1/19/2024 0 Comments Jean auel![]() Due to the limitations imposed on her at the time - a suburban wife taking her first stab at fiction writing - she did not have access to the most cutting-edge papers. We know that from early on, Auel was committed to presenting the prehistoric era as accurately as possible. Either she realized that her original vision was not going to work, or she became interested in a new vision. Instead, I see a more pedestrian explanation: Auel started off with one vision and got sidetracked. I do think that the series opens itself up to this interpretation, though by sidestepping a few issues and stretching others. Though part of me wishes it were, because that would at least make the Earth's Children series far more clever and coherent than any of us imagined. In the final novel, the Clan did not appear because they did not need to appear: by the end, there was a little Clan in everyone.ĭo I think that the Crazy Theory was what Auel intended? No. How insidious of Auel to make Ayla someone the Others admired and trusted, so that they did not think to question the "truths" she taught. And gradually the Others' objections to male domination would fall away in their own society. ![]() So the Others learned that the Clan's ways were "human, just different from ours," and were taught to accept a society where men were dominant - sometimes brutally so. What better way to get Cro-Magnons used to the idea of male supremacy than to put them in greater contact with the Clan? In all the time Ayla taught the Others that the Clan were human, she never condemned their gender practices. She was ripe for cutting a swath through the Cro-Magnon Mother culture, even as she appeared to embrace the freedoms of Cro-Magnon women. Men can make babies, too? Why that's crazy talk! Whereas Ayla never had that indoctrination because she was learning that men were stronger, better, and must always be obeyed. Think about it: who better to start the shift from matriarchy to violent patriarchy than someone comfortable with the concept of male domination? It couldn't be one of the other Cro-Magnons because they grew up in cultures that promoted an all-powerful Mother who gave women her blessings. Maybe Auel always intended for her to be the proverbial Eve who eats the apple and gets humankind banished from the Garden of Eden. Maybe it was always just a big joke on us, that we believed Ayla's destiny was to do good instead of evil. Who is to say that Auel did not intend for things to unfold exactly as they did? If there is no Book Seven, though, we have to ask ourselves where the Earth's Children series went off the rails, or if it went off the rails. Or it could be drek that makes The Land of Painted Caves look like a feast of brilliant plotting and characterization. It could be the best story that she's written since The Clan of the Cave Bear, enough to dissolve our cynicism and make us fall in love with the Earth's Childrenseries all over again. Of course if Auel does produce a Book Seven, all bets are off. While Auel still seemed quite sharp in 20, the physical toll of writing - at least at the pace she knew - might be too much for her at this point. Jean Auel hinted in 2010 that she had more material and The Land of Painted Caves might not be her last, but that does not mean she is hard at work pounding out the story. ![]() I still wish that such a novel would be released, though I have little faith that it will be. Where did it all go wrong?Ī month or two after The Land of Painted Caves was released, when the cynicism had fully sunk in, I dashed off this fanfic, which detailed the plot for a proposed Book Seven.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |