The Mammoth Hunters, Jean M. Auel, 1985, Crown Publishers. Genre: Fiction. 645 pages. Finished 5/20/13.
Shelters of Stone, Jean M. Auel, 2002, Crown Publishers. Genre: Fiction. 749 pages. Finished 6/26/13/13.
The Land of Painted Caves, Jean M. Auel, 2011, Crown Publishers. Genre: Fiction. 757 pages. Finished 7/31/13.
LesOpinion: Have you ever disliked a book but liked its author? Jean M. Auel's iconic fiction/fantasy Earth's Children series is the long (and, Gentle Reader, I do mean long) story of Cro-Magnon lady, Ayla, and the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons she meets in the course of her travels. On the positive side, the stories have cliffhanging adventure, hot cave man sex, and interesting, research-based imaginings of Stone Age life. On the negative side, the books are long. They are long, in part, because they are repetitive (the first and third books in the series are not at S. White Dickinson Library or I'd still be reading). They are repetitive, in part, because the author cares that you understand all elements of the saga, even if you haven't had the pleasure of wasting months of your life reading the previous books. Because Jean M. Auel cares about your reading pleasure, she spends at least 1/3 of each book bringing you up to speed on the parts you might have missed. Bless her heart.
But here's why I really want to like Jean M. Auel: She's us. She is this chubby lady with nerdy glasses who had an idea and wrote a book. She then just kept on writing. Sure, she wrote about cave people. But she busted her butt to learn as much as she could about them, traveling to archaeological sites, meeting with pre-eminent researchers, and reading everything she could get her hands on. Her books aren't great art, but they are interesting just in their conception.
If you have a couple of years to kill and want to try something different, you can do worse than picking up a Jean M. Auel book. As for me, I'm ready to move on.
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3 comments:
You get major points for reading the whole series. I slogged through "Clan of the Cave Bear" and added her writing to my short list of allergies. But good for her for actually doing the work and getting published successfully.
Thanks, Carole with an e. I have met any number of people (including my own mother) who read Clan of the Cave Bear. I have yet to meet anyone who kept reading after that.
Cheers,
Les
I never finished the series either and felt exactly the way you do about liking Auel and her determination to get things right through what research exists. If you want a realy fine read that is only one volume and does get it right, try Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's Reindeer Moon, a book I love
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