The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs

In these days of spy satellites and global positioning systems, it is very difficult to believe there may be an undiscovered continent lurking somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean; yet that is what Edgar Rice Burroughs, writing in 1918, asks his readers accept as a possibility.  What would Hollywood have done without the possibility of a Kong Island in South East Asia or a Shangri-La in the Himalayas?  It is sad that our technologies have now rendered the whisper of such a 'what if ' absolutely mute.  Still, we must play the game and suspend our disbelief, if only for a short time.

In 1916, an unnamed traveller to Greenland happens upon a thermos flask bobbing in the surf off Cape Farewell.  In it he finds a manuscript recounting the incredible adventure of one Bowen Tyler.  In the early days of the First World War, Tyler has two unfortunate encounters with a German U-boat.  One thing leads to another, and Tyler and his colleagues are transported to the South Pacific where they find the large, uncharted island of Caprona.  It is after making landfall that Tyler's problems really begin.  Can he save himself and the woman he has come to love?

There is no disguising it, The Land That Time Forgot is unashamedly an adventure story which

trades in scientific fantasy.  There is primordial nastiness, hungry and vicious, on Caprona Island, and the hero is pitched from one dire predicament to another and must call on all his resources in order to survive.  Yes, there is not much chance of literature here, but Burroughs is capable of turning a memorable phrase:

I clung to life because some ancient, reptilian forbear had clung to life and transmitted to me through the ages the most powerful motive that guided his minute brain - the motive of self-preservation.

 And:

... the same deathless passion that has come down unchanged through all the epochs, periods and eras of time from the beginning, and which shall continue to the incalculable end - woman, the imperishable Alpha and Omega of life.

On the other hand, Burroughs was a prisoner of his time, like the rest of us: there are a few racist and sexist howlers in the text that are not easy to overlook and offend modern sensibilities.  Those are the lumps.

I enjoyed The Land That Time Forgot.  Despite its shortcomings, it is a well-written and entertaining tale that certainly kept me turning the pages.