Wait ... what?

[savvyliterate]

The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Oooooookay, then.

So, I pretty much speed-read through Land of Painted Caves to see how the story finishes. You know, since is reportedly the final book in the Earth's Children series. Pretty much, skip all the really long descriptions of caves and you can finish the book in a few hours. My impression? Let me say this, how would you feel if J.K. Rowling suddenly decided to stop writing Harry Potter after Half-Blood Prince? Sorry, no final battle for you. No knowing if Ron and Hermione ever get together, if Voldemort is ever defeated, or even if Harry lives to turn 17. Sorry folks. JKR has taken her millions and headed to Aruba and we don't get the end of the story.

That's essentially what this book is. It's not winding down the story. Instead, it only opened several new plotlines, fails to answer some of the really big questions about old plots that have dangled like carrots for years and recycles one plot in a way that it makes the end of Slayers Evolution-R look like the most original piece of media ever. I do give the characters credit for realizing this is the same plot take two, and because the first plot point happened, it alluded to this possibly happening again.

The thing is that overall, this wasn't a bad book. Oh yes, I rolled my eyes at all the mentions of how perfect Jondalar and Ayla are. To their credit, their flaws do show up. What's not to the book's credit is how suddenly Jean M. Auel hits the brakes, swings the car into the opposing turn lane, and proceeds to spectacularly run over them in order to set up the end of the book.



Throughout the book, Jondalar and Ayla are shown to be the model married couple. In a society where being sexually intimate with other people is acceptable (the huge revelation at the end is that you can't have kids without men, thus the concept of monogamy begins to really become popular), they choose to only be with each other. Neither one of them when given the opportunity chooses anyone else.

And Ayla's duties takes her away from Jondalar and Jonayla, their daughter, a lot. She has to undergo periods of fasting, abstinence and travel. Through it all, Jondalar is patient, helps care for their daughter and supports his wife, often accompanying her and growing himself through those travels. Again, never indicating he even wants anyone else, and Auel has never missed an opportunity in the past to express if he had, and that all he wants is Ayla.

Suddenly, in order to drive Jondalar and Ayla apart so Jondalar can pull Ayla back from the spirit world with the power of his love at the end of the book, Auel reveals that he's been having an affair with his ex so he doesn't bother Ayla during her studies and travels. And, hey, this is OK because he was born with great passions and they must be fulfilled.

This rather pisses me off. A lot. In a society where monogamy isn't all that common and people do at times take different partners, Auel spent three books drilling into the reader's head that Jondalar and Ayla are very, very monogamous and only want each other. The only time either of them had sexual intercourse with another person was during a period in the third book where they were no longer together and Ayla was engaged to someone else. I don't even think Jondalar had sex with anyone then, but I'm probably wrong about that.

So, after all of this, I'm suddenly suppose to believe that Jondalar is so damn horny that he'd go sticking it in anyone, not just his ex, before being with Ayla? And that he's abandoned the daughter he's been so devoted to in order to do this? And there's no hint of this beforehand? There's only two sex scenes in the novel, and both times it's apparent that both Jondalar and Ayla have abstained for a period of time prior to this. I'm having a really hard time buying this affair.

Hi, Jondalar. Meet your right hand. Right hand, meet genitals. You're no stranger to this concept. I have read Valley of Horses.

There were other ways to set up this scene where Jondalar needed to pull Ayla back from the spirit world. Ayla had just miscarried. That's drama on its own. There could have been an implied affair with all the busyness and lack of communication causing the separation, which is exactly how things happened in The Mammoth Hunters. And, hey, Jondalar could have actually remained true to the spirit of his character by revealing that Marlona kept trying and he refused. As long as we're recycling old plots, just go ahead and do that.

I will give Auel credit for both Ayla and Jondalar realizing the sequence of events happening surrounding the affair and what happened after was both their faults, and they finally deal with it like adults. And, yes, these things do happen at times and bad things happen to good people.

What the hell is so wrong with having a happily married couple in a healthy monogamous relationship? Not to mention as well that one of the key character arcs surrounding Jondalar, especially in Valley of Horses, is that he kept trying to find someone he could love. And for all of the Pleasures he has given other women, he hasn't been able to find it until he falls in love with Ayla. That was the beauty of the entire relationship. Really, he was like the prehistoric version of Roarke in the In Death series. Plenty of girlfriends, but not the one that captured his heart. Can you imagine the backlash if Roarke did something like this? Well, Eve would gut him and hang his entrails from the flagpole outside Cop Central. But I digress ...

There was a better way for Auel to arrive at her ending without Jondalar cheating. There was enough pressure on both of them that it could cause issues in any marriage. If we even had a hint of Jondalar not being happy the forced celibacy at times, I could buy this a bit easier. But, I can't. I'm not sure if I'll get the hardcover version of this now. If there is a 7th book (and I'm hearing mutterings that there might be after all), I'm not sure if I'll get it. I'm that disappointed in you, Jean M. Auel.



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