688-691 Books and Arts MH AB.Indd
NATURE|Vol 460|6 August 2009 OPINION In Notebooks Me, environmentalist from New Guinea (Oxford Tarzan was instantly popular. The tale of this University Tarzan! Or Rousseau Among the Waziri aristocratic hero, the orphaned son of John Press, 2009), Quai Branly Museum, Paris, France Clayton (Lord Greystoke) and his wife Lady tropical biologist Until 27 September Alice, raised by the female ape Kala whose Vojtech Novotny own infant had been killed, retains its appeal. describes vividly Summer visitors to Paris might hear Tarzan’s Burroughs turned his writing into a business, what it is like to distinctive roar above the sound of traffic. producing 22 Tarzan adventures that led to work deep in the The subject of an exhibition at the city’s Quai 42 feature films, 15,000 comic books, and innu- malaria-infested Papuan rainforest. Branly Museum (Musée du Quai Branly), the merable cartoons and television series. Sharing his personal experiences fictional loin-clothed hero provides possibly It is surprising that France’s national museum of setting up a research station in the most oblique take on Darwinism seen of non-European indigenous art, cultures and this remote and lawless place, he during the bicentennial year. civilizations, with its enormous collection of reflects on the clash between the Tarzan! Or Rousseau Among the Waziri uses African, Asian, Oceanic and American arte- cultures of Papua New Guinea and this cultural icon to examine depictions of the facts, has devoted an exhibition to Tarzan. Europe. Novotny is humbled by the African jungle and the relationships between “Our exhibition allows the public to discover folk knowledge of local tribes, and humans, apes and other animals in it.
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