The first novel in Jean M. Auel's magnificent epic of life on the glacial continent of the last Ice Age, when two kings of human beings, Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, shared the earth.

Its heroine is Ayla, a courageous and indomitable young woman whose story begins when she is a five-year-old orphan adopted by the Clan, a group of Neanderthal.

Ayla inspires first surprise, then wariness and finally acceptance by the Clan. She is cared for by its medicine woman Iza and its wise holy man Creb. But she makes an implacable enemy of the group's future leader. Broud does all he can to destroy her, but Ayla is a survivor.

 

 
Oh gosh, I really don't know what I'm going to think about this book. I know my Nana loved it when she read it, but whether set in the Manhattan social scene or pre-historic Europe I'm not a great fan of epic dramas. It's just how I'm built, and so I add this to my to read list with some reluctance, as it was nominated for the Big Read Top 100 and becomes a book I must read.

 

 
August 12th 2004
Up to Page 42

Icky poo, icky poo, me no like! Ok, that was a bit juvenile...not unlike this book! The whole point of this book, so far, seems to be to prove the author knows (or thinks she knows) everything possible about pre-historic man (and woman, for those out there who are so PC they care). We are treated to endless descriptions of the general appearance of the (what I can only assume by the descriptions are) Neanderthals, what they wear, what they eat, how they hunt, how they relate to each other, what herbs and plants can be used as medicine, yady yada blah, blah. The only thing missing thus far is the smallest semblance of a story!

I don't mind a lot of description in a book, what I do mind is the author's attention to meaningless details...such as how big the hairs on the horn Iza is grinding up for medicine are. It's suddenly very obvious why the book is so long!

One of my personal pet hates is revisionist history. Whether it's some right-wing fuckwit diminishing the numbers of people slaughtered in the holocaust or Michael Moore twisting facts to out-smug the Bush administration to Graham Hancock re-writing pre-history to make himself look like the discoverer of a new Atlantis; I hate it! This book is guilty of so very many sins against pre-history it would take too long to write them, and the preachy way the 'facts' are presented hints that the author hasn't come up with a single one of the theories of why Neanderthal man behaved in certain ways. Instead it looks as though she's read a startling confusion of books and picked out the bits she thinks make good copy and shoved them together in this novel. So, so much is inaccurate (though whether that was known at the time of writing I don't know), such as the size of Neanderthal man's brain; she says it was bigger than all others, when studies show it was no bigger than any others, and it was just the skull that was larger.

The speech also pisses me off, as they're speaking modern English but knowing this is bullshit the author keeps going on about them doing lots of hand gestures. Pah! The ritual stuff is pure suposition, and has little (or no) foundation in reality, and yet the author presents it all as real. If she treated the book as fiction there would be no problem, but she constantly attempts to make inaccurate statements of her own brand of fact. Here's a prime example:

All those primitive people, with almost no frontal lobes and speech limited by underdeveloped vocal organs, but with huge brains - larger than those of any race of man then living or future generations yet unborn - were unique. They were the culmination of a branch of mankind whose brain was developed in the back of their heads, in the occipital and the parietal that controls vision and bodily sensations and store memory.

And their memory made them extraordinary. In them, the unconscious knowledge of ancestral behaviour called instinct had evolved. Stored in the back of their large brains were not just the memories of their ancestors and, under special circumstances, they could go a step beyond. They could recall their racial memory, their own evolution, and when they reached back far enough, they could merge that memory that was identical for all and join their minds, telepathically.

It's not that I object to a writer deciding that in her world telepathy exists, it's that she presents the above section as a statement of fact...she does that a lot, as though she knew exactly what happened during those caveman days and the fact of the matter is for the most part we are clueless as so few clues, including remains, have been found. If instead of concentrating on details that are groundless she developed a compelling story I'd probably really enjoy it. The idea of using that period in (pre) history as a back drop is cool, but not like this.

I'm not sure how much further I'm going to make it through this book, as I feel an almighty pitch towards the wall approaching. What makes matters worse is that every time I tell a friend what I'm reading they say 'oh, that's *****'s favourite book' and ***** is always the friend whose taste in books is as bad as Liz Taylor's in husbands.

One funny story (which I hope Sarah doesn't mind me telling) is that one family friend (one of the above *****'s) brandished this book in front of a young, virginal teenaged Sarah and told her to read a sex scene. Sarah was told that unless it was like the book, she must under no circumstances do it. Given that I've never seen Sarah dressed in an animal skin, I have to assume she's still a virgin ;)

 
August 14th 2004
Up to Page 54

I tried, really I did, but I have an  unwritten 50 page rule with books, whereby if they haven't grabbed me and made me want to read after 50 pages then the chances are they're not going to at all. That was the case with this book. The author was just too hung up with the details (though I was tempted to run out into the garden and dig up some hollyhock root to see if it really does have pain killing properties) and didn't do nearly enough to move the story along. In those 50 pages all that happened was that a young girl ran away from an earthquake a lot and was picked up by some Neanderthals looking for a cave. Pretty much it, and for 50 pages that's just not enough! It's taken me my whole life to come to a point where I'm able to stop reading books I'm not enjoying, but now I have developed the skill it would be a shame not to exercise it.

Maybe I'll read this one day, but I have so many wonderful books I'm dying to read right now that spending time and energy on one that's not brilliant is just not enjoyable.