The Clan of the Cave Bear

Locations
Call Number: Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Auel, Jean M., Fiction / Auel, Jean
On Shelf At: Malletts Creek Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Auel, Jean M.	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Auel, Jean	4-week checkout	Due 05-18-2024

Twenty years ago The Clan of the Cave Bear became a blockbuster, launching a bestselling saga. Beginning April 30, 2002, its success will reach all - new heights, with Crown's hardcover publication of the fifth volume in the story, The Shelters of Stone. The new hardcover, paired with Bantam's spring mass market repackaging and repromotion effort, will ensure that a whole new generation is introduced to this incredible epic. Summer delivers trade paperback editions of this contemporary classic, available for the first time ever. That means that all readers - and all booksellers - can get the novels in their format of choice. With momentum for these epics at its highest in over a decade, readers will yearn to discover the magic of Ayla's saga, or to refresh their memory of it. And one woman's odyssey, beginning at the dawn of time, will once again capture the imagination of millions. This novel of awesome beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love. Through Jean M. Auel's magnificent storytelling we are taken back to the dawn of modern humans, and with a girl named Ayla we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world they shared with the ones who called themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear. A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar and ugly - she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan and Iza's way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his revenge.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Summary / Annotation
Fiction Profile
Excerpt
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Great submitted by ldupuis44 on July 19, 2011, 7:11am Fabulous book in a wonderful series. Very detailed and interesting to read.

Entertaining but factually inaccurate submitted by marielle on August 7, 2011, 6:04pm This book is about a group of neanderthals which take in an orphaned homo sapiens and raise her as their own.

This is a fun book for the feminist inclined reader, because the main character, the human Ayla, challenges the preconceived (neanderthal) notions about what is a woman's work and roles are. Neanderthal women are forbidden to hunt, she hunts. Women are supposed to be submissive, she is not. She's a pretty classic feminist heroine.

The irony is that the prehistoric records shows exactly the opposite behavioral trends in neanderthals verses modern humans. There is good evidence that early humans (up until very recently, too) had a fairly strict division of labor, whereas both neanderthal sexes participated in group hunts, see <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/05/science/05nean.html">this NYTimes article.</a>

If the author wanted to write the feminist heroine novel, she could have written a neanderthal woman in a human society as the heroine and the facts would have worked in her favor. Is she writing prehistory so that we think of sexism as neanderthal, and feminism as quintessentially human, in opposition to the facts?

Anyway, I liked the book and it's worth reading.

Absorbing submitted by Zekicmom on July 16, 2013, 11:56am Great read. Detailed discriptions, interesting characters, thought provoking.

Excellent and absorbing story submitted by rbseemail on June 16, 2020, 7:42am This is an absorbing story that goes on for a long time, but but draws you in deeper and deeper. A delightful piece of historical fiction.

historical fiction submitted by crp on August 6, 2020, 12:53am probably the best of the series

The Clan of the Cave Bear submitted by angie. on July 22, 2021, 9:45am A great read! Great for people of all interests!