Carson of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs [1939]
Del Rey
197 pages
Reader Response by Matt H. [v 1.13] from
Reading Odyssey
Rating: TBD
Story and Setting
Carson Napier, a US space traveler, is stranded on Venus after his original mission goes arwy. He telepathically sends his story back to Earth from Venus, known to its own inhabitants as “Amtoria.” During his stay in the most advanced of Amtorian cities, Carson has supervised the construction of a marvelous flying machine, a “birdship” which will prove critical in his many dangerous trials to come. Foremost in his mind is the problem of his beloved, the princess Duare. Her culture is immovable fixed on a matter of taboo, that has doomed their love to failure and possible death.
Fearsome beasts as well as weird tribes of people inhabit the wild lands of Venus. On their long voyage to Durare’s homeland, they are separated and Carson must infiltrate a very strange group of savages, and navigate a harrowing situation to save her.
Next they come to Sanara, a great city under military siege by the Zanis. The Zanis are a totalitarian state which demands absolute obedience and is fond of torturing its citizens. In Sanara, Carson pledges loyalty to the temporary king and is sent on a fatal mission to the stronghold of the Zanis. There is deception and betrayal, and Carson survives narrowly though his sharp wits and the help of the princess Zerka. But again he must return and save more of his friends from certain death and torture. He also must see that justice is done and that evil sovereigns are deposed. Even after all this, in the end Carson has to undertake a final voyage and face a final test – winning happiness for himself and his beloved Duare.
Critical Reader Appraisal
Lightweight in its world building, cartoony in science,
Carson of Venus is largely a collage of overdone fairy tales, but I can’t say it was entirely so. The characters certainly lack depth and much uniqueness – every single one (the good guys) is a handsome or beautiful king, queen, prince or princesses. (Not all royalty are good guys, but all good guys are royalty.) And the action stretches even a fiction-qualified credulity. But instead of many traditional and probably necessary virtues, it gives you a moderately involved plot – palace intrigue, as well as double double-crosses, and a lot of fairly neat cleverness from the protagonist. It also throws you a couple of curve balls, and gives opportunity for mythic parallels. Best of all is an unobtrusive surprise -- an unusually deep psychological portrayal of totalitarianism.
It’s a first person narrative and Carson as a character, is a light creation. His only distinctive features are unflappability, self-confidence, and a little, clean “modern” smart Alec humor. He addresses the reader informally and fairly often with “you can believe that I…” or something similar. One could interpret it as crude writing, or as an essential feature. Definitely crude and elementary is any portrayal of extreme emotion, it being often limited to “I was the saddest\happiest\most relieved I’ve ever been in my life”, or similar phrases. On the bright side, I’d say both the narrative and writing improved after Carson meets Zerka in the restaurant. Oddly, the book seems suddenly more sophisticated and realistic. It doesn’t last though.
Carson rarely slashes his way out of trouble. There is perhaps surprisingly little violent killing. But Carson racks up quite a score. He rescues two queens, one of them twice, a king and a princess. And gives two evil kings and one evil dictator the business. He does it all virtually solo, and entertainingly, almost entirely by outwitting and out strategizing. It’s cartoony, but also smacks of myth, especially Homer. There are Odyssean sea voyages, trials, monsters, use of wit, the loyal queen at home being coveted and probably a lot more. An additional twist is a tribe in which the gender roles and physicalities are reversed. It’s some fun speculating about its implications for the author’s conception of gender roles in the first place.
Venus as a physical setting is unsatisfying. There is mention of dangerous “beasts”, but (in this particular book of the series), they are mostly unencountered. Nature and landscape were ill-defined and vague, or not described at all and that too dinged the sense of reality. Whatever technology described was puzzling in light of the civilization. It seemed to be roughly reminiscent of India perhaps pre-colonialism. I don’t remember many or any descriptions of engines (except in Havartoo) or electrical power, or firearms. But they have
two kinds of ray guns? It seemed odd and had no plot relevance. Also a puzzler was that though in a certain advanced city had engines of almost perpetual motion, they had super-lightweight materials and construction, they were engineering geniuses, but it was up to Carson alone to conceive of an airplane. There was a word for “bird” on the planet too. Minor niggling.
As a plot-innocent reader, I was surprised when the book took a moderately dark turn as Carson gets into the Zani’s country and its prisons. As I mentioned, the portrayal of fascist psychology was chilling and realistic. At first the reference to the Nazis is just hinted but it gets plainer quickly. It serves to remind how thoroughly their methods and ideology had already been dissected before the war. It is complete with a Goebbels-like and perhaps a Goering-like character, as well as the evil-leader himself. There is a militant mandatory salute for every and all occasions, a world of universal cold, deadly suspicion, secret police, copious torture and execution. There are a few scenes of torture, which got close to feeling out-of-place in this light tale. Fortunately it was mostly limited in this case to phrases like “I’ve never seen anything so horrible in my life.” Overall it’s fair to add the treatment of this serious theme to the list of the book’s virtues.
The prose and basic story-telling framework of the book is adequate. It is usually comically old-fashioned and probably seemed so even in 1939. So, though it’s fluffy and predicable, it also will have a few unexpected treats sprinkled in. The book is pretty rich in twists and double-crosses, outsmarting, intrigue,
if you can care about them. The bad guys are fairly realistic totalitarians, but the good guys are cardboard fairy tale kings and princesses. This makes the bad guys the more interesting of the two. We can sincerely abhor the Zanis, but is there any depth to our love of the royals?
