50 in '12: #5
Feb. 14th, 2012 03:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sakon76Title: The Land of Painted Caves
Author: Jean M. Auel
Length: 757 pages
There's a particular way I read romance novels: skip all the sex scenes (boring bits) and get on to the interesting bits. My read of this novel was somewhat akin to that.
Auel has picked up a lot of bad writing habits, her editor was lazy, and honestly the book could have been tightened by a third and made much, much better. My eyes got accustomed to skimming over all the frequent relisting of characters' interpersonal ties. Also passed over were the pages spent recapping previous novels, and most of the explorations about the titular caves, once I figured out we weren't ever going to get any meaning from the paintings.
Then, toward the end, there came in the romantic stupidity and melodrama, even worse than in The Mammoth Hunters! I didn't think that was possible.
Despite my many internal mockings over the years, though, Ayla did not in fact get around to inventing the wheel. (Also, she did not invent bow and arrow.) She did, however, as the audience has long since known was coming, instigate what ultimately leads to a patriarchal society. And then she makes up with her One True Love and they go on to have more babies. That are all his because she has never even wanted to have sex with anyone else.
There were things I liked about the book. Unfortunately, there was just plain a whole lot more I didn't. Mostly it was treading ground we've already covered in the series, and the author tediously focusing on one type of archaeological artifact but refusing to make any conclusions about it. Much like her refusal to make any conclusions on patriarchy vs. her speculated matriarchy....
If you're going to play about with dangerous concepts, fence-sitting seems a weak position to take.
Verdict: Stop at The Shelters of Stone. Not recommended.
Author: Jean M. Auel
Length: 757 pages
There's a particular way I read romance novels: skip all the sex scenes (boring bits) and get on to the interesting bits. My read of this novel was somewhat akin to that.
Auel has picked up a lot of bad writing habits, her editor was lazy, and honestly the book could have been tightened by a third and made much, much better. My eyes got accustomed to skimming over all the frequent relisting of characters' interpersonal ties. Also passed over were the pages spent recapping previous novels, and most of the explorations about the titular caves, once I figured out we weren't ever going to get any meaning from the paintings.
Then, toward the end, there came in the romantic stupidity and melodrama, even worse than in The Mammoth Hunters! I didn't think that was possible.
Despite my many internal mockings over the years, though, Ayla did not in fact get around to inventing the wheel. (Also, she did not invent bow and arrow.) She did, however, as the audience has long since known was coming, instigate what ultimately leads to a patriarchal society. And then she makes up with her One True Love and they go on to have more babies. That are all his because she has never even wanted to have sex with anyone else.
There were things I liked about the book. Unfortunately, there was just plain a whole lot more I didn't. Mostly it was treading ground we've already covered in the series, and the author tediously focusing on one type of archaeological artifact but refusing to make any conclusions about it. Much like her refusal to make any conclusions on patriarchy vs. her speculated matriarchy....
If you're going to play about with dangerous concepts, fence-sitting seems a weak position to take.
Verdict: Stop at The Shelters of Stone. Not recommended.
