Another book from the pile
I am a very sad and sorry-for-myself person. One would think that at the ripe old age of old enough to know better, I would know there was no longer any need to stay awake half the night reading. *sigh*

Jean Auel's books about Ayla and her travels across the Neolithic landscape of Europe have held my attention for years. Not even the B-grader movie “Clan of the Cave Bear” with Daryl Hannah grunting around doing that head-tilting cute thing put me off the stories.

But I have to admit that picking up a book at six o’clock and then finally staggering to bed eleven hours later at this late stage of my life is, to put it mildly, rather silly. On the other hand, the waiting list at the library for this title when it first came out last year was pretty lengthy. I knew it was going to take a while before I got it when my local librarian warned me that it could be as much as six months before I got the book “… and don’t hold your breath too hard!” she added with a sympathetic grin.

So there it was, waiting for me. I launched myself back into my concern for Ayla and Jondalar and their animals and just wanted to be inside the story again. It was … not quite what I remembered.
I think I may have to dig out the earlier titles in the series and reread them again to see if my memory has been gilding the lily of recall, but perhaps it was because I was reading the book in one self-indulgent fit of inhalation, something that I haven’t done in a while — at least since last Christmas anyway.

I think that one of the things that caught at my attention was the tendency to wander off and describe the things that have been found by the paleo-archaeologist about the area in which the caves of the Zelendonaii have been set. I think mostly because I was so desperate to have the story I wasn’t really interested in the background. Which is odd, because one of the reasons why I enjoyed “Clan of the Cave Bear” and the other titles in the story was because of that background. The descriptions and uses for the herbs, the suppositions of archaeologist neatly fitted into the story, the mention of actual remains and fragments that litter the trail from the Caucasus to the Loire valley, the weaving of mythological fragments into the weft that could explain beliefs from such disparate areas that indicate trade in custom and story as well as goods since before there was much of what us modern types might consider civilization.

The spousal unit is now reading the book. I am going to have to wait until he’s finished before I can read it again to see if my first impression was merely due to the late hour of it’s absorption.
But for all that, I was relieved that Jondalar’s family accepted Ayla and her animals.