The Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean M. Auel

In The Clan of the Cave Bear, we are taken back 35,000 years to a time when two species of man lived on the earth amid icy glaciers and woolly mammoths. When five year old Ayla, a Cro-Magnon, is split from her parents by a shattering earthquake, she is taken in by a clan of Neanderthals. Iza, a medicine woman, and Creb, a powerful holy man, take in the sick and injured child. But her tall and thin body, long blonde hair, fair skin and blue eyes, ...
...and intimidated by her and the differences she has from them. Yet her intelligence and capability and the fact that she seems to bring luck wherever she goes, makes her admired by everyone except Broud, the future leader of the Clan, who seems to hate the ground she walks on.

Follow the journey of Ayla in her fight for survival in a strange and moving prehistoric time.

~ My opinion ~
Seeing as I was named after ... more

In The Clan of the Cave Bear, we are taken back 35,000 years to a time when two species of man lived on the earth amid icy glaciers and woolly mammoths. When five year old Ayla, a Cro-Magnon, is split from her parents by a shattering earthquake, she is taken in by a clan of Neanderthals. Iza, a medicine woman, and Creb, a powerful holy man, take in the sick and injured child. But her tall and thin body, long blonde hair, fair skin and blue eyes, make her stand out from the rest of the clan who are both fearful of her and intimidated by her and the differences she has from them. Yet her intelligence and capability and the fact that she seems to bring luck wherever she goes, makes her admired by everyone except Broud, the future leader of the Clan, who seems to hate the ground she walks on.

Follow the journey of Ayla in her fight for survival in a strange and moving prehistoric time.

~ My opinion ~
Seeing as I was named after the main character in this book, I thought it was probably about time I gave it a read to see what it was all about. My mum and grandad both love the series of Earth's Children books, the first of which is The Clan of the Cave Bear. I have actually tried to read this book twice before when I was a lot younger, but both times I've only got a few pages in before I either got bored or it just wasn't my sort of thing. Now though I generally read anything and so thought I'd give it another go.

When I first began the book, I had the same feelings that I felt when I'd previously started it years ago. Although the very first page started off with some excitement jumping straight into the earthquake, I found it very difficult to get into and I grew a little despondent towards it. This is not a book for those who enjoy a light-hearted and easy to read book. The whole book is very descriptive and Auel goes into great depth about the lives of the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons and the ways in which they lived, describing the land, plant life which is used for medicines, animals which are used for meat and clothing, and how tools are created to assist them. She is an extremely superb writer and has obviously studied her subject in depth, but, for me, these parts seemed to be very dragged out I ended up going off into a trance at quite a few points and not really concentrating on what I was reading. My mum said she also did the same thing or she would just skip past these bits as you don't really miss anything as it's not crucial to the main story. The bulk of the book is made up of descriptive parts and there isn't much dialogue as the Clan don't really communicate too much with other and, when they do, they don't makes sounds but use hand movements and motions to express what they want to say. We do get to find out about all of the characters' thoughts and feelings though as it isn't written from any one person's point of view and jumps from each character's opinions.

Although we get the view points from every character, Ayla is the main character which the story revolves around and we sympathise with her from the very beginning due to the loss of her parents at such a young age. Throughout the book, when she makes mistakes and does things she knows are wrong, we are still on her side because she is such a sweet and friendly girl and she knows no better having been brought up living a completely different live to those in the Clan who are from a different species to her. I found myself feeling all the same emotions that Ayla has for the other characters - love for Iza and Creb who become the only family she's ever known, and hatred for Broud who does nothing but criticise and despise Ayla.

Ayla is only very young throughout a lot of the book and so there isn't many exciting things going on around her. Because of this, and the descriptiveness of the book, I only really found myself getting into it about half way through, which is a quite a way in as the book is almost 600 pages and the type is very small. Once Ayla was older though and more eventful things began to take place in her life, the book got a lot more interesting and when I'd finished it, I actually couldn't wait to start the next one.

Jean M. Auel is an amazing writer and most people who've read this have absolutely loved it. However, it is an acquired sort of read and not for those who like something light and easy. For those who enjoy reading about history, fantasy and adventure, and like an in-depth book that you can really get into, give this a try as it is an amazing read.

The sweeping saga of one remarkable woman that began at the dawn of man. 

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