Book Journal: The Clan of the Cave Bear

As mentioned in my post on The Far North by Marcel Theroux, I have this weird obsession with cold things: auroras. Snow. Ice caves. The Arctic Circle. THE ICE AGE.

And then I found this book!

So apparently Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children books have been around since the early '80s and the writing in the first book--the one I'm reviewing--is kind of indicative of it (she definitely reads like a stuffy old 1980's librarian or something and I the omniscient point of view never is my favorite) but it is still really awesome speculative alternate history and I LOVE alternate history, especially when it is imaginative and magical as this!

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel

Okay, so, a great deal of why I chose this book is in the prelude above. I was at Eagle Eye Bookshop--the fantastic used bookstore near Emory's campus that, while at times sort of difficult to maneuver through (and they never have Mario Puzo!), has an incredible amount of diversity in its shelves. I was telling Beth how I just like settings in the far north and would love to read a book set there, preferably a more fantasy/sci-fi/historical book and THEN I saw Auel's newest book on sale. They had some of the succeeding novels in Auel's series but not the first one, so imagine my sheer joy when I went to a 10-days-and-counting Border's (sniff) in Boston and found almost all of Auel's books for 90% off--I got the hardcover for 4$. It was beautiful. Even if I will really miss Border's...

So anyway, back to the book itself. Auel's writing isn't mind-blowing, but her details speculating the forever-elusive society of the Neanderthals of Europe (this takes place at the margin of Eastern Europe and Asia) are really, really engaging--the genetic memories, the languages, the rituals, etc. The book was about 460 pages and could have been one hundred less, but it was still very entertaining. I look more forward now to Ayla (NOW I GET THE EXCELLENT REFERENCE) as she ventures out of the Neanderthal clan. She's a Cro-Magnun after all. We'll see what her adventures are. This wasn't as engaging to me as Martin's stuff but it's not a wholly fair comparison. If you can get back the omniscient POV (for some reason it bothers me), the occasional too-heavy details, and some of the fluff that comes from minor characters, it's a really engaging read. You like Ayla despite her very obvious Mary-Sue shades, and you really do root for her, especially because all the Brons and Bruns and Grogs and Norgs of the world spit on her blonde hair and blue eyes.

I bought The Valley of Horses, the sequel to it, and will read that soon; hopefully it will push me to finish up this 6-book series that has spanned some 30-odd years in the making.