perelgut@utai.UUCP (Stephen Perelgut) (01/13/86)
The Valley of Horses Jean M. Auel Bantam Books, 1982 (paperback) This is the second book in the Earth's Children Series by Jean Auel. This is my second time through this book, in preparation for reading the next book in the series, "The Mammoth Hunters". The first 350 or so pages of the 550 page tome are split between Ayla's continuing saga in the Valley of Horses and the story of two brothers, Jondalar and Thonolan, who are undertaking a Journey. Ayla has been cursed and is now living on her own. She still thinks of herself more as Clan than Other, and in some ways this is more a story of her acceptance of her heritage and destiny than anything else. I found myself getting pretty impatient for the two story lines to join. I remember when I first read this book, I felt pretty much the same way. But Auel has adopted a dime-novel romance style and obviously wanted to exploit it fully. Substitute a castle turret for the cave and you almost have a classic gothic romance. But mixed in are details of life as a human being 30,000 B.C. In spite of the rather trashy romantic interludes (our heroine is a tall, slender, gorgeous blond with large breasts - and she thinks she's ugly; our hero is a 6'6" tall muscular blond who is repeatedly described as irresistably sexy and unbelievably tender and the best lover in at least 3 tribes) I love Ms Auel's imagery. However, the power of the images makes the first 350 or so pages disconcerting to read since they alternate between our hero (oh yeah, he has a large cock and knows how to use it), and our heroine. I found it was best at times to put the book down at the end of a chapter and come back to it in a few minutes. At other times, I couldn't put it down even though I've read it before. I found this book very hard to rate. There are places where it is as good as anything I've ever read, and there are places where it is as bad as I imagine Harlequin romances would be. There's a good 100-or-so pages where the lover's are desperately yearing for each other and yet very depressed over the fact that the other "won't like them." And these are people who discover how to use flint and iron to make fire; and how to make a spear thrower given the concepts of spear and slingshot; and learn how to talk in a couple of days. On my scale of -4 to +4, I think I'd rate this a +2. There are probably 250-300 pages worth of +4, and almost as many that I'd rate -2 or worse. It's the description of the land and how to survive, and the believability that earns this book my final rating. You'll probably enjoy reading it, and if you hit a bad spot, just remember there'll be a diamond just beyond that cesspool. -- Stephen Perelgut Computer Systems Research Institute, University of Toronto