THE PASTORAL MOTIF IN THE NOVELS OF UPDIKE, PART XII--NOT! :

The Rehabilitation of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Hank Parnell, The Texas Mercury)

I am one of those odd people who thinks popular culture "matters," or at least did matter, until the most recent (and altogether typical) trend towards mass-manipulation of the mass-market, the creation of literature and films by means of focus groups, demographics, and the like. That is, I believe that those who create works, like Burroughs, or for a lesser example, Ian Fleming, who strike an enormous chord in the popular imagination, often inadvertently and to their great surprise, are usually saying something more important than what more literary and "serious" contemporary writers and artists are.

Here's another terrific essay from Mr. Parnell, of the always interesting Texas Mercury, that will particularly appeal to anyone who grew up loving Edgar Rice Burroughs. His point here about pop mattering is dead on. The textbook example I like to cite is Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. Intellectuals are wont to analyze the American mood in the '50s through the prism of art that they agree with, like 12 Angry Men or whatever, which implies that the accused (obviously allegorical Communists) were innocent and the accusers (Republicans) nearly psychotic, with everyone else frightened into acquiescent silence. Meanwhile, I, the Jury, sold six million copies depicting a two-fisted, gun-slinging hero who may well have been psychotic, but who left no doubt that the accused were guilty and deserved to eat hot lead. Trying to analyze the McCarthy era without considering a mega-bestselling anti-Communist novelist like Spillane, whose popularity would certainly seem to suggest that the silent majority was more bloodthirsty than scared, seems absurd.

Likewise, Mr. Parnell assumes here that Edgar Rice Burroughs didn't sell hundreds of millions of books without having something significant to say and does him the simple courtesy of taking his ideas seriously. It's an eminently worthwhile undertaking.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 9, 2002 8:29 AM