by Jean M. Auel
The woman nodded. There was no point in even thinking about how long the Journey would take, or what would happen when they arrived. Better to think of each day as it came, and plan only for the next day or two. Better not to worry about Jondalar’s people, and whether they would accept her as one of them the way the Mamutoi had.
“I wish it would stop blowing,” she commented.
“I am tired of eating grit, too,” Jondalar said. “Why don’t we go visit our neighbors, and see if we can get something better to eat.”
They took Wolf with them when they returned to Feather Grass Camp, but Ayla kept him close. They joined a group that had gathered near a fire over which a large rump was spitted. Conversation was slow to start, but it wasn’t long before curiosity became warm interest and fearful reserve gave way to animated talk. The few people who inhabited those periglacial steppes had little opportunity to meet anyone new, and the excitement of this chance encounter would fuel discussions and fill the stories of Falcon Camp for a long time to come. Ayla became friendly with several of the people, particularly a young woman with a baby daughter just at the age of sitting unassisted and laughing out loud, who charmed them all, but mostly Wolf.
The young mother was very nervous at first when the animal singled out her child for his solicitous attention, but when his eager licks made her giggle with delight, and he showed gentle restraint, even when she grabbed handfuls of fur and pulled, everyone was surprised.
The other children were eager to touch him, and before long Wolf was playing with them. Ayla explained that the wolf had grown up with the children of Lion Camp, and probably missed them. He had always been especially gentle with the very young, or the weak, and he seemed to know the difference between the unintentional overzealous squeeze from a toddler and the purposeful pull of a tail or ear by an older child. He allowed the former with patient forebearance, and he repaid the latter with a warning growl, or a gentle nip that did not break skin but showed that he could.
Jondalar mentioned that they had recently left the Summer Meeting, and Rutan told them that necessary repairs to their earthlodge had delayed their departure or they would have been there. He asked Jondalar about his travels and about Racer, with many people listening. They seemed more reluctant to question Ayla, and she didn’t volunteer much, though the mamut would have liked to have taken her aside for private discussions of more esoteric subjects, but she preferred to stay with the Camp. Even the headwoman was more relaxed and friendly by the time they headed back to their own camp, and Ayla asked her to pass on her love and remembrances to Lion Camp when they finally reached the Summer Meeting.
That night, Ayla lay awake thinking. She was glad she had not let natural hesitation about joining the Camp that had been less than welcoming stop her. Given the opportunity to overcome their fear of the strange or unknown, they had been interested and willing to learn. She had learned, too, that traveling with such unusual companions was likely to inspire strong reactions from anyone they might happen to meet along the way. She had no idea what to expect, but there could be little doubt that this Journey was going to be far more challenging than she had imagined.
An Interview with Jean M. Auel
Random House: While your novels focus on a civilization of the past, there is a very modern theme that runs throughout, of Ayla struggling to achieve equality with her peers. When you first created this dynamic character, how much thought did you put into giving her modern sensibilities?
Jean M. Auel: The reason there is a modern sensibility to my characters is that those Cro-Magnon “cavemen” were modern people, the first modern humans in Europe. I researched my characters as much as every other aspect of this early culture. My information is based on the knowledge of today’s scientists, not the antiquarians of the nineteenth century whose views, unfortunately, are still held by too many. I have traveled to many of the locations where those early humans lived and have become acquainted with many professionals who study them, some of whom have shown me remarkable sites, including extraordinary painted and engraved caves.
Those early modern humans called Cro-Magnon were the first people who not only had skeletons like ours but were like us in many other ways, which can be convincingly demonstrated by the archaeological record. They were our many-times-great-grandparents; whatever qualities we claim for ourselves, we must grant them. They had the same range of intelligence that we do, the same emotional responses and psychological reactions, the same ease and facility with language, the same talents, skills, and abilities. And they had a remarkable creative impulse. I’ve seen it, and it certainly convinced me. Neanderthals are still unknowns, but they were far more advanced than most of us imagine; they were also human with brains larger than the average today. There were differences between us, but they were our close cousins. Once I learned this, I knew I could write the story of a young Cro-Magnon woman raised by a clan of Neanderthals who then finds her way back to her own kind of people. Ayla’s struggle creates tension and conflict, but it is not a modern theme. It is a universal theme. It’s natural, part of the human condition, to want to be accepted. People understand this and always have.
RH: Your research is praised throughout the world for its accuracy and detail. Can you tell us a bit about your process?
JA: Most of the information comes from reading and library research, but I have also learned a great deal from asking questions, taking classes, and traveling. For example, I took a class from an expert in arctic survival, where we spent a night on the snowy slopes of a nearby mountain to learn how to live in cold conditions. From a class in aboriginal life skills, I learned how people live off the land, and how to brain-tan a deer hide into wearable buckskin. I’ve taken plant identification classes and classes on how to cook wild foods. Ayla’s medicine-woman skills come from a combination of first-aid books, books on herbal medicines, and asking questions of doctors and other skilled health practitioners like nurses and paramedics. I have visited many of the sites I write about to get a feel for them, even though conditions are most likely different now. I even worked for a short time at an archaeological dig so I could understand where information comes from and how scientists find it.
RH: How much in your books is based on fact, and how much is fiction? That is, do you fill in the gaps left by history?
JA: My books are entirely fiction, based on as much factual information as I could find on their subjects. They take place 30,000 years ago, and the only things left from that time are hard objects—things made of stone and bone, such as stone tools, carved items, animal and human skeletal remains—and, as it turns out, microscopic residues. Pollen has been found in Neanderthal graves. Hair from various animals and DNA traces of animal blood from stones and knives add information. Inference fills in a certain amount. For example, if the skeleton of an old Neanderthal man shows that from a young age he had been blind in one eye, had had an arm amputated, and walked with a limp, it is fair to surmise that he was not hunting woolly mammoths, which raises interesting questions: Who amputated his arm? Who stopped the bleeding? Who treated the shock? How did he live to be an old man? Obviously someone took care of him; the question is why? Could it have been because they loved him? Or that his culture took care of their weak and wounded? Perhaps “red in tooth and claw” is not an appropriate way to describe those enigmatic human cousins.
RH: The Earth’s Children® series is an epic adventure spanning many years. Have you always known where the story is going, or has each book been planned separately?
JA: When I started, my question was “I wonder if I could write a short story?” Then I got into the research and got all fired up, and I realized I was writing a book. At the time, I was calling it Earth’s Children®, and as it grew, I thought it would be one big saga that fell easily into six parts. I wrote about 450,000 words, and thought I would cut when I rewrote it. But when I started to reread it, I realized that I didn’t know how to write fiction, so I read books about how to write a novel. W
hen I went back and began rewriting the book, instead of editing and cutting down, I found that putting in the dialogue and the scenes to make a story made it grow. It was with some surprise and trepidation that I came to realize that each of the separate parts was a complete story, and that I had a six-book series. I have been working from that original rough draft as an outline for the series, so I have always known, more or less, where the story is going.
RH: Your own books have a great heroine in Ayla. Who is your favorite literary heroine?
JA: I don’t really have one. It may once have been the princess in the fairy tale “East of the Sun and West of the Moon,” which my favorite sixth-grade teacher read to the class. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I think the reason is that in this fairy tale, the man is captured and the princess has to perform feats of skill to save him. That was the trouble with so many of the books I read when I was young. The ones I liked were full of action and adventure, but it was always the men who were acting and adventuring. I never identified with the heroine that was sitting around waiting to be rescued. I was with the hero, snick-snicking with the sword, or whatever. I still identify with the one actively making the story happen, and I enjoy both male and female protagonists. I don’t think it was a conscious decision, but when I started writing, I wanted to write about a woman who did interesting things. I guess that’s why she is a heroine.
RH: What advice would you give to an aspiring writer?
JA: You learn to write by writing, and by reading and thinking about how writers have created their characters and invented their stories. If you are not a reader, don’t even think about being a writer. If you want to write, don’t say you want to do it someday, don’t wait until the spirit moves you: Sit down and do it every day, or at least on some kind of regular basis. But I would warn those who aspire to it that writing fiction is the hardest work I have ever done. Sometimes words don’t want to come. For me, the way to get past writer’s block, or whatever those periods are called, is to sit and put down one word after another. I may not even keep that work, though often I do. It doesn’t matter. I need to get something written. Inspiration happens when you are working at it. At other times I can be so completely immersed in the story that I don’t know where the time has gone, but when I get up, I’m drained. I have poured everything I have into the work—and sometimes I find myself finding ways to stall before I sit down to work the next time. But for all the effort, it’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.
Coming Spring 2011
The highly anticipated sixth book of
Jean M. Auel’s Earth’s Children® series,
The Land of Painted Caves, is the
culmination fans have been waiting for!
Continuing the story of Ayla and Jondalar, Auel combines her brilliant narrative skills and appealing characters with a remarkable re-creation of the way life was lived more than 25,000 years ago. The Land of Painted Caves is an exquisite achievement by one of the world’s most beloved authors.
The Land of Painted Caves
A Novel
$30.00 hardcover (Canada: $35.00)
978-0-517-58051-6
Available wherever books are sold
Also available as an eBook and a Large Print edition
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JEAN M. AUEL is an international phenomenon. Her books have sold 34 million copies worldwide. Her extensive research has earned her the respect of archaeologists and anthropologists around the world. She lives with her husband, Ray, in Oregon, where she is at work on the final book in the Earth’s Children® series.