In “The Land of Painted Caves”, you might want to do quit a bit of skipping, but it is not a bad story.Econoline wrote:Thanks, lib, for reminding me I've got to catch up and read the last book in the series (The Land of Painted Caves). Googling just now for information about it I found this review, which describes Ayla as a "prehistoric MacGyver"--a perfect description!
I still think that the first book was the best one, but I've kept following the series all along even though I've thought of some of the stories as "guilty pleasures"...and I do have to find out how Auel finished it up.
I would have done it a little different. For example, instead of having Denung travel the northern route form present day Ukraine to southwestern France I would have had him travel up the mother river (Danube) in the same way as Ayla snd Jondalar did so he could meet the same people and pass the info on to Ayla. You remember that ‘Denung is Ayla’s adopted Mamotio cousin. Seven years earlier when Ayla lived with the lion camp of the Mamotoi , Denung was the son the giant headman of the camp. He was just entering adolescence and had a crush on Ayla. He wanted her to be his Donii woman. He knew it was too late for her to be his sexual teacher, but I think he was hoping for a mother festival. Which brings up an interesting question: Would you walk across a continent just for the hope of being with a particular woman; how fixated would one have to be to do that?
