Jean M. Auel
Author of The Clan of the Cave Bear
About the Author
Jean Auel was born on February 18, 1936. For many years Auel considered herself a closet poet, writing in her spare time. She came up with an idea for a short story about a girl who lives with people who are unlike her. This short-story idea became the successful novel, "The Clan of the Cave Bear." show more Auel's considerable research for the novel included field trips to archeological digs that enable her to provide an accurate depiction of humans living in with nature. The cave dweller topic interested many readers, and Auel wrote several additional books. Together, these works comprise the Earth's Children Series. Auel's writing style draws the reader into exciting speculation about prehistoric earth and its adventures. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Jean M. Auel
Earth's Children 1-3 (The Clan of the Cave Bear; The valley of horses; The mammoth hunters) (1986) 163 copies, 5 reviews
Earth's Children 1-5 (The Clan of the Cave Bear; The valley of horses; The mammoth hunters; The plains of passage; The shelters of stone) (1992) 128 copies, 6 reviews
The Earth's Children Series 6-Book Bundle: The Clan of the Cave Bear, The Valley of Horses, The Mammoth Hunters, The Plains of Passage, The Shelters of Stone, The Land of Painted… (2013) 122 copies, 5 reviews
Associated Works
Urlaubsträume. Geschichten für die schönste Zeit des Jahres — Author — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Auel, Jean M.
- Legal name
- Auel, Jean Marie Untinen
- Other names
- Untinen, Jean Marie (birth name)
Auel, Jean Marie (married name) - Birthdate
- 1936-02-18
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Portland State University
University of Portland
University of Maine - Occupations
- novelist
- Organizations
- Mensa
- Awards and honors
- Publieksprijs voor het Nederlandse Boek (1990)
Honorary Doctorate (University of Maine)
Honorary Doctorate (Mount Vernon College for Women)
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2008) - Short biography
- Jean Marie Untinen was born on February 18, 1936 in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. She was the second of five children. Her father was a house painter, Neil Solomon Untinen, and her mother Martha Wirtanen.
After high school, Jean M. married Ray Bernard Auel (surname pronounced like "owl"). The Auels moved to Portland, Oregon, where Jean M. raised her five children.
In 1964, Jean M. became a member of Mensa. She attended night school while working: she worked as a clerk (1965–1966), a circuit board designer (1966–1973), technical writer (1973–1974), and a credit manager at Tektronix (1974–1976). In 1976, she earned her M.B.A. at Portland State University; since then she has received honorary degrees from the University of Maine and Mount Vernon College for Women.
Three months after graduation, Jean M. still hadn't found a new job that suited her. About that time she got an idea for a short story about a prehistoric girl. She says, "The 'short story' led me to do some research; the research fired my imagination, and the wealth of material made me decide to write a novel. The first draft turned out to be more than 450,000 words and fell into six parts. On rewriting, I realized each of these six parts was a novel in itself. I have used that rough draft as the outline for the series."
In 1977, Jean M. began extensive library research of the Ice Age for her first book in Earth's Children Series. She joined a survival class to learn how to construct an ice cave, and learned primitive methods of making fire, tanning leather, and knapping stone, from aboriginal skills expert Jim Riggs, who Jean M. describes as "the kind of person you could put into one end of a wilderness naked, and he'd come out the other end fed, clothed, and sheltered."
Jean M. proceeded with work on the first novel. She rewrote it entirely four times, and some parts twenty to thirty times until she was satisfied with the end result. This was in September 1978. She had a hard time finding a publisher to take on the series, given the large task ahead - with five more novels pending. In September 1980, when The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel finally saw the light of day, it was an instant success. Within a month more than 100,000 copies had been sold, after which it was on the best-seller lists for eight more months.
After the success of the first book, Jean M. was able to travel to prehistoric sites and to meet many of the experts with whom she had been corresponding. Her research has taken her across the Old Europe from Spain to Ukraine. She has appreciated Atapuerca's discoveries and she has developed a close friendship with the French Dr. Jean Clottes, who was responsible for, among many other things, the exploration of the Cosquer Cave discovered in 1985 and the Chauvet Cave discovered in 1994.
For the future Jean M. says: "I've been working 17 years on this project, and I want to do something else—maybe a mystery, or a thin little literary science fiction book, or something. But, I admit, I've learned a lot. I love the research. I can't think of anything more fun than learning anything I want and earning a living writing about it the way I want to." - Nationality
- USA (birth)
- Birthplace
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Places of residence
- Portland, Oregon, USA
Beaverton, Oregon, USA - Associated Place (for map)
- Oregon, USA
Members
Reviews
I can't believe I took so long to discover and read this book. I vaaaguely remember buying it almost twenty years ago when I was in college and halfheartedly trying it, but it did not grab my interest at that time.
I recently picked up a battered copy from the '80s at a thrift store near me for $.19 when they had a sale, along with several vintage romances and scifi. When I posted the haul to my Facebook, the consensus was that I start with Clan of the Cave Bear. I listened to the hivemind, show more and I'm glad I did! This isn't necessarily a traditional review, so much as a running commentary of all the thoughts I had while reading it. It does include spoilers, so fair warning if you are interested enough to read on.
**********
The writing style kind of felt like reading a textbook that was engaging and interesting instead of dry and boring, which sounds weird to say, but for me it totally worked and felt natural.
The book wastes no time in getting to the point. By the second page, Ayla is already an orphan. I was like O_o.
I know the author did a lot of research, and that shows in the loving detail she incorporates. Not gonna lie... At times, it was a little tedious where descriptions of wildlife and the changing seasons were concerned, but I just skipped those paragraphs if I got tired of it. I did enjoy immensely the long descriptions of herbalism and medicines, as I found that very relevant to my own interests. Though she did tons of research, I am sure it is not entirely historically accurate, but I don't know a historical fiction novel that is. To me, a book like this needs a little creative license, particularly since I view our understanding of early humans as an inaccurate and interpretive science, anyway. Whatever stretches there might have been were worked in pretty seamlessly with no glaring oddities (at least for my limited knowledge of this topic).
Based on the subject matter, I knew there would be rape in this book and I was a little worried since usually I avoid media that involves it. However, I must say that it was nothing like when we are exposed to rape today in the media, particularly in movies or TV. The scenes involving or discussing it were violent, but not as bad as I had feared. I think because, for once, it was rape that seemed to make sense, given the context in which they were living and the circumstances that led up to it. That sounds horrible, like I'm condoning it, but that is not what I mean. I just mean that the textbook, matter-of-fact writing style of this book coupled with the fact that the rapes did not seem gratuitous turned the descriptions about them almost into neutral pieces of data that were simply being documented, rather than unbearable acts of violation that kept happening over and over for no reason other than to be violent and dramatic. I am probably not explaining myself very well here, but oh well. I wanted to address it, particularly since it may be a trigger for some people.
Reading this book was exciting for me because it is the first time in recent memory that I really had no idea what was going to happen and I really felt that ANYthing could happen to anyone. It is hard to explain. It was both predictable and suspenseful at the same time somehow. I knew vaguely what would happen (I knew Iza would die in this book or that Broud would end up raping Ayla and getting her pregnant, for a couple of examples, because all that was predictable), but in the larger scheme of things this whole world was so unfamiliar to me that I just had no idea where it was going to go and what adventures they would have.
I think some people dislike Ayla, claiming that she is a Mary Sue, but I did not think that about her at all. I did not find Ayla annoying, too smart for her own good, or unrealistically intelligent. For one thing, she might have been intellectually smart (because she was biologically made that way, which is hardly her fault!), but socially... she struggled a lot and wasn't too smart in that area. She often risked herself and her loved ones through her inability to adapt to the clan ways because her intelligence prevented her from functioning within them (she questioned things too often and was not a sheep!) and the concept of relinquishing who she was just to "fit in" was not in her nature and so had to be learned for survival reasons through tough lessons. As a result, she made big, cringe-worthy mistakes and she wasn't perfect, all of which made her more relatable and, if I might go so far as to say, human. ;) For another thing, although she was favored at times and often clan law did not seem to apply to her, I felt the allowances they made for her made sense in the context that Brun kept coming back to: what was best for the clan, not because they were necessarily favoring her. Yes, Ayla made some big leaps:
- Constantly saving children from disaster through her eccentricities and earning the respect of the clan (I almost said "ingratiating herself with the clan," but I don't feel that's accurate because it was her nature that drove her to do those things and not a desire to please the clan)
- Figuring out that babies come from intercourse and are not acts of immaculate conception (like the rest of the clan thought; according to the clan, sex was for men to "relieve" themselves whenever they wanted as a dominance thing, whether the woman wanted it or not, though sometimes they enjoyed and encouraged it)
- Catching on to ideas (like counting) quickly and surpassing the adults (even Creb) in many aspects like that
- Teaching herself to hunt after watching a clansmen give a small child one lesson
- Learning all of the herbalism knowledge despite not having the programmed memories for it
- Basically inventing the bra
But, to me, it was only natural for her to do all that, given her increased capacity to think things through and the basic concept of necessity being the mother of invention. I have no problem with how smart Ayla is because 1) she does have flaws and 2) that is the point of the whole book. She is a link to the future of the human race; it would make no sense for her to be stupid and make no big leaps. What Ayla is doing is no different than the leaps that the great thinkers of our time have made; no one calls Albert Einstein or Steven Hawking a Gary Stu, for example. I could see how Ayla could have been an extremely unlikable, unrelatable protagonist, but I felt the author did a great job of skirting that possibility altogether through the sensible way that everything fits together and culminates. I can think of three VERY annoying protagonists off the top of my head right now who are much better examples of Mary Sue types.
I was kind of surprised about how spiritual it was. I am not sure if that was invented for the purposes of Ayla's story, or if there is evidence that early humans really believed in spirits and totems and if they were the center of their life like they were in this book. Like I said, I have limited knowledge in this area.
I kept being thrown off guard by how young the characters were. Iza was considered old, but she was only 26 when she died (12 years younger than me!). Creb, Iza's oldest brother and the spiritual leader of their clan, was maybe 30 when he died and considered seriously ancient. Brun (the middle child and the only one still alive) is I'm going to guess 28 or so, but is no longer the clan leader because he's "too old" for the job. Even trying to allow for the fact that they were younger than expected while I was reading, I kept thinking Creb was like late 40s/early 50s, Brun was in his early 40s, and that Iza was maybe mid- to late-30s. Nope. They were at least 10 years younger even than that. Children were mating and having babies at eight-years-old and basically acting like adults who nowadays would be in their late 20s/early 30s. Their entire lives were lived in approximately 20 years and, if you made it past that, you were considered old. Really hard concept to grasp and understand, but I found it fascinating.
My biggest criticism is that there were two major bits of endless waffling: one surrounding Ayla deciding whether to be a hunter and the other surrounding Brun deciding whether Broud should be a leader, especially since it was patently obvious that even though both of those things were really bad ideas, they had to happen so the story could go where it needed to go.
After finishing the first book, there was no closure and it was obviously left as a (really good) cliffhanger. But, rather than feeling annoyed, I am left with wanting to know what happens to Ayla next, as well as Durc (her son), Broud (I keep hoping he will be killed off in a satisfying way), Brun (who I really grew to like a lot), and the clan itself. So, I plan to read the next two in the series, but I'll likely stop after that, given what I've read in reviews about the final three books. show less
I recently picked up a battered copy from the '80s at a thrift store near me for $.19 when they had a sale, along with several vintage romances and scifi. When I posted the haul to my Facebook, the consensus was that I start with Clan of the Cave Bear. I listened to the hivemind, show more and I'm glad I did! This isn't necessarily a traditional review, so much as a running commentary of all the thoughts I had while reading it. It does include spoilers, so fair warning if you are interested enough to read on.
**********
The writing style kind of felt like reading a textbook that was engaging and interesting instead of dry and boring, which sounds weird to say, but for me it totally worked and felt natural.
The book wastes no time in getting to the point. By the second page, Ayla is already an orphan. I was like O_o.
I know the author did a lot of research, and that shows in the loving detail she incorporates. Not gonna lie... At times, it was a little tedious where descriptions of wildlife and the changing seasons were concerned, but I just skipped those paragraphs if I got tired of it. I did enjoy immensely the long descriptions of herbalism and medicines, as I found that very relevant to my own interests. Though she did tons of research, I am sure it is not entirely historically accurate, but I don't know a historical fiction novel that is. To me, a book like this needs a little creative license, particularly since I view our understanding of early humans as an inaccurate and interpretive science, anyway. Whatever stretches there might have been were worked in pretty seamlessly with no glaring oddities (at least for my limited knowledge of this topic).
Based on the subject matter, I knew there would be rape in this book and I was a little worried since usually I avoid media that involves it. However, I must say that it was nothing like when we are exposed to rape today in the media, particularly in movies or TV. The scenes involving or discussing it were violent, but not as bad as I had feared. I think because, for once, it was rape that seemed to make sense, given the context in which they were living and the circumstances that led up to it. That sounds horrible, like I'm condoning it, but that is not what I mean. I just mean that the textbook, matter-of-fact writing style of this book coupled with the fact that the rapes did not seem gratuitous turned the descriptions about them almost into neutral pieces of data that were simply being documented, rather than unbearable acts of violation that kept happening over and over for no reason other than to be violent and dramatic. I am probably not explaining myself very well here, but oh well. I wanted to address it, particularly since it may be a trigger for some people.
Reading this book was exciting for me because it is the first time in recent memory that I really had no idea what was going to happen and I really felt that ANYthing could happen to anyone. It is hard to explain. It was both predictable and suspenseful at the same time somehow. I knew vaguely what would happen (I knew Iza would die in this book or that Broud would end up raping Ayla and getting her pregnant, for a couple of examples, because all that was predictable), but in the larger scheme of things this whole world was so unfamiliar to me that I just had no idea where it was going to go and what adventures they would have.
I think some people dislike Ayla, claiming that she is a Mary Sue, but I did not think that about her at all. I did not find Ayla annoying, too smart for her own good, or unrealistically intelligent. For one thing, she might have been intellectually smart (because she was biologically made that way, which is hardly her fault!), but socially... she struggled a lot and wasn't too smart in that area. She often risked herself and her loved ones through her inability to adapt to the clan ways because her intelligence prevented her from functioning within them (she questioned things too often and was not a sheep!) and the concept of relinquishing who she was just to "fit in" was not in her nature and so had to be learned for survival reasons through tough lessons. As a result, she made big, cringe-worthy mistakes and she wasn't perfect, all of which made her more relatable and, if I might go so far as to say, human. ;) For another thing, although she was favored at times and often clan law did not seem to apply to her, I felt the allowances they made for her made sense in the context that Brun kept coming back to: what was best for the clan, not because they were necessarily favoring her. Yes, Ayla made some big leaps:
- Constantly saving children from disaster through her eccentricities and earning the respect of the clan (I almost said "ingratiating herself with the clan," but I don't feel that's accurate because it was her nature that drove her to do those things and not a desire to please the clan)
- Figuring out that babies come from intercourse and are not acts of immaculate conception (like the rest of the clan thought; according to the clan, sex was for men to "relieve" themselves whenever they wanted as a dominance thing, whether the woman wanted it or not, though sometimes they enjoyed and encouraged it)
- Catching on to ideas (like counting) quickly and surpassing the adults (even Creb) in many aspects like that
- Teaching herself to hunt after watching a clansmen give a small child one lesson
- Learning all of the herbalism knowledge despite not having the programmed memories for it
- Basically inventing the bra
But, to me, it was only natural for her to do all that, given her increased capacity to think things through and the basic concept of necessity being the mother of invention. I have no problem with how smart Ayla is because 1) she does have flaws and 2) that is the point of the whole book. She is a link to the future of the human race; it would make no sense for her to be stupid and make no big leaps. What Ayla is doing is no different than the leaps that the great thinkers of our time have made; no one calls Albert Einstein or Steven Hawking a Gary Stu, for example. I could see how Ayla could have been an extremely unlikable, unrelatable protagonist, but I felt the author did a great job of skirting that possibility altogether through the sensible way that everything fits together and culminates. I can think of three VERY annoying protagonists off the top of my head right now who are much better examples of Mary Sue types.
I was kind of surprised about how spiritual it was. I am not sure if that was invented for the purposes of Ayla's story, or if there is evidence that early humans really believed in spirits and totems and if they were the center of their life like they were in this book. Like I said, I have limited knowledge in this area.
I kept being thrown off guard by how young the characters were. Iza was considered old, but she was only 26 when she died (12 years younger than me!). Creb, Iza's oldest brother and the spiritual leader of their clan, was maybe 30 when he died and considered seriously ancient. Brun (the middle child and the only one still alive) is I'm going to guess 28 or so, but is no longer the clan leader because he's "too old" for the job. Even trying to allow for the fact that they were younger than expected while I was reading, I kept thinking Creb was like late 40s/early 50s, Brun was in his early 40s, and that Iza was maybe mid- to late-30s. Nope. They were at least 10 years younger even than that. Children were mating and having babies at eight-years-old and basically acting like adults who nowadays would be in their late 20s/early 30s. Their entire lives were lived in approximately 20 years and, if you made it past that, you were considered old. Really hard concept to grasp and understand, but I found it fascinating.
My biggest criticism is that there were two major bits of endless waffling: one surrounding Ayla deciding whether to be a hunter and the other surrounding Brun deciding whether Broud should be a leader, especially since it was patently obvious that even though both of those things were really bad ideas, they had to happen so the story could go where it needed to go.
After finishing the first book, there was no closure and it was obviously left as a (really good) cliffhanger. But, rather than feeling annoyed, I am left with wanting to know what happens to Ayla next, as well as Durc (her son), Broud (I keep hoping he will be killed off in a satisfying way), Brun (who I really grew to like a lot), and the clan itself. So, I plan to read the next two in the series, but I'll likely stop after that, given what I've read in reviews about the final three books. show less
The main flaw in this book (and the last couple of them as well) is the repetition. Ms. Auel is a good author who can illustrate a scene vividly, but her downfall is that she repeats herself so much.
I kept reading about how amazed people were at Ayla and Wolf and the horses. It happened like ten times. Enough is enough. Yeah, we get the idea. There's also how often people think Ayla is so hot or smart or amazing or whatever. Even Marona, despite her hatred for Ayla, is jealous because Ayla show more is so awesome.
My problem is not that Ayla was able to do so many things. She had to figure out how to survive with the Clan and I liked that she was able to save Durc, that she was able to hunt and do other cool things. The second book was good. But the third and fourth books have a lot of repetition - people think Ayla and the animals are amazing, that she is so hot and gorgeous and brilliant, blah blah. Shelters of Stone was different in that it was centered in a community, much like Clan of the Cave bear, which is good because books 2-4 have Ayla living by herself or with Jondalar, just the two of them for the most part except their occasional encounter with other tribes. The Mammoth Hunters had some of its story set in a community, so it was good. After reading Plains of Passage, I was so ready to start this, and this book does have a lot of good parts.
The sex is also repetitive, as well as Jondalar and Ayla's thoughts about one another - she loves him so much, he loves her so much he can't imagine life without her, and so on and so forth. Honestly, it got old, I preferred reading about their interactions with other people (when the people weren't being so freaking amazed by Wolf) One thing I would have liked to see is Ayla throwing a temper tantrum. In many cases, having a cool head is good, but once in a while I'd like to see her actually get pissed off and scream at someone. She never confronts Tremeda, Marona, Brukeval, Laramar, or any of the others who act spiteful or mean towards her. She's all sweetness, and that got boring. It'd have been cool to see her get into a fistfight or whatever.
It'd also be nice to have someone NOT be attracted to Ayla. Men and women alike think she's gorgeous and everything, and her beauty is talked about quite a few times. Bleh! It'd be nice for someone to think, sure she's pretty, but she's just not my type'.
I'd have also wanted to see a gay or lesbian character, for the sake of variety. I don't mean just a MENTION of them, as has happened a couple of times in the series. I want a gay character as part of Jondalar's cave and flirting with either Jondalar or Ayla, depending on the character's gender. It certainly would add a new dimension to Jondalar and Ayla's relationship!
I heard that Ms. Auel had one more book planned after this, THEN two, but now it's back to one, to come out next year. Having just finished Shelters of Stone last week, I'm glad I don't have to wait as long as some of the others here did, and hope that there's not as much repetition and Ms. Auel actually tries something new. If she focuses on not being repetitive, Book 6 could be a true masterpiece and a wonderful way to end a creative series.
(Update - Book 6 sucks, which truly breaks my heart. I recommend reading just the first book in this series and imagining your own adventure for Ayla after she leaves the Clan) show less
I kept reading about how amazed people were at Ayla and Wolf and the horses. It happened like ten times. Enough is enough. Yeah, we get the idea. There's also how often people think Ayla is so hot or smart or amazing or whatever. Even Marona, despite her hatred for Ayla, is jealous because Ayla show more is so awesome.
My problem is not that Ayla was able to do so many things. She had to figure out how to survive with the Clan and I liked that she was able to save Durc, that she was able to hunt and do other cool things. The second book was good. But the third and fourth books have a lot of repetition - people think Ayla and the animals are amazing, that she is so hot and gorgeous and brilliant, blah blah. Shelters of Stone was different in that it was centered in a community, much like Clan of the Cave bear, which is good because books 2-4 have Ayla living by herself or with Jondalar, just the two of them for the most part except their occasional encounter with other tribes. The Mammoth Hunters had some of its story set in a community, so it was good. After reading Plains of Passage, I was so ready to start this, and this book does have a lot of good parts.
The sex is also repetitive, as well as Jondalar and Ayla's thoughts about one another - she loves him so much, he loves her so much he can't imagine life without her, and so on and so forth. Honestly, it got old, I preferred reading about their interactions with other people (when the people weren't being so freaking amazed by Wolf) One thing I would have liked to see is Ayla throwing a temper tantrum. In many cases, having a cool head is good, but once in a while I'd like to see her actually get pissed off and scream at someone. She never confronts Tremeda, Marona, Brukeval, Laramar, or any of the others who act spiteful or mean towards her. She's all sweetness, and that got boring. It'd have been cool to see her get into a fistfight or whatever.
It'd also be nice to have someone NOT be attracted to Ayla. Men and women alike think she's gorgeous and everything, and her beauty is talked about quite a few times. Bleh! It'd be nice for someone to think, sure she's pretty, but she's just not my type'.
I'd have also wanted to see a gay or lesbian character, for the sake of variety. I don't mean just a MENTION of them, as has happened a couple of times in the series. I want a gay character as part of Jondalar's cave and flirting with either Jondalar or Ayla, depending on the character's gender. It certainly would add a new dimension to Jondalar and Ayla's relationship!
I heard that Ms. Auel had one more book planned after this, THEN two, but now it's back to one, to come out next year. Having just finished Shelters of Stone last week, I'm glad I don't have to wait as long as some of the others here did, and hope that there's not as much repetition and Ms. Auel actually tries something new. If she focuses on not being repetitive, Book 6 could be a true masterpiece and a wonderful way to end a creative series.
(Update - Book 6 sucks, which truly breaks my heart. I recommend reading just the first book in this series and imagining your own adventure for Ayla after she leaves the Clan) show less
I actually read this book for the first time in 3rd grade. It was my second adult novel (after Watership Down) and I voraciously gobbled up every abundant detail of the Cro-Magnon Ayla's adventures with her adoptive Neanderthal clan.
I've given The Clan of the Cave Bear a re-read after all this time, and I still find Jean Auel's descriptions impressively meticulous. Whether it's mammoths, herbs, or Neanderthal tool-making techniques, Auel provides plenty of information for the reader to chew show more on. It's clear she did her research.. and then some.
As for plot, the story-line and conflict in this first book will always trump the rest of the series for me. The Clan and their customs are fascinatingly different and Ayla's often painful attempts to assimilate into their alien culture makes for compelling reading. The other high point is the way Ayla's adoptive Neanderthal parents are rendered. The wise mogur, Creb and the loving medicine woman, Iza are both beautifully fleshed out characters. Even Brun the leader is fairly well developed. And Broud? Well, brats are fairly easy characters to write I think. Broud is fairly one note, but he serves his purpose in the story well enough. These characters come off the pages like real people, something that seems to happen less and less as the series progresses.
Worth a look. And possibly mildly inappropriate for 3rd graders. Depends on the 3rd grader. show less
I've given The Clan of the Cave Bear a re-read after all this time, and I still find Jean Auel's descriptions impressively meticulous. Whether it's mammoths, herbs, or Neanderthal tool-making techniques, Auel provides plenty of information for the reader to chew show more on. It's clear she did her research.. and then some.
As for plot, the story-line and conflict in this first book will always trump the rest of the series for me. The Clan and their customs are fascinatingly different and Ayla's often painful attempts to assimilate into their alien culture makes for compelling reading. The other high point is the way Ayla's adoptive Neanderthal parents are rendered. The wise mogur, Creb and the loving medicine woman, Iza are both beautifully fleshed out characters. Even Brun the leader is fairly well developed. And Broud? Well, brats are fairly easy characters to write I think. Broud is fairly one note, but he serves his purpose in the story well enough. These characters come off the pages like real people, something that seems to happen less and less as the series progresses.
Worth a look. And possibly mildly inappropriate for 3rd graders. Depends on the 3rd grader. show less
Il genere del romanzo storico copre tutti i periodi della storia umana, alcuni con abbondanza di romanzi, altri con una presenza decisamente più numerosa.
Se si cercano poi romanzi che trattino della preistoria, allora la scelta è ancora più obbligata, giacché pochissimi autori si sono confrontati con l'alba dell'umanità.
Una manchevolezza che pare disarmante, soprattutto in questi tempi in cui certi soloni del creazionismo tentano di discreditare un buon secolo di show more paleontologia.
Conducendo una ricerca personale dopo aver chiuso le pagine del presente romanzo ho scoperto sgomento che la scelta è davvero ridotta, per chi cercasse argomenti ed emozioni similari a quelli suscitati dalla Auel (pronuncia Owl, come il gufo).
"Ayla figlia della terra", in originale "The Clan of the Cave Bear", il clan dell'orso delle caverne, titolo sicuramente più adatto a descrivere succintamente il contenuto, è un bel romanzo a prescindere dal contesto. Soprattutto per l'umanità che traspare.
Qualcuno si dirà cosa ci sia di umano nel narrare di Neanderthal. Il punto è proprio questo: il tema della diversità. Tutta la saga, ma basterebbe leggere questo primo romanzo per avere un quadro sufficientemente completo, è imbastita sul contrasto non solo tra due culture diverse, ma tra due specie umane diverse. Un conflitto che l'uomo moderno non può affrontare a quel livello, giacché parte della stessa specie. La distanza e la somiglianza tra Neandertal e Cro Magnon sono il leit motiv di tutti i libri della Auel. Come i protagonisti riescano, pur tra mille difficoltà, a dimostrarci che un dialogo è sempre e comunque possibile tra due culture intelligenti è il più grande pregio di questa saga.
Per il resto sono belle ore di lettura, sorrette da un apparato ben documentato di paleontologia e archeologia, unitamente a qualche licenza poetica per rendere il tutto più accattivante.
Consigliatissimo il primo, meno gli altri. Il problema è che una volta iniziato non saprete fermarvi. show less
Se si cercano poi romanzi che trattino della preistoria, allora la scelta è ancora più obbligata, giacché pochissimi autori si sono confrontati con l'alba dell'umanità.
Una manchevolezza che pare disarmante, soprattutto in questi tempi in cui certi soloni del creazionismo tentano di discreditare un buon secolo di show more paleontologia.
Conducendo una ricerca personale dopo aver chiuso le pagine del presente romanzo ho scoperto sgomento che la scelta è davvero ridotta, per chi cercasse argomenti ed emozioni similari a quelli suscitati dalla Auel (pronuncia Owl, come il gufo).
"Ayla figlia della terra", in originale "The Clan of the Cave Bear", il clan dell'orso delle caverne, titolo sicuramente più adatto a descrivere succintamente il contenuto, è un bel romanzo a prescindere dal contesto. Soprattutto per l'umanità che traspare.
Qualcuno si dirà cosa ci sia di umano nel narrare di Neanderthal. Il punto è proprio questo: il tema della diversità. Tutta la saga, ma basterebbe leggere questo primo romanzo per avere un quadro sufficientemente completo, è imbastita sul contrasto non solo tra due culture diverse, ma tra due specie umane diverse. Un conflitto che l'uomo moderno non può affrontare a quel livello, giacché parte della stessa specie. La distanza e la somiglianza tra Neandertal e Cro Magnon sono il leit motiv di tutti i libri della Auel. Come i protagonisti riescano, pur tra mille difficoltà, a dimostrarci che un dialogo è sempre e comunque possibile tra due culture intelligenti è il più grande pregio di questa saga.
Per il resto sono belle ore di lettura, sorrette da un apparato ben documentato di paleontologia e archeologia, unitamente a qualche licenza poetica per rendere il tutto più accattivante.
Consigliatissimo il primo, meno gli altri. Il problema è che una volta iniziato non saprete fermarvi. show less
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