The Valley of Horses

I loved Clan of the Cave Bear and was happy to see that it had many reviews and was rated four and a half stars overall. When I saw that ‘Valley’ got a measly three and a half stars, (!) I was compelled to write a review.

Auel’s wonderfully lucid descriptions and rhythmic prose are a sumptuous delight that continue in ‘Valley of Horses’. The flora and fauna pop out of the book and I can almost smell the grassy herbaceousness of the meadows where Ayla lives and hunts. When I am reading valley of the horses, everything else seems to melt away and I become a part of the landscape, and a ‘fly on the wall’ in an ancient clan.

Her musings on plant life and animal behavior will delight anyone who has read Thoreau or Emerson and you will recognize in her book some of the same childish wonder you often find in Thoreau’s diaries or Emerson’s poetry.

The structure of the novel is well plotted and executed. The story flows at a pleasant pace and has a good amount of action and excitement. We are introduced to a few new characters and Ayla invents spectacular new instruments for hunting and survival. The heart of the book, in my opinion, is her relationships with the animals who are her neighbors in the valley. Even though the real climax of the book occurs when Ayla and Jondalur finally meet, the biggest part of the book deals with her isolation and her relationship with the horse who comes to mean everything to her.

Highly, highly recommend.

After being declared dead by Broud, the leader of the small band of Neanderthals who raised Ayla, the young women is forced to leave behind her son and the family who raised her. She must find her own people, humans like herself. But being along is a dangerous thing in the ice age. Ayla will need all her skills to survive.

On the other side of Europe, Jondolar and his brother Thonolan have just crossed a glacier. The two are on a Journey to reach the end of the Great Mother River (The Danube). It will be a long journey, one Jondolar isn’t sure about. But he’s aimless, without purpose. He’s searching for something without ever knowing what it is.

In a valley in the middle of a glacial tundra, Ayla and Jondolar’s destinies will change.

Auel dives back into her Earth’s Children story, building on the events of the first book while greatly expanding the scope. We get to see how neolithic humans lived during the last ice age. The various cultures and the differences between us and the neanderthals. From the greater sophistication of tools to the cultural explosion of art that came with modern man. It’s a fascinating read on how hunter-gathers lived and survived in various cultures from the river-dwelling Sharamadoi to the mammoth-hunting Mamutoi.

The level of information can almost be overwhelming but just shows the level of intelligence and skill are ancestors had. It’s easy to think of primitive humans as stupid when, in fact, they just weren’t as educated. They possessed brains just as smart as ours, and they used them to come up with novel ways to survive in the harshest of climates.

The story has a sense of inevitability, a collusion that you can’t wait to happen. It carries you through the story with a breathtaking pace. Auel continues to endear you to her characters while planting the setup for plot points that won’t matter for a few novels.

If you’re a fan of historical fiction, if you’re interested in learning about primitive man, or if you enjoy an engrossing story, then you have to read Auel’s Earth Children story.

“The Valley of Horses” is book two, of a six book series written by Jean Auel. I loved every one of them, without exception, until the last one: “The Land of Painted Caves”. Started reading this series in print, long before Kindle made it’s appearance; the first books came out in a timely manner, but the last one took YEARS, and when it finally did come to be, I felt like the author had been pressured to finish, rather than leaving everyone hanging. That being said: if you enjoy some education with your reading, you’ll love these. Mrs. Auel is obviously a very intelligent person who was diligent in her research, I just wish I hadn’t been so disappointed in the last one.

I was introduced to this series of books about 15 years ago while I was living in the United Kingdom.
The subject matter is not one I would have chosen for leisure reading, so when my husband suggested the first book in the series, Clan of the Cave Bear, I was sceptical about the possibility that I would enjoy reading it.
Prior to reading the series, I considered the subject matter one that is usually encountered in history class in elementary or high school.
I was entirely and happily wrong in my initial estimation of what the experience of immersing myself in the books would be like.
Far from being dry and extraneously verbose, the Earth’s Children series is delightful and I was drawn into Ayla and Jondalar’s world in a way that I rarely experience in works of fiction.
I highly recommend this series for both young readers and adults.
The only criticism I have is that the final two books tended to include too many recitations of The Mother’s Song, as well as a bit too much detail of a descriptive nature with regard to Ayla and Jondalar’s sexual encounters.
I am curious to know if Jean Auel will ever write any further sequels which could explore Jonayla’s childhood and adulthood.
Could be really great as long as the story line paid attention to not only changes in Jonayla’s life, but also changes in the world around the people who lived in that time period.

The juxtaposition of Neanderthal man and early Homo Erectus comes to life in the way that Jean M Auel creates characters and develops themes on their activities in their daily lives.

Much of the truth behind the fiction comes from her intimate knowledge of the ancient cave dwellings in which they lived and depicted animals and scenes from their daily lives. Hunting, fishing, using spears and other tools. The remains of flint pieces which they used for cutting and many other everyday jobs.

Jean Auel brings it all to life and twists the lines of her themes and subjects together in the most fascinating and indeed magical way.

I read these books fifteen years ago in hardback form. I knew I wanted to revisit them, so I purchased them for kindle reading. Not a second of the time spent so far has been wasted. Quite the opposite.

Read the Clan of The Cave Bear first and follow them through in the order in which they were written. You cannot fail to enjoy them and learn to love the characters within them.