The Plains of Passage

Yikes, this book was hard to get through. Super-Cro Magnons Ayla and Jondalar leave their happy situation with the Mamutoi in quest of Jondalar’s people, the Zelandoni, which involves traveling all across prehistoric Europe. If you don’t understand what I just said, you are obviously not familiar with the series at all and should stop reading this review, since it is about book 5 in a long long series. If an epic journey across ice-age Europe sounds like an interesting novel, look elsewhere or write your own. This one is pretty terrible. Anyways, continuing with the synopsis, since Ayla and Jondalar are super, they have tamed horses, can heal all wounds with plants, and make great time. This is really wonderful since they need to cross a glacier before spring! If they don’t get there in time, they might have to resort to….. staying in a comfortable cave until next winter with friends. And Jondalar Really Wants to Get Home!

Reaching the glacier is the main source of tension of the novel, coupled with the fact that people might not welcome Ayla and Jondalar with their flathead-friendly ways and their scary abilities to ride horses and tame animals. Flatheads, of course, are Neanderthals – the people who raised Ayla when she was abandoned as a child. Also, what if Ayla gets pregnant? Oh wait, of course she knows what plants to eat to avoid pregnancy. Phew! Oh no – now Jondalar thinks he is not man enough to make a baby with Ayla, but she can’t tell him about her medicine because of reasons.

The problem with the book, besides contrived and stupid drama that occasionally bubbles up btw the happy couple, is that it is slow slow slow. They travel, observe animals and the landscape, they meet people, people realize how awesome Ayla is and want to adopt her and Jondalar. The flathead discrimination always dissolves before it can be an issue. Ayla and Jondalar never stay, though Ayla really wants to stop travelling. Everybody reacts the same way to A+J and they tell their story so often it is like Groundhog Day turned into a novel. Same Same Same. Un-sexy sex is had many times. The plants are described many times. Can you possibly imagine how many uses their are for cattails? Have you ever wanted to make a parfleche out of rawhide? Do you really want to read in excruciating detail how to bang flint rocks together to make tools? Perhaps you are interested in the ecological conditions necessary to create Loess Steppes? If you read the earlier books, you already know, but will get to read over and over again here.

There is one delightfully ridiculous interlude, involving a woman-ran group of prehistoric people. This group is imprisoning men, treating them terribly, and keeping women far away from the imprisoned men. Auel’s prehistoric people for some reason all don’t realize babies are made via the act of sex. They all believe it is due to swallowing spirits. Of course, super-Ayla is starting to put two-and-two together on this one, but no one else seems to have even thought of it. This crazy tribe decides to have an all-female society by isolating the men from the women. Thus only woman-spirits will be floating around to be swallowed, and only girl babies will be born. Of course Ayla, with a little help from Jondalar, solves all of their problems before rushing away to get to that glacier, but this is a nice divergence from the main story.

Sadly this book is a masterwork of plot structure compared to the next TWO novels in this series. I recommend readers of this series stop here and read no further. The first book is charming, but the series does not live up to the beginning.

This whole series is so unusual, and compelling. Actually I liked books 1 through 3 better than this one, but I still would not have missed this one; and it sets it up for a really good book 5. Much of this book occurs in travel between cave villages with much description of flora, fauna, landscapes, etc. which I did not enjoy as much as the interactions. But there were memorable village visits, and I love how different each experience is and how much we learn about our intrepid travelers from each stop. Although I mostly read books via kindle, these books are long and the hardcover books have big-enough print for old eyes so I am enjoying reading “real” books for this entire series. But, you must start with “Clan of the Cave Bear,” do not read this book until you have first read the first three in the series. I don’t think you would like it otherwise.

Having recently reread the first three volumes in the Earth’s Children saga, I learned of the last three and ordered them all. Eagerly awaiting their arrival, I then read reviews. This volume was out of print, so I’m reading it last. Having started it, I’ve put it down, not because I already know what’s going to happen, but because, as with the sequels, it is tedious. It seems unlikely that anyone would begin here, but many prior events are often revisited and descriptive material, concerning plants for example, is repetitive.

I Love the Valley of the Horses, the Mammoth Hunters and the Plains of Passage! To me, they are best three books ever! Ayla and Jondalar kept me company through many rough patches in life from Middle School to middle age. I STRONGLY DISLIKE THE NEW COVERS!! i only ordered this book because the cover shown is the original GOOD ONE with Ayla, Jondalar, Whinney and Wolf! I would leave a negative 10 stars for recieving something that was NOT pictured. It’s false advertisement and sheer laziness on the seller. So very disappointed.

For me this was a rather long and drawn-out read, while I enjoyed it, I felt it could have been a lot shorter than it is. Or it could have been summed up in another installment, as it got tedious as it went along. There is a lot that happens here or maybe it doesn’t, depending on how one choses to look at it. If I’m to be completely honest, this is my least favorite book in the series, a bit slow perhaps, but good overall, if you can make it through to the end…And I almost stopped, I’m glad I didn’t though, as it will be very interesting for me at least, to see where the story goes from this point on.