Earth's Children #1 - The Clan of the Cave Bear

This novel was a worldwide bestseller. I stumbled upon it by chance, in my huge library of used books. I don't know where I got it. I don't even know why I started it. But once I started, I couldn't stop...

Ayla is a Cro-magnon. She is blonde, slender, has a big head and a small neck. But these are not her only strange deformities: when she is sad, her eyes flood with water...

One day, this Cro-magnon lands in the clan of the Neanderthals. During an earthquake, when she was still a baby, she escaped the claws of a rabid tigress, before being saved from death by Iza, the healer of the Cave Bear Clan.

This clan has never had to deal with such a strangeness. They are all afraid of the Spirits, who cause natural disasters, and who might get angry at the arrival of an "Other". Moreover, this new girl is rebellious. She likes to venture away from the cave, and she does not easily accept to be subjected to men, as it is the duty of women to do.

But at the same time, the Clan does not dare to kill her, because she brings them luck. She is the one who finds their new cave, she saves two of the Clan's children from death, and she has an inordinate intelligence. She can even count time, an abstraction reserved for the Mog-ur, the most powerful of the powerful...

Throughout the novel, Ayla oscillates between love and hate and comes close to dying. When she learns to hunt, she receives the ultimate curse, which condemns her to a month's expulsion. Then, she is raped by the chief's son, and almost dies of her pregnancy. She finally gives birth to another being deformed like her, which makes her have her existence questioned by the clan. She even breaks the sacred bowl of the healers, which has been passed from generation to generation, which the Mog-ur does not appreciate.

A novel rich in documentation, which informs us about the life of the cavemen while making us dream. We witness grandiose mammoth hunts and frightening rituals. But above all, we get attached to this strange woman, who is our ancestor, and who is so much stronger than us.

—

The edition I have in my hand dates from 1980. You can find it in paperback in the Pocket edition.

—

Jean M. Auel

Éditions Balland

351 p.

12,95 $