom -- a bond that begins with the spiritual nature of his transport there, and the yearning that accompanies it. Carter is drawn to Mars; he feels his destiny is there and, with it, a solution to the emptiness of his life on Earth. Once there, each succeeding revelation increases his, and the readers’, fascination with the history and culture that he encounters.
Vivid settings aside, Burroughs also found a way to speak to the heart of his readers in a way that some have described as “wish-fulfillment” fantasy, wherein the protagonist becomes the avatar of the reader in exploring and experiencing worlds, relationships, and adventures that feed a deeply felt and undernourished need in the reader.
Writing about the wish-fulfillment component of Burroughs’ stories, Abraham Sherman notes that the reader feels “safe” with a protagonist he or she can trust in an environment of extreme risk and challenge, and this is fundamentally different from “serious literature” and its focus on character growth and development. While ERB’s heroes have unique personality and enough foibles to feel real -- they are without a doubt role models with a sort of mythic goodness and unbeatable resolve that is deeply satisfying. Writes Sherman:23
The idea of being presented with an ennobling example of the good to inspire readers upward in their thinking is considered by some critics today as idealistic and merely a distraction from the seriousness of “real life.” Those critics think that people who dwell too much on “impossible” goodness will do themselves a disservice by not grappling with reality.....if Burroughs was an iconoclast against any idea, he was against the human tendency to let other human beings define what is possible. His unmatched imagination was practically one big protest statement against letting others limit us.
Art Mayo would speak of Carter as embodying a kind of cosmic knight errantry, and in this he was onto something. Indeed, after accepting A Princess of Mars, Metcalf solicited from Burroughs a “serial of the regular romantic type, something like, say, Ivanhoe, or at least of the period when everybody wore armor and dashed about rescuing fair ladies.”24 Metcalf too had discerned that beneath the interplanetary surface of Burroughs story beat the heart of a tale of chivalry and honor, love and sacrifice.
Mayo writes:25
With its beautiful maiden, its swordplay, and its faithful hound; its horsemanship (albeit upon ‘thoats’), its seamanship (albeit upon the air), its clashing of rival kingdoms – it makes romance a thing alive once more. Six hundred years after the close of the age of knights, it furnishes the possibility of new vistas for chi
valrous deeds – and in the modern age. John Carter is, in the words of Princess Dejah Thoris, “a queer mixture of child and man, of brute and noble.” And in this he is little different to the ideal knight described by C. S. Lewis: “a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; [as well as] a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man.”
If the “knightliness” of John Carter resonated with readers of the day as something familiar and appealing, there was an aspect to Burroughs characterization that was unique -- and that was the “superpowers” that Carter possessed once being transported to Mars, where the lesser gravity rendered him stronger, and faster, and able to leap thirty-five feet into the air and 100 feet distant. An ordinary mortal on Earth, Carter was the prototypical superhero on Mars, and his added strength and agility, coupled with his honor and loyalty, made him into a character who provided intense gratification to readers who sought escape from drab lives, and ordinary circumstances.
Many years after Burroughs first wrote, the concept of “escape fiction” would be advanced -- literature which allowed the audience to escape its workaday world and enter a realm of adventure, excitement, and romance -- and Burroughs clearly was a leader of the emerging tradition, fed by the pulps, of this type of world.
Yet Burroughs’ writing, beginning with A Princess of Mars, proved capable of striking a response more deeply felt than simple escape. Burroughs seemed to inherently grasp the diminishment of the grandness of America that came with the closing of the frontier a mere decade earlier. He had participated in the final death throes of the Indian Wars, chasing the last Apache stragglers through an Arizona that matches that which John Carter found himself in, and implicit in his prose was not just the escape from ordinariness - but also what Thomas Bertonneau terms a “conservationist” streak: “The Burroughsian landscapes are less “escapist” than “conservationist,” preserving in memory the primitive live of everyone’s ancestors.”26
John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood Page 3
