Shelters of Stone, The (Earth's ChildrenA )
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Shelters of Stone, The (Earth's ChildrenA ) description
Jean Auel's fifth novel about Ayla, the Cro-Magnon cavewoman raised by Neanderthals, is the biggest comeback bestseller in Amazon.com history. In The Shelters of Stone, Ayla meets the Zelandonii tribe of Jondalar, the Cro-Magnon hunk she rescued from Baby, her pet lion. Ayla is pregnant. How will Jondalar's mom react? Or his bitchy jilted fiancée? Ayla wows her future in-laws by striking fire from flint and taming a wild wolf. But most regard her Neanderthal adoptive Clan as subhuman "flatheads." Clan larynxes can't quite manage language, and Ayla must convince the Zelandonii that Clan sign language isn't just arm-flapping. Zelandonii and Clan are skirmishing, and those who interbreed are deemed "abominations." What would Jondalar's tribe think if they knew Ayla had to abandon her half-breed son in Clan country? The plot is slow to unfold, because Auel's first goal is to pack the tale with period Pleistocene detail, provocative speculation, and bits of romance, sex, tribal politics, soap opera, and homicidal wooly rhino-hunting adventure. It's an enveloping fact-based fantasy, a genre-crossing time trip to the Ice Age. --Tim Appelo |
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Shelters of Stone, The (Earth's ChildrenA ) Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
such a let-down
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This book was a disappointment. Like so many others, I had fallen in love with the characters and couldn't wait to see what would happen when Ayla finally met Jondalar's people. Talk about a let-down!
Clan of the Cave Bear was such a good story with well-developed characters whom we got to know well. Even the minor characters were developed; for example, we knew that Ovra was shy and reticent, that Aba and Aga picked on Ayla in the hope of building themselves up in Broud's eyes, that Ika was friendly and outgoing, and that Goov loved his mentor and adored his barren wife. Even those most minor of characters were real people. The plot-line was solid; Ayla had lost her family and had to learn to fit in with a completely different type of people to whom she could not even speak. The only thing I never liked about that book was the long passages describing the flora and fauna; it would have been far better for Mrs Auel to work her research into her storyline. Instead, the research was completely separate. But my sister liked those research passages, and we all loved the book.
The Valley of Horses was compelling. I got bored with the long-winded descriptions of how to make a boat, but the characters were again richly developed. The conflict between Jondalar and Ayla as they struggle with their different backgrounds was realistic and gripping. The reader became a part of the struggle and desperately wanted these two to get together and accept their love. It was very emotionally stirring with a solid plotline: Jondalar is traveling against his will, wondering what is the point to life, and finally meets the woman of his dreams. Ayla, meanwhile, has grown up as different and ugly and never fully accepted, believing she will live alone forever, and finally she meets a man who treats her as a rare jewel instead of merely tolerating her. VoH is an unashamed love story.
Initially, I was very unhappy with the Mammoth Hunters, because I couldn't bear the thought of my two well-loved characters being apart and so unhappy. I actually cried (which shows that it was well-written). But the writing was rich with well-developed characters and a solid plot-line: Ayla has a completely different way of thinking from the Others, but she must learn to live with her own kind, while Jondalar must make a choice between his comfortable past or starting life with a very unusual woman. MH was realistic. Not everyone accepts her unconditionally: Tulie reserves judgment and Frebec can't stand her throughout much of the book. At the summer meeting, when everyone finds out about Ayla's Clan background, many continue in their blind prejudice while others overcome their revulsion. This was a realistic reaction. Overall, MH was a well-written and compelling story.
The Plains of Passage was not so great. The plot-line was destined to be boring: the long journey back to the Zelandonii was rather redundant, with lots of traveling and then meeting people, and Ayla's background coming out, and then the revulsion and then acceptance, and then the whole thing over again. The traveling sequences were especially dull; lots of descriptions of the landscape, Pleasures, and that's about it. At least Auel gave us some little different adventure at each stopover; we had the broken arm of Roshario and revelation of the facts around Doraldo's death at the Sharamudoi, the evil leader of the Sharmunai, the rape of Madenia at the Losadunii, and the acceptance of Echozar by the Lanzadonii. Thus Plains of Passage was salvaged from utter boredom by Auel's addition of various conflicts to overcome throughout the book. And Auel developed many of the minor characters along the journey; in spite of their brief visits with all those different groups, the readers got to know many or the secondary characters well.
Shelters of Stone, on the other hand, was pointless. We're all still trying to figure out what was the plot-line! OK, I know, it's supposed to be Ayla learning to fit in with the Zelandonii while struggling with the pressure to become a shaman. But what a mess Auel made with the story! First of all, none of the characters was developed. After 750+ pages, we still have only superficial knowledge of anyone in the Zelandonii. And where is the struggle to fit in with these people? We spent the previous three books with constant stress over whether or not Jondalar's people would like Ayla, to the point that they almost didn't go back, and now she just waltzes in and fits in like she's always lived there. No one cares about her Clan background. Heck, they even have an "abomination" living with them (Brukeval)! I'm sorry, but that was just too unrealistic after all the agony Ayla's background brought into their lives in the previous books. There should have been a huge reaction to Ayla's clan upbringing, just as there was at the Mamutoi summer meeting. Then there was the introduction of so MANY different minor characters, none of whom was ever developed to any degree. Was Auel having a contest with herself to see how many names she could come up with?
The plotline of SoS was actually the same plotline as the Mammoth Hunters: Ayla has to learn to fit in with a group of people in spite of her background, and she is pressured to train as a shaman. The only difference is in the subplots: in MH, Ranec lures Ayla away from Jondalar as J struggles with his feelings, while in SoS, uh..... there was no compelling subplot to rope us into the story. Both books cover the same amount of time (about 8-9 months), but SoS is just so pointless. Why did Auel write this book? What was the story? All we saw was Ayla introduced to a bunch of different people, so many that we can't even remember their names. She goes hunting with her new people: whooptie-do. She sees cave paintings, attends the summer meeting, and comes home. There was no story here, folks! This could have been a look into the life of my next-door-neighbor!
I believe that SoS would have been a compelling and worthwhile book if Auel had bothered to develop a few select minor characters, just as she did in all the previous stories. Where she went wrong in SoS was to introduce dozens and dozens of new people and then to have them all parade through the pages of her research without a single person standing out. Not even Zolena or Marthona is developed to any degree. Ayla should have had personal and deep relationships (good and bad) with a few individuals. These few people could then go do all those things Auel wanted them to do. But there should have been real people doing them. In Shelters of Stone, not even Jondalar was a three-dimensional person. And Ayla herself was almost 2-D.
The book was truly disappointing. |
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