Is there anything she can’t do? Anyone (other than Broud) who isn’t captivated at once by her winsome charms and ability to succeed at the weirdest tasks? Clan of the Cave Bear is a little like Neanderthal fan fiction, and Ayla is a classic Mary Sue. You’d think no one did anything at this Clan Gathering except her.īut, really, Ayla is a bit much. I was already thinking that, and then this happened:īroud turned his back, clenching his fists, before he could see the compliment Norg paid to the son of Brun’s mate. And even though he tries to be all Thug Life, you know who Broud is? Broud is Jan Brady to Ayla’s Marcia. Speaking of That Scene, Broud is the worst. And then, right, after that email, I assumed there must be some hot stuff, only to discover there’s one sex scene, and it makes Marlon Brando sweating all over Maria Schneider seem like, uh, something you might actually want to masturbate to. Can you imagine? Young women were masturbating to Clan of the Cave Bear. When I announced we were doing Clan of the Cave Bear, a reader emailed to reminisce about skimming it as an eleven year old for parts she could masturbate to, which caused me to have a profound personal meditation on how lackluster everyone’s masturbation material was circa 1992. As far as plot summary, let’s just go with: “totally totally a legitimate description of a bangin’ Cro-Magnon blonde successfully infiltrating a group of fugly Neanderthals and being all Katniss Everdeen connnnnnnstantly until the World’s Worst Pre-Human boots her out because he’s threatened by powerful women with the ability to verbalize their emotions.” THAT OLD STORY, RIGHT? Let’s get one thing straight: we have zero interest in the book’s historical accuracy. How in the world is it that I am just now reading Clan of the Cave Bear for the first time? Isn’t that wild? I have so much to say about it I could burst.
#Ayla clan of the cave bear series#
The next title in the series is The Valley of Horses. Still, I found this book to be a thought-provoking feat of imagination. Some scenes were marred with too much inner thought and/or unnecessary dialogue. Some rituals were described in too much detail. Some concepts were repeated too many times. I was fascinated by this novel, but I did think it was too long. In addition to Ayla, the novel features another strong and wise woman: Iza, the healer, who adopts Ayla and teaches her to become a medicine woman. This ability is both a blessing and a curse: it helps her survive extreme situations, but also gets her into those extreme situations in the first place, when she does things that no Clan woman would even think of doing. The main questions of the novel are: will Ayla be able to fit into Clan culture? Will she be able to find a mate, given how “ugly” she looks? Will she incur the curse of the leaders, given her penchant for bending and even breaking Clan rules and traditions? Because she has no shared Clan memory, Ayla must rely on her own ability to learn. The Clan members are also puzzled by the range of her vocalizations (the Clan uses sign language along with a few spoken words), and the tears that drip from her eyes when she cries. The smartest man in the group can count only up to 20, and he is stunned by how quickly Ayla picks up on the concept of numbers. However, their smaller frontal lobe means that they have difficulty with innovation and abstraction. In her version, the Neandertals use their large brains for memory-they are even able to pass memories down to descendants, with the result that they all have a shared memory going back to their beginnings. Tools, cooking methods, clothing, and herbal healing are all described in detail.Īuel had to use her imagination to create the rituals, language, and customs of the Neandertals. The novel is filled with descriptions of the flora, fauna, and scenery that Ayla might have encountered. The author, Jean Auel, seems to have done an enormous amount of research to create this ancient world of hunters and gatherers. Despite the Clan’s dependence on tradition, they allow Ayla, an injured orphan, to live with them, and even overlook her odd appearance (a flat face, a high forehead, and straight rather than bowed limbs) to accept her as a Clan member. The Clan, as they call themselves, is aware of the presence of the Others (as they call Ayla’s people), but there is little interaction. The Neandertals (which are either a subspecies of Homo sapiens, or a different species of Homo-experts aren’t sure) are destined to die out, and the earth will of course be populated by the descendants of Ayla and her people. The first in a series of six, this novel follows Ayla, a Cro-Magnon girl (an ancestor of modern Europeans), as she is adopted into a group of Neandertals. I suppose The Clan of the Cave Bear should be called “prehistorical fiction” rather than “historical fiction.” It takes place in humanity’s ancient past, before the invention of writing and historical records.
0 kommentar(er)
