There’s a great deal to be said for Jean Auel’s novels of prehistorical life. Firstly, she was a pioneer in that field, and secondly, she always does her research, often in painstaking detail. Finally, in The Clan of the Cave Bear at least, she took chances with the plot, creating a realistic and unforeseen tapestry of events which kept me on the edge of my seat as I approached the last page of the book. Like most other readers, I hurried out to read the second book, which was where the series began to slide downhill; by the time the fifth book lumbered into the stores, ten years (!) after the publication of the fourth, the slide had become an avalanche. All the things Jean Auel did right in the first book were done wrong in the subsequent ones; unlike J. K. Rowling and George R. R. Martin, not all authors who achieve fame and fortune continue to deliver what earned them the fame and fortune in the first place. But since a plunge like this deserves examination in more detail, let’s start with the first book in the Earth’s Children series,
A five-year-old Cro-Magnon girl, orphaned in an earthquake, is found by a tribe of Neanderthals who are searching for a new cave. Since the girl, Ayla, has been injured by a cave lion, the clan’s medicine woman, Iza, takes care of her. The clan’s shaman, Creb, thinks that powerful spirits protect Ayla, since the cave lion did not kill her, and that she will bring them luck, since after she recovers, Ayla happens to stumble upon a new cave.
Despite her having two fairly powerful patrons, Ayla is still regarded warily by the clan, since she looks different from them. They are all short, hirsute, brown-eyed, dark-haired and bow-legged, whereas Ayla stands tall and straight, as well as having blond hair and blue eyes. Still, after Creb makes a case for her totem animal being the powerful Cave Lion, she is adopted into the clan. This doesn’t please Broud, the son of the clan leader.
Another difference between the Neanderthals and Ayla is that they cannot speak; their larynxes are not as developed as hers, and therefore they communicate with a sign language. They also lack her ability to think in the abstract, and unlike her, they are content to hold to old traditions and ways. For instance, women may never touch weapons, a rule which Ayla secretly breaks as she grows older and becomes intrigued by the men’s use of the sling. Watch out, Ayla, or you’ll have your ass in one. Whoops, too late; when one of the children is attacked by a hyena, Ayla lets fly, and is discovered. Although she is better with the sling than any of the men, she has broken the law, so the clan leader lays a temporary death curse on her, condemning her to live away from the clan for a month. Luckily Ayla has learned how to count the days by making slashes on a stick, another thing women aren’t supposed to do. When she returns, the men decide to allow her to hunt, much to Broud’s fury. Ayla thanks the spirit of the Cave Lion for watching over her.
Years pass, and Ayla realizes that she’s big and ugly by the clan’s standards, which means no man will want to mate her. And her spirit animal is so strong that she won’t get pregnant either, which makes her even unhappier, since she loves children. Broud does his part to cheer her up by raping her; although in the clan, a woman always has to submit to a man’s needs, Ayla burns with bitterness under this treatment, and since Broud now knows which button he can push, he continues to push it, so to speak. Luckily for Ayla, though, the rapes are a self-limiting disease, since she soon finds out that she’s pregnant. This makes her so happy that she doesn’t care if Broud rapes her, and since she doesn’t care, he finds himself unable to achieve an erection with her and soon backs off lest anyone discover his impotence. Ayla has the baby, going through a hellish pregnancy and labor in the process since the child is half Neanderthal and half Cro-Magnon. His combination of characteristics, however, lead the clan to pronounce him deformed, and deformed children have to be killed. Refusing to do so, Ayla takes the baby and runs away to a secret cave.
In her hideout, Ayla does a great deal of thinking and, after working out that pregnancy is caused by a man putting his penis into a woman’s vagina (don’t laugh, no one else knows this), she decides to return to the clan, where Creb makes an impassioned speech on her behalf. The clan leader decides to let her keep her son, much to Broud’s fury. Iza later dies, and Creb, after drinking some hallucinogenic compound, realizes that Ayla’s people are going to replace the Neanderthals. This depresses him, but he consoles himself with the fact that at least there’s Ayla’s son Durc to carry on their blood.
The clan leader makes the mistake of stepping down and letting Broud inherit the title, so Broud promptly orders Ayla to marry him, since she’s an unmated woman. However, he says, he will not accept any deformed children at his hearth. In the subsequent argument, an earthquake begins, killing Creb, and Broud quickly claims that the spirits were angry with Ayla for her disobedience. She is death-cursed again in consequence, and she is forced to leave the Clan and her son behind as she walks away.
Jean Auel must be commended for that ending. It is not a happy one, but it is an inevitable consequence of the tension between Ayla’s and Broud’s characters, it is plausible and it is extremely suspenseful. No other book in the series ended with such a cliffhanger. Moreover, The Clan of the Cave Bear has the tautest plot, where Bad Things do happen to Good People, and where Ayla is literally struggling for survival. From the earthquake at the start of the book to the parallel earthquake at its end, life is not easy for her, and the book is a gripping read in consequence.
Another thing Auel did right was to have the clan express disapproval of Ayla’s skills. Perfect people are easier to accept if they are rejected by their society. If everyone else is patting them on the back, there’s no reason for the reader to do so, but the fact that no one really values Ayla’s independence or strength or beauty or intelligence means that she is that much more palatable a character. And considering how much she loses during the course of the story, it’s difficult not to feel sympathetic towards her. Finally, Auel has clearly done her research, and numerous details go into building up the tapestry of a primitive life, from the utensils used in eating (clamshells) to the way a fire is built.
However, the book is not without its flaws. During the course of a conversation I had with one of my anthropology professors, I mentioned that I had this novel, and he suggested that I burn it. Although pulling a Fahrenheit 451 isn’t something I could do, there are a number of reasons why he might hold this view.
So much for The Clan of the Cave Bear – literally; they don’t appear in any subsequent novels. On to the adventures of Ayla in The Valley of Horses.
Just one multiple choice question before I review the second book. In the course of this series, Ayla will find, take care of, and earn the lifelong love of an orphaned/injured
If you guessed e, give yourself a cup of tea. Now, on to The Valley of Horses. The novel is written in the zipper format, with two separate plotlines that eventually come together; the far more interesting plotline deals with Ayla’s search for a cave of her own. She eventually finds one in a valley, and settles down, hunting and gathering, weaving and tanning, storing and planning; it’s interesting, if not as suspenseful as The Clan of the Cave Bear. As time goes by, Ayla also domesticates a horse (Whinney) and a lion cub (Baby), both of whom get along splendidly with each other and her; the matured lion allows her to ride him and never bites. You could very well imagine a Barbie doll based on Ayla at this point in time, with Animal Friends Sold Separately. Ayla knows that she has to find others of her kind, but she keeps putting it off, since she’s happy stocking her cave with furs, bowls, baskets, dried herbs, etc. So far, it’s pleasantly fluffy but generally inoffensive.
The irritating part of the story is the other plotline, which deals with the sexual adventures of two Cro-Magnon brothers called Jondalar and Thonolan, who are making a Journey from their home cave to… well, wherever else; they don’t seem to have any particular destination in mind. The tall, muscular, blond and blue-eyed Jondalar is the stud of the series, and it’s difficult not to see him as a walking penis. Each time he and Thonolan encounter settlements of Cro-Magnons, he ends up having sex – oops, Auel’s term for it is “sharing Pleasures” – with some woman, who clearly regards this as the high point of her life. First it’s Noria, a blushing innocent whom he has to relieve of her virginity. He’s picked for this task by the girl’s great-grandmother, who inspects his equipment beforehand, and while I think this scene is meant to show us just how open-minded and feisty the prehistoric octogenarian babes were, I could have done without it. Still, this doesn’t stop him from giving Noria the best Pleasures she’s ever had and is likely to have, though at the end, Jondalar muses that it would be great if he could introduce an inexperienced woman to the joys of Pleasures without her simultaneously feeling pain. Hmm, I wonder which woman could satisfy this difficult requirement? Anyway, the brothers leave and Noria cries, because apparently the Mother Goddess has blessed Jondalar by making all women love him, or at least his “throbbing member”.
At the next pit stop, Jondalar shares Pleasures with Lanalia, and a little further on down the river, it’s Serenio’s turn, though this relationship looks as though it might get serious. It’s shot down by two factors, namely 1. although she’s in love with him, he’s not in love with her, and it would take a very special woman to be able to handle all Jondalar’s abundance of love were he to pour it out on her 2. she’s not able to take in all his “length”, and it would take a very special woman to be able to handle all Jondalar’s… anyway, Jondalar leaves, still wondering who his soulmate is. Get to the point already! Finally, he and Thonolan arrive in the valley, where Baby the cave lion kills off the unnecessary Thonolan and mauls Jondalar badly enough that Ayla has to rescue him. She scolds Baby. I would have scolded Baby too, for not offing all three of them and ending the series right there.
After hauling the unconscious Jondalar back to her cave and tenderly nursing him back to physical if not mental health, Ayla realizes that he does not speak the clan language of signs and gestures, so he attempts to teach her his own (spoken) language, which she masters slowly and with difficulty. Since this is realistic, it comes to an abrupt end when she has a nightmare about the earthquake which killed her family, and she wakes up screaming, just as people usually do in the movies. She also wakes up with a sudden fluency in Jondalar’s language, though that’s probably because Auel didn’t want to write many more conversations like this :
“Ayla, could I have another cup of that delicious tea?” Jondalar asked.
Ayla smiled. “Ayla give Don-da-lah tea?”
The communication, however, leads to another problem, because Jondalar reacts with horror to the information that Ayla has been raised by Neanderthals and even gave birth to a half-breed child. Poor Jondalar, all this time he’s been thinking how hot she is, and now he finds that he’s been pipped at the post by a member of the inferior race. Ayla gives him a dressing-down and storms out to weep on her horse’s shoulder, while Jondalar does his crying back in the cave. He apologizes to her later, but they have yet another problem, namely, Jondalar’s more-or-less permanent erection when Ayla is around. Ayla keeps expecting him to make the clan sign for intercourse, though you’d think such an intelligent woman would have been able to figure out by now that the Cro-Magnons don’t use the same gestures that the Neanderthals do. Anyway, she still believes she’s big and ugly, although Jondalar thinks she’s the most gorgeous woman he’s ever seen – and he’s seen them all. “Most women would have flaunted that magnificent body, worn that golden glory to its best advantage, given anything for so lovely a face.” Yes, we get it, if they had a primitive www.amihotornot.com, she’d be an 11.0. Still, after his major faux pas, Jondalar doesn’t feel confident enough to approach her for sex, which means that on one occasion, he has to take matters into his own hands, so to speak, lest he throw her down and mount her. Again, did we really need to see this? There’s nothing even remotely attractive about this hormonal teenager, even though he helps Ayla invent the spear-thrower.
Finally, though, Jondalar decides to kiss her, and since Ayla’s a more than willing partner (she’s probably thinking that it’s either Jondalar or the horse) they end up having blissful Pleasures. Ayla proves herself more than capable of taking in all of Jondalar’s “prodigious manhood” (was this ever in doubt?) and it’s like all his fantasies rolled into one. At this point, I was glad they stopped pussyfooting around and just got it over with; what I didn’t realize was that each subsequent roll in the furs would be described in just as much detail as this one. The first time, this would have been understandable, since this was Ayla’s sexual awakening, but after that it seemed like just titillation, and unimaginative titillation at that. Anyway, Jondalar persuades Ayla to return with him to his people’s caves, since he’s in love with her. I can see why. She wakes up before him to make herbal tea and to prepare the primitive equivalent of a toothbrush for him; she’s a hunter, an expert cook, an animal trainer and a Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman. Oh, and she discovered how to make fire by banging two stones together. And, probably through another of those self-taught sex ed lessons, she figured out how to successfully perform oral sex on Jondalar, and no one had ever done it so well before. In other words, she’s made the transition from the uncertain character of the first novel, who couldn’t do anything and everything, to this combination of Martha Stewart and Wonder Woman. And she’s in love with Jondalar too, so they travel for some time before they meet the titular folk of the third novel, The Mammoth Hunters.
Most of my points regarding this novel were raised during the plot summary, but Jondalar the Cro-Magnon Casanova deserves a little further comment. It was clear that the author was trying to present the best possible mate for Ayla, but because Jondalar is the antithesis of Broud, he comes across as just as much of a caricature. The sensitive New Age Man who cries, respects the equality of women and cares about their sexual satisfaction can be just as annoying as the misogynist who claims that a woman’s place is in the cave. While I fully support feminism, I don’t want it shoved in my face, and I find it difficult to believe that people were so mentally advanced in the distant past. Too bad all this progressive thinking went the way of the woolly mammoth.
As well as the hero being as gorgeous as the heroine – their kids will look like poster children for the Hitler Youth – there’s the usual clichés of animals running after Ayla as though she was in a Disney cartoon, and the hurt/comfort scenario where a sick or injured character has to be lovingly nursed back to health. The first book had the stereotypical orphan child with the great destiny. This one has the stereotypical romance novel heroine who, despite having sexual feelings when she watches horses mating, never once dreams of touching herself, since this might spoil the hero’s thrill in giving her the first orgasm of her life. She also cries a great deal. Each time she thinks about the clan or Durc, tears run down her face; each time she befriends some baby animal, it sucks her fingers and makes her think of Durc, with the usual result. After a while, the angst-fest becomes tedious, and the only amusing part of the book is where Jondalar, in the throes of passion, yells out, “Oh woman! Oh Doni!” Since Doni is the name of the Great Earth Mother, I guess this is the primitive equivalent of screaming “Oh God!” during sex. I’m just glad he didn’t shout, “Oh Mother!” instead, since that might be a little too Norman Bates.
Compared to the soap-opera shenanigans of the next novel, however, the romance in this one is subtle and understated. So let’s see what goes on beneath the furs of The Mammoth Hunters.
Let’s have an easier multiple choice question this time. Ayla’s One True Love is
There should be no doubts about this, though Jean Auel manages to stretch this artificial, padded conflict out for the entire novel. But let me start at the beginning, where Jondalar and Ayla encounter the Mammoth Hunters of the Lion Camp, and they offer to adopt Ayla. With the sole exception of one member (no, not Jondalar’s) of the tribe, Frebec, the Mammoth Hunters like her, and as in the past, their shaman sponsors her. Ayla’s years of collecting furs, bowls, baskets, etc. come in handy, since she can now distribute gifts to her new clan.
The gift-giving ceremony is an enjoyable scene, with its vivid descriptions of such varied presents as reindeer leggings, ivory carvings, baskets of preserved fruit and bowls of face-cream. I’m serious about that last one; Ayla mixes rendered fat with rose petals to produce a prehistoric version of Nivea, thereby winning over some old crone who finds that her skin can be nice and smooth now (like Ayla’s). The only bad note comes from Jondalar’s flute. Ranec, the sole black man among the Mammoth Hunters, expresses an interest in Ayla, and this of course makes Jondalar jealous. Ranec, by the way, is the result of a little safari his father took to Africa once; I suppose this is one consequence of the continents being much closer together in the past. Anyway, during the post-ceremony party, he propositions Ayla, and since she’s used to obeying men, she goes to his bed.
Jondalar watches, stupefied. Although he might be a Modern Man raised in a feminist culture and properly respectful of the rights of women, the sight of Ayla going off with Ranec arouses Neanderthal instincts he didn’t know he had. He imagines himself running up to them and smashing his fist into Ranec’s face (be still, my heart; what exemplary behavior from the hero), but after he realizes that Ayla is enjoying herself (she’s a screamer), he flees outside into the freezing cold. I was hoping he’d contract hypothermia, but unfortunately the massive amounts of Ye Olde Testosterone in his system keep him alive. Ayla has a good time with Ranec, although it’s not as perfect as Pleasures with Jondalar. The next morning, she goes back to Jondalar and gets a sullen reception she didn’t expect; since the concept of jealousy is unknown to her, the shaman has to spell it out. Jondalar certainly isn’t going to do so; he all but pushes out his lower lip in his snit fit, and eventually he ends up sleeping away from her. Tears sting Ayla’s eyes. Ranec wipes them away.
When she isn’t brooding about Jondalar giving her the silent treatment, Ayla is hanging out with Deegie, Crozie, Fralie, Nezzie and other people whose names end in “ie”; it’s the prehistoric version of the quilting bee as the ladies of the Lion Camp sew, embroider and gossip together. Ayla figures out that the sewing would go even faster if they made a hole in a thin awl and put the thread through it, thereby inventing the needle. Then she goes on to domesticate a wolf. After that she builds a nuclear reactor. OK, I made up that last one, but it’s fully in line with her brilliance and talents. The Mammoth Hunters are dazzled by her, and even Frebec is won over after she saves his daughter’s life. Jondalar is the only sour grape in the bunch. Even though other women are drawn to him because of the “magnetic” appeal of his blue eyes, there’s only one iron filing he wants. So one day, when he’s out alone with Ayla, he grabs her, pushes her down on the ground and tears her pants open.
Tears of love and longing were in her eyes.
For nights beyond number (even with the aid of her trusty counting stick), Ayla must have dreamed of being manhandled like this. Jondalar’s silence and cold shoulders were the foreplay that prepared her for this very special and romantic moment. Of course, after Jondalar’s done, he realizes that this is tantamount to rape (except for the object of his affection being brought up never to say no to a man, or even to him). He runs back to the camp and sits there drowning in shame while Ayla rides back with her clothes torn. This kind of puerile nonsense wouldn’t go amiss on The Bold and the Beautiful; now all we need is for Ayla to become pregnant, but unfortunately she’s on the caveman version of the Pill. Head over heels in love, Ranec proposes to her, and since Jondalar has gone back to skulking around in silence, she agrees. She later meets a woman who has had Ranec’s child from a brief encounter; I’m guessing this is so that when she deserts Ranec for Jondalar, he will have the consolation prize of this woman. This would be such an unpredictable plot if I had never read any other books. Alas, that condition does not apply.
The plans for Ayla’s and Ranec’s Matrimonial proceed, and although Ayla has doubts, she says nothing, instead allowing the Mammoth Hunters to shower her with gifts like amber earrings and a beautiful dress. Jondalar leaves on the wedding day, at which point Ayla realizes how much she twuly wuvs him, so she tells Ranec that she’s leaving too, though she tosses him the crumb of a free sex ed lesson. After she’s explained that men make just as much of a genetic contribution to babies as women do, Ranec stares at her in awe. Why, she might be the incarnation of the Great Earth Mother Herself, he thinks, with the implication being that she’s certainly too good for him. And that she’s justified in leaving with the wedding gifts, but with no apologies made to the gathered guests. Anyway, she hotfoots it after Jondalar and explains that she’s in love with him, which is reason enough for another detailed sex scene. After Jondalar’s throbbing member and Ayla’s “place of perfect Pleasures” have reacquainted themselves, it’s off to cross The Plains of Passage to reach Jondalar’s people, who hopefully have a higher tolerance for this sort of inconsiderate, juvenile behavior than I do.
I’ve read Harlequin novels where the protagonists behaved with more decency and maturity than the so-called hero and heroine of this book. Talk about success going to one’s head; Jean Auel would probably not have succeeded in publishing this tripe had The Mammoth Hunters been her first novel. No doubt she intended Ayla’s last-minute dumping of Ranec to be suspenseful and romantic, but it just came off as an unfair, dishonorable and humiliating thing to do to the poor man. Though one could argue that he’s lucky; if a woman treats you this way, you’re better off without her. And again, the racist undercurrent surfaces; would the book have sold well if Ayla had ditched a blond and blue-eyed man in order to chase a black one?
I could maybe understand (if not condone) breaking one’s word and giving one’s adoptive community the prehistoric version of the upraised middle finger by running off like that, if there had been something worth running to. However, Jondalar was not a particularly appealing character in the last book, and in this one I kept hoping a mammoth would sit on him. He’s a big sulky baby, and his leechlike attachment to Ayla gets very dull, while Ayla is so securely entrenched in her position as the Princess of the Paleolithic that she’s even duller. There’s none of the suspense of the first novel, where unpleasant, painful and life-threatening things could and did happen to her, though being in a book like this is unpleasant enough. Perhaps The Plains of Passage will be different, though I wouldn’t count on it.
No multiple choice questions this time, I’m afraid, since not much happens in the doorstopper novel The Plains of Passage. Ayla and Jondalar make an interminable journey across the plains, stopping periodically to spread love, tolerance and Ayla’s legs, though some editor must have suggested trimming the copious sex scenes, so now and then we’re just told that Jondalar “made love to her for half the night”. Jondalar’s like the Energizer Bunny; he just keeps coming and coming. Anyway, this brief summary of their sexploits is welcome, since the format of the Pleasures never varies; it’s either the missionary position or wolfy style. Ayla and Jondalar talk about their amazing sexual compatibility, have sex, sleep, get up in the morning, drink tea, travel, hunt, cook, make camp, etc. At some point, though, it must have occurred to Auel and/or her editor that this riveting roller-coaster ride might need just a tad more action. Therefore, the plodding narrative includes a few unrelated episodes that show just how stupendously advanced, brave and kind Ayla and Jondalar are. They counsel a rape victim called Madenia and save a Neanderthal from a gang of Cro-Magnon bullies; coincidentally, the gang just happens to be the same one which assaulted Madenia. Man, talk about a small (and stupefyingly banal) world.
There are many, many descriptions of plants and their uses in food or medicine. Jondalar is annoyed because Ayla’s wolf, Wolf, keeps chewing on their things, but Ayla quickly whips up a batch of handy-dandy “Wolf repellant”. Oh, and after a lapse in her regular schedule of taking contraceptives, she finds out that she’s pregnant. Then they come across a camp of people who are being dominated and ill-treated by their man-hating female leader, which is reason enough for Ayla to give her by-now-patented explanation of how babies are made before she liberates the poor oppressed people. The violent leader attacks them, but since Ayla and Jondalar are so wonderful, they don’t even need to soil their hands with her blood, since Wolf kills her. Jondalar likes Wolf now, so all the loose ends are nicely tied up before they finally arrive at his home.
Since this book’s plot is minimal, there’s very little to say about it. In episodic fashion, much like the original Star Trek, Ayla and Jondalar come across people in trouble and rescue/educate them; since these detours on the way home have only the most tenuous connections, they never feel as though they’re building up to anything, and they don’t. And although Auel attempts to create suspense by having Jondalar be captured by the evil leader, we know there’s no way she would allow anything bad to happen to him, and nothing does. Either she’s so much in love with her characters that she cannot write any significant conflict, loss, injury or trauma into their lives, or she’s afraid she’ll alienate readers in doing so. There’s a third possibility which occurred to me when I read the fifth book in the series, and I’ll get to it in my comments on that one. To summarize : this book is great if you’ve travelled back in time and you need to know what’s safe to eat. If you’re looking for a story, even one as ludicrous and clichéd as that of the last book, you won’t find it here, and you’re even less likely to find it in The Shelters of Stone.
What will Ayla’s baby be?
Jondalar, Ayla and their respective genitalia arrive at the caves of Jondalar’s people, the Zelandoni, and he introduces her to them. Here the endless parade of greetings begins and never stops marching. Each time Ayla meets someone new, she starts on the long list of her titles and connections, and when she’s done, the other person shares theirs. Then the other person asks how she acquired Wolf and Whinney, and Ayla explains that in detail, and it goes on and on until your eyes glaze over and your brain liquefies. Since she meets literally dozens of cardboard characters, it’s impossible to keep them all straight, so the author helpfully provides a glossary at the back of the book. I flipped to it and read the first entry.
WOLF : Ayla’s wolf
Who was Jean Auel writing for, Forrest Gump? Anyway, if you can differentiate between Lanoga and Lorala, or Brukeval and Brudegan, you’re luckier than I am. I was able to keep Marthona (Jondalar’s mom) and Marona (Jondalar’s ex-girlfriend) straight, but that’s only because the one adores Ayla and the other doesn’t. Who does what, and who is in consequence the villain of the piece, should not be difficult to discern at all. Some of the names are just inspired – “Bologan” seems to inspired by the author’s lunch, though you’d think that after so many best-selling novels, she could have named him Filetmignon instead. There’s also Echozar, Willomar and Labrador, though I think I might have made that last one up.
One common thread in all the encounters is that several people remark on Ayla’s accent; she rolls her R’s, but just in case you were too dense to understand what that sounds like, the author helpfully provides several instances of Ayla saying, “Grrrrrrreetings.” Each time this happened, I imagined she was growling like a rabid dog, and that improved the narrative no end. And nearly every person thinks how gorgeous and talented she is, to the point where they sounded like sycophants panting at her heels. Naturally, the only people left out of the We Love Ayla club were the ex-girlfriend, Marona, and the local drunk, who also neglects his children to the point where Ayla (the newcomer to the area) plays Social Services and rescues the grateful kiddies.
That’s the sum total of conflict in the book, folks, though to make up for it, there are the usual descriptions of plants and Pleasures. Ayla meets a young boy with a lame leg and offers to let him play with her horsie. This boosts his self-esteem and he declares that when he grows up, he will marry the oldest daughter of the local drunk and help her take care of her younger siblings. Dude, with the diseases you’re going to catch from hanging around animals, she’ll just have one more invalid to look after. Ayla also insists that the other women breast-feed the local drunk’s baby, thereby founding the primitive version of the La Leche league. There’s nothing anachronistic this woman can’t do, and her constant sweetness towards the underprivileged makes me imagine her prancing around in a glowing aura of love, scattering largesse like confetti to her devoted subjects. Nevertheless, the jealous Marona has something up her sleeve and there’s trouble a-brewing for Saint Ayla, patron of Mary Sues everywhere.
On the whole, I can’t bring myself to dislike Marona at all. Firstly, before he left on his Journey, Jondalar promised to marry her. Hmm… he seems to have that in common with Ayla too; they both break their word to people they have promised to marry, for no fault of the other person’s. Secondly, the author either dislikes Marona or is trying to write her in the worst possible light, so we are told that Marona cannot get pregnant (i.e. she’s a bitter barren field in which a sweet sweet baby cannot and should not be planted) and is therefore jealous of Ayla’s rampant fertility. Finally, Ayla is a ridiculous caricature at this point, so I couldn’t care less what happened to her. Before the ceremony to welcome Ayla, Marona suggests that she help Ayla dress in private, and she produces a certain outfit. After Ayla emerges in it, the gathered people laugh, and a furious Jondalar informs her that she’s wearing a boy’s winter underwear. My god, how traumatic. And how suspenseful. And how much I would love to be reading the telephone directory right now.
Getting back to the high school feuding – what will the vengeful Marona do for an encore, tip a bucket of red paint over Ayla’s beautiful new dress? – Ayla thinks of leaving the ceremony, then raises her chin and decides she’s going to tough it out. So she tells people that Marona gave her this as a gift, and she’s therefore going to wear it to show everyone Marona’s gift, which would be a fine response except that someone thinks, “I wouldn’t want Ayla angry with me!” Oh, please. You want angry, you should see me if I had paid good money for this book, instead of borrowing it from the thrift store.
Zelandonii watches Ayla’s usual antics with approval. Zelandonii is Jondalar’s first love, but she’s not a serious rival for Ayla, since in Jondalar’s absence, she has become extremely fat. I could hardly believe the author had resorted to this, but it’s true – Zelandonii is XXXLandonii now, and we all know Jondalar could never have the hots for such a fattie. Maybe Ayla can come up with the prehistoric version of Weight Watchers, but for now, Zelandonii is interested in her for another reason. Zelandonii is First Among Those Who Serve The Mother (yes, every word is capitalized in the text), and she thinks Ayla can also be One Of Those Who Serve The Mother, though I would Serve Her Well Done With Mint Sauce On The Side. Ayla hems and haws and dithers and dallies for the rest of the book, before finally agreeing. This is the cliffhanger ending of the fifth novel, which came out ten years after the fourth. It couldn’t have taken much time to cut-and-paste exposition from previous novels, but I guess Jean Auel had to really work at filling in the gaps with absolute nonsense and making parts of it offensive as well. The overall impression I get is that she’s bored with these characters, has no idea where the plot is going, and could not care less about either.
Where to start with this mess? Well, take the Mother, for one. In the first novel, the Cave Lion was an important part of Ayla’s life; she prayed to him and believed he was testing her to see if she was worthy. And whenever she had a difficult decision to make, she would look around to see if the Cave Lion had left her a sign – such as an unusually shaped stone – to indicate his approval or protection. It was a simple, appealing religion, so of course it was replaced by this boring, uberfeminist worship, which still wouldn’t have been so annoying if Auel hadn’t asked one of her grandchildren to compose an interminable poem called “The Mother’s Song”. Crammed with infantile doggerel like
“Her children she blessed
Now she could rest”
the poem occupies page after page, and apparently Auel loved it so much that she included yet another copy of it in the back of the book. Either that, or she was simply trying to pad this novel out as much as possible, so as to justify its price tag. Rest assured that if you ever crash-landed in some remote area and had only this book for kindling, it would take you a long, long time to run out of pages and they would never have been put to a better use.
Then there’s Ayla the Stepford cavewife, beloved by women, lusted after by men. She all but walks on water, and Jondalar, though he’s usually trailing in her wake like a tiny planet orbiting a very large sun, has his share of lovelorn ladies mooning after him. There’s his cousin Joplaya, who’s desperately in forbidden love with him but who’s stymied by the incest taboo. As a result, she has to reluctantly settle for another man whom she doesn’t love, but who adores her. My sympathies to any man who reads this series. Believe me, not all women are like this, nor do they all approve of this kind of shoddy treatment when they read it.
Ayla gives birth to a daughter and her horse gives birth to a filly, since they had males the first time, and Jondalar is filled with protectiveness when he sees the baby (his, not the horse’s). The poor thing won’t have a moment’s peace with such a high-maintenance daddy. Ayla decides to name the baby “Jonayla”, which is par for the course when it comes to imagination; I assume that any son will be called Aylalar, or possibly Ladeedah.
Interestingly, many fans of the series expected the baby to be a son, because in the third novel, Ayla has a dream where she sees her two sons clashing together. One is dark-haired and the other blond, so she believes that Durc (remember him?) and some future son of hers will meet some day, and that one will kill the other. Because of this, fans waited anxiously for Ayla to encounter the clan and her first child again, but either the author has forgotten that bit of foreshadowing, or she simply has no interest in it, because it’s difficult to see how she could realistically bring the clan to Ayla’s current location, or vice versa. Of course, the operational word is “realistically”; there hasn’t been a lot of that in the series so far. Primitive people lived lives astonishingly similar to ours, and had identical attitudes; when the eeeeevil Marona calls Zelandonii a “fat old woman”, people gasp in shock and horror at the insult. Ultimately, this novel is a case of the author having nothing to write, and writing it over and over and over again.
It may take another ten years for the last book in the series to be released, even though the forward motion of the plot has slithered to a dead halt, like a dinosaur in a tar pit. If I get a chance to read the conclusion to the soporific saga, I’ll write a review for that as well, but for the moment, Ayla, Jondalar, Ayla’s nodule and Jondalar’s eager member can rust in peace.