Hadon of Ancient Opar
Encyclopedia
Hadon of Ancient Opar is a fantasy
novel by Philip José Farmer
, first published in paperback by DAW Books
in April 1974, and reprinted three times through 1993. The first British edition was published by Magnum in 1977. It and its sequel, Flight to Opar
, both purport to fill in some of the ancient prehistory of the lost city of Opar, created by Edgar Rice Burroughs
as a setting for his Tarzan
series.
, with the strange woman whom he meets and brings with him, and with the cataclysmic civil war
which breaks out on his return and which he partly (and completely unintentionally) helps touch off.
The ancient Khokarsan
society of which Opar is a part is a matriarchy
(a reasonable inference from the culture of the later-day Opar encountered by Tarzan). A delicate balance between the genders is maintained, symbolized by the co-rule of the high priestess and the king (whose main authority is command of the army), which corresponds to some theories of sociologists and historians on the way actual matriarchal societies may have worked. The same scheme is repeated on a smaller scale on the local level, where towns are co-governed by a local priestess and the commander of the local garrison.
The current king, Minruth, tries to subvert this immemorial system and establish exclusive male power, which incidentally would force an incestuous relationship upon the current high priestess, Awineth, who happens to be his daughter. Lalila, the foreign "White Witch from the Sea," whom Hadon brings with him and with whom he falls in love, is used as a pawn in King Minruth's power game; the xenophobic suspicions aroused about her are used in an attempt to undermine the position of women in general.
Hadon and his male and female friends rally to the high priestess' banner against the king's evil schemes.
and cultures which Tarzan
discovers in Africa
. As portrayed by Burroughs, Opar is ruled by the high priestess La
, with whom Tarzan develops a prolonged love/hate relationship. The city itself is a decayed remnant of ancient greatness; it is suggested, though not conclusively, that it is a cut-off colony of Atlantis
.
Farmer seizes on Burroughs' ambiguity over the issue to recast Opar as a member city of an otherwise unknown local civilization that flourished in central Africa during the last Ice Age
. It was supposedly based on a pair of now vanished inland seas connected by a narrow strait, with a surface roughly equivalent to the Mediterranean. The two seas facilitated the appearance of a mercantile culture, technologically similar to Ancient Greece
, while the rest of the world was still deep in the Stone Age
.
Farmer shows this culture at or near the peak of its ancient glory, more than 10,000 years ago. It comprises numerous thriving (and sometimes warring) city states and empires, one of which is Opar. Opar is, in fact, far from the most important of these cities. The Opar described in the Tarzan novels is depicted as a "former colony of Atlantis
" and this is adhered to by Farmer, though "Atlantis" in this context—the capital of the empire of which Opar is a province—is located on an island in the African inland sea, not in the Atlantic Ocean
.
Eventually, subsequent to the period of his story, the two seas drain off into the Atlantic and the culture dependent on them decays and disappears, leaving only the remnant of Opar forgotten in the jungles where Tarzan will discover it. The seas' modern remnants are represented to be the much-shrunken Lake Chad
and the Congo River
basin.
While originally derived from the Tarzan series, the world created by Farmer is given its own independent literary existence, with the sociological and cultural aspects worked out in meticulous detail, and a long historical annex added at the end, as in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
.
found the novel to be "good fun" and noted that Farmer was not imitating Burroughs either in storytelling of characterization, although he faulted Farmer for providing an installment in a longer story rather than one with a dramatic resolution. Commenting on the novel for The New York Times
, Theodore Sturgeon
described Farmer as "tireless and astonishing."
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
novel by Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer was an American author, principally known for his award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories....
, first published in paperback by DAW Books
DAW Books
DAW Books is an American science fiction and fantasy publisher, founded by Donald A. Wollheim following his departure from Ace Books in 1971. The company therefore claims to be "the first publishing company ever devoted exclusively to science fiction and fantasy." The first DAW Book published was...
in April 1974, and reprinted three times through 1993. The first British edition was published by Magnum in 1977. It and its sequel, Flight to Opar
Flight to Opar
Flight to Opar is a fantasy novel by Philip José Farmer, first published in paperback by DAW Books in June 1976, and reprinted twice through 1983. The first British edition was published by Magnum in 1977....
, both purport to fill in some of the ancient prehistory of the lost city of Opar, created by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
as a setting for his Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
series.
Plot
The novel deals with the expedition of Hadon, a young Oparian warrior, to the Wild Lands and as far as the mysterious Ringing Sea, which would one day be called the MediterraneanMediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
, with the strange woman whom he meets and brings with him, and with the cataclysmic civil war
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
which breaks out on his return and which he partly (and completely unintentionally) helps touch off.
The ancient Khokarsan
Khokarsa
Khokarsa is a fictional empire in ancient Africa that serves as the primary setting for Philip José Farmer’s prehistoric fantasy novels Hadon of Ancient Opar, Flight to Opar, and The Song of Kwasin .-Literary Origins:...
society of which Opar is a part is a matriarchy
Matriarchy
A matriarchy is a society in which females, especially mothers, have the central roles of political leadership and moral authority. It is also sometimes called a gynocratic or gynocentric society....
(a reasonable inference from the culture of the later-day Opar encountered by Tarzan). A delicate balance between the genders is maintained, symbolized by the co-rule of the high priestess and the king (whose main authority is command of the army), which corresponds to some theories of sociologists and historians on the way actual matriarchal societies may have worked. The same scheme is repeated on a smaller scale on the local level, where towns are co-governed by a local priestess and the commander of the local garrison.
The current king, Minruth, tries to subvert this immemorial system and establish exclusive male power, which incidentally would force an incestuous relationship upon the current high priestess, Awineth, who happens to be his daughter. Lalila, the foreign "White Witch from the Sea," whom Hadon brings with him and with whom he falls in love, is used as a pawn in King Minruth's power game; the xenophobic suspicions aroused about her are used in an attempt to undermine the position of women in general.
Hadon and his male and female friends rally to the high priestess' banner against the king's evil schemes.
Setting
Opar is the first and most frequently re-visited of the many lost citiesLost Cities
Lost Cities is a 60-card card game, designed in 1999 by game designer Reiner Knizia and published by several publishers. The objective of the game is to mount profitable expeditions to one or more of the five lost cities...
and cultures which Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
discovers in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. As portrayed by Burroughs, Opar is ruled by the high priestess La
La (Tarzan)
La is a character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's series of Tarzan novels. She first appeared in the second Tarzan novel, The Return of Tarzan , and reappeared in the fifth, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar , the ninth, Tarzan and the Golden Lion , and the fourteenth, Tarzan the Invincible...
, with whom Tarzan develops a prolonged love/hate relationship. The city itself is a decayed remnant of ancient greatness; it is suggested, though not conclusively, that it is a cut-off colony of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
.
Farmer seizes on Burroughs' ambiguity over the issue to recast Opar as a member city of an otherwise unknown local civilization that flourished in central Africa during the last Ice Age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
. It was supposedly based on a pair of now vanished inland seas connected by a narrow strait, with a surface roughly equivalent to the Mediterranean. The two seas facilitated the appearance of a mercantile culture, technologically similar to Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, while the rest of the world was still deep in the Stone Age
Stone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
.
Farmer shows this culture at or near the peak of its ancient glory, more than 10,000 years ago. It comprises numerous thriving (and sometimes warring) city states and empires, one of which is Opar. Opar is, in fact, far from the most important of these cities. The Opar described in the Tarzan novels is depicted as a "former colony of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
" and this is adhered to by Farmer, though "Atlantis" in this context—the capital of the empire of which Opar is a province—is located on an island in the African inland sea, not in the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
.
Eventually, subsequent to the period of his story, the two seas drain off into the Atlantic and the culture dependent on them decays and disappears, leaving only the remnant of Opar forgotten in the jungles where Tarzan will discover it. The seas' modern remnants are represented to be the much-shrunken Lake Chad
Lake Chad
Lake Chad is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Africa, whose size has varied over the centuries. According to the Global Resource Information Database of the United Nations Environment Programme, it shrank as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998; yet it also states that "the 2007 ...
and the Congo River
Congo River
The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...
basin.
While originally derived from the Tarzan series, the world created by Farmer is given its own independent literary existence, with the sociological and cultural aspects worked out in meticulous detail, and a long historical annex added at the end, as in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
.
Reception
Lester del ReyLester del Rey
Lester del Rey was an American science fiction author and editor. Del Rey was the author of many of the Winston Science Fiction juvenile SF series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction branch of Ballantine Books, along with his fourth wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.-Birth...
found the novel to be "good fun" and noted that Farmer was not imitating Burroughs either in storytelling of characterization, although he faulted Farmer for providing an installment in a longer story rather than one with a dramatic resolution. Commenting on the novel for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Theodore Sturgeon
Theodore Sturgeon
Theodore Sturgeon was an American science fiction author.His most famous novel is More Than Human .-Biography:...
described Farmer as "tireless and astonishing."