A review by strawberrymoonceci
The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
3.0
I enjoyed this book but it has so many issues. From the white supremacy to the pseudoscience, and so much more.
Firstly, Ayla is a white, blonde blue eyed child, who is so much smarter and better than the brown, close minded dumbdumbs. Insane. Not only were some neanderthals also white and blonde. We don't know how intelligent they were. I understand that this book was written in the 80s, and therefore she couldn't have written the story with knowledge she simply didn't have. The neanderthals likely didn't go extinct as opposed to us because we were smarter or capable of abstract thinking. It's probably because we were more aggressive, and wiped them out. Even if Auel had no way of knowing this, the adjudication of the horrible traits to the neanderthals is entirely her doing.
Ayla, the blonde-haired goddess, is basically a genius, who not only invents everything, but also deciphers conception. Give her some time and she will single-handedly advance them to the bronze age. It's ridiculous even before taking into consideration that she is ten. On that note, she is ten dear god. I get it, people didn't live as long back then. But why did I have to read about her being sexually assaulted multiple times? It was so upsetting. And then again with Uba, who is only seven. It was absolutely horrifying. It is true that the history of humanity is that of rape. The book has some decent moments when it comes to the relationship between women and men. The realization that Ayla has of men being trash is all too familiar. She also talks about a time were women hadn't yet been subjugated by men. But, considering what I heard from multiple sources about the later books turning pornographic, and considering Ayla's age, I'm going to doubt Auel's intentions with the scenes in this book.
Another moment that makes me question Auel's feminism even harder is when Ayla is being constantly compared to the meeker, born to serve brown women. She also has some pro-life propaganda. Ayla, who again, is TEN, so desperately wants to have a child. She fights to have her baby even though it's a dangerous pregnancy. Please.
The writing is also an issue. There is so much repetition, and over explaining. She thinks the reader is as dumb as her neanderthals. This book could and should have been so much shorter. Another issue I had with the writing was that she would cut the narrative short to include a scientific info dump, as if this was a documentary. It is not. This book is categorized as historical fiction, but personally I would place it at the fantasy section. Not only does this book deal with magic and spirits, but it also deals with some genuinely wild pseudoscience. She explains that the large head of the neanderthals is due to their large brains. Fair enough. The large brains are due to their extraordinary memory that allows them to recall all the information learned by their ancestors. Be for real. It's also why the neanderthals are so reluctant to change their ways, they don't want to learn because their heads will keep growing. I don't even know what to say. Going back to the writing, the info dumps make it so that you are pulled out of the story abruptly, and instead of making it an immersive experience, you're forced to watch from afar. It would have been much better to present the information in a way that the people in the story could have understood it. Like hypothermia being a cold sickness or something like that.
To be fair to Auel, she did have a monumental task in writing this book. She created a whole culture, one I don't much care for, but she did nonetheless. The period of time is a vacuum in history and she filled it to the best of her ability. Also, a lot of the information available at the time has been disproved. This will probably continue to happen as we approach anthropology with an awareness of the bias present in researchers past and present. There also have been things Auel wrote as fiction, that were later proved to be true. Like the mixing of neanderthals and cro-magnons.
Like I said, I enjoyed the book. It was incredibly simple at times, which made it very readable in my opinion. What I liked most was the found family. The love between the people at Creb's hearth was moving. The displays of humanity that one can recognize in a setting so different of one's own, well, they were touching. This is my favourite aspect of anthropology. Iza being burried with the medicinal flowers she used was sad and lovely. Burials 9f the past are such a fascinating thing. And act of love we perpetuate today. I also found the moments of genuine joy, often the ones shared with babies to be so wholesome and sweet. We have always been people, and babies have always been adorable.
It's a pity, I genuinely wanted to love this book, and at times I did, but it has some glaring issues. I want to know what will happen to Ayla next, but I think the issues will only grow so I don't know if I will pick up the next book in the series. This being an unfinished series for a long time now also makes me not want to continue.
Firstly, Ayla is a white, blonde blue eyed child, who is so much smarter and better than the brown, close minded dumbdumbs. Insane. Not only were some neanderthals also white and blonde. We don't know how intelligent they were. I understand that this book was written in the 80s, and therefore she couldn't have written the story with knowledge she simply didn't have. The neanderthals likely didn't go extinct as opposed to us because we were smarter or capable of abstract thinking. It's probably because we were more aggressive, and wiped them out. Even if Auel had no way of knowing this, the adjudication of the horrible traits to the neanderthals is entirely her doing.
Ayla, the blonde-haired goddess, is basically a genius, who not only invents everything, but also deciphers conception. Give her some time and she will single-handedly advance them to the bronze age. It's ridiculous even before taking into consideration that she is ten. On that note, she is ten dear god. I get it, people didn't live as long back then. But why did I have to read about her being sexually assaulted multiple times? It was so upsetting. And then again with Uba, who is only seven. It was absolutely horrifying. It is true that the history of humanity is that of rape. The book has some decent moments when it comes to the relationship between women and men. The realization that Ayla has of men being trash is all too familiar. She also talks about a time were women hadn't yet been subjugated by men. But, considering what I heard from multiple sources about the later books turning pornographic, and considering Ayla's age, I'm going to doubt Auel's intentions with the scenes in this book.
Another moment that makes me question Auel's feminism even harder is when Ayla is being constantly compared to the meeker, born to serve brown women. She also has some pro-life propaganda. Ayla, who again, is TEN, so desperately wants to have a child. She fights to have her baby even though it's a dangerous pregnancy. Please.
The writing is also an issue. There is so much repetition, and over explaining. She thinks the reader is as dumb as her neanderthals. This book could and should have been so much shorter. Another issue I had with the writing was that she would cut the narrative short to include a scientific info dump, as if this was a documentary. It is not. This book is categorized as historical fiction, but personally I would place it at the fantasy section. Not only does this book deal with magic and spirits, but it also deals with some genuinely wild pseudoscience. She explains that the large head of the neanderthals is due to their large brains. Fair enough. The large brains are due to their extraordinary memory that allows them to recall all the information learned by their ancestors. Be for real. It's also why the neanderthals are so reluctant to change their ways, they don't want to learn because their heads will keep growing. I don't even know what to say. Going back to the writing, the info dumps make it so that you are pulled out of the story abruptly, and instead of making it an immersive experience, you're forced to watch from afar. It would have been much better to present the information in a way that the people in the story could have understood it. Like hypothermia being a cold sickness or something like that.
To be fair to Auel, she did have a monumental task in writing this book. She created a whole culture, one I don't much care for, but she did nonetheless. The period of time is a vacuum in history and she filled it to the best of her ability. Also, a lot of the information available at the time has been disproved. This will probably continue to happen as we approach anthropology with an awareness of the bias present in researchers past and present. There also have been things Auel wrote as fiction, that were later proved to be true. Like the mixing of neanderthals and cro-magnons.
Like I said, I enjoyed the book. It was incredibly simple at times, which made it very readable in my opinion. What I liked most was the found family. The love between the people at Creb's hearth was moving. The displays of humanity that one can recognize in a setting so different of one's own, well, they were touching. This is my favourite aspect of anthropology. Iza being burried with the medicinal flowers she used was sad and lovely. Burials 9f the past are such a fascinating thing. And act of love we perpetuate today. I also found the moments of genuine joy, often the ones shared with babies to be so wholesome and sweet. We have always been people, and babies have always been adorable.
It's a pity, I genuinely wanted to love this book, and at times I did, but it has some glaring issues. I want to know what will happen to Ayla next, but I think the issues will only grow so I don't know if I will pick up the next book in the series. This being an unfinished series for a long time now also makes me not want to continue.