Resumo de The Clan Of The Cave Bear

ABOUT THE AUTHOR :
Jean Marie Auel was born in Chicago, Illinois, as the second of five children. Her father was a housepainter. After high school she married Ray Bernard Auel in 1954. they had five children. In 1965-66 she worked as a clerk in Beaverton, Oregon, then as a circuit board designer (1966-1973), technical writer (1973-74), and a credit manager (1974-1976). Auel studied at Portland State University, Oregon and University of Portland, receiving her M.B.A. in 1976, at the age of forty. In the same year she got the idea for a story about a girl, Ayla, living amongst people who are different from her. She left her work in a Portland electronics plant and devoted herself entirely to writing.
The idea started to grow and after two years of intense research the manuscript for a large prehistoric romance was finished. During the writing process Auel had learned ancient hunting methods, tanning methods, how to knapp flint and prepare food from caribou brain. She had difficulties to find a publisher for her work, especially because she planned to continued the story in five subsequent books. The Clan of the Cave Bear, the first in the Earth's Children Series, appeared in 1980 and became an immediate success. Auel's story of self-discovery, The Ugly Duckling set in the ancient times, was translated into several languages, among others into Finnish - Auel's grandparents, families Untinen and Virtanen, originated from Finland, Ostrobothnian region, known for its independent and enterprising people.
The first book in the series is a story of survival. An orphaned Cro-Magnon child, Ayla, is adopted by the Neanderthal Clan of the Cave Bear. She grows up in the Neanderthal community, which is ruled by traditions and taboos. Before dipping in and disturbing the mirrored surface, she leaned over and looked at herself. She studied her features carefully; she didn't seem so ugly this time, but it wasn't herself she was interested in. She wanted to see the face of the Others. (from The Clan of the Cave Bear) Ayla is considered a misfit, and her rebelling against male dominance is punished. However, as a blond, blue-eyed woman she is more than a typical Aryan heroine - she is Cleopatra, Marie Curie, Mother Teresa and Tarzan's Jane in the same person. Her intelligence separates her from the other tribe members, although physically she is submitted to the leader of the Neanderthals. Finally she is forced to leave her son and to seek her own destiny. In The Valley of Horses (1983) Ayla continues her search for the Others, her own race. She learns the secrets of fire, and is helped by animals. The story introduces Ayla's mate Jondalar, a Cro-Magnon man, also tall and yellow-haired. The Mammoth Hunters (1985) presents a triangle drama between Ayla, the dark-skinned Ranec, and jealous Jondalar. Ayla also finds her first women friends among the tribe of Mamutoi and learns the customs and language of the Others. In Plains of Passage (1990) Ayla treks with Jondalar through the grasslands of Ice Age Europe to reach a place they can call home. Jondalar is captured by man-hating women and rescued by Ayla. In the end of the story Ayla is happily pregnant. Before Auel continued her story, readers had to wait 12 years.
In the fifth book, The Shelters of Stone (2002), Ayla struggles for her place in Jondalar's tribe, the Zelendonii. She was a stranger, a disturbing stranger who brought animals and who knew what other threatening foreign ways and outrageous ideas. Would they accept her? What if they didn't? She couldn't go back, her people lived more than a year's travel to the east. Jolandar had promised that he would leave with her if she wanted - or was forced - to go, but that was before he saw everyone, before he was greeted so warmly. How would he feel now?" Ayla and Jondalar prepare for the formal mating at the Summer Meeting, she faces Jondalar's former lover, Marona, and proves her skills as a healer. The fifth installment wintment for Katherine A. Powers, who wrote in The Washington Post: "It strikes one as being a romance for people who fantasize about going into business -- something with a strong emphasis on crafts and home products and professional conferences. In other words, the spirit of Martha Stewart informs the pages as much as the Great Mother's does.The series continues...

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