The Land of Painted Caves

By: Jean M. Auel

Narrated by: Rowena Cooper

THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES concludes the story of Ayla, her mate Jondalar, and their little daughter, Jonayla, taking readers on a journey of discovery and adventure as Ayla struggles to find a balance between her duties as a new mother and her training to become a Zelandoni - one of the Ninth Cave community's spiritual leaders and healers.

Once again, Jean Auel combines her brilliant narrative skills and appealing characters with a remarkable re-creation of the way life was lived thousands of years ago, rendering the terrain, dwelling places, longings, beliefs, creativity and daily lives of Ice Age Europeans as real to the reader as today's news.


(P)2011 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd©2011 Jean M. Auel

Critic reviews

Jean Auel's amazing, ground-breaking series reaches a stunning conclusion. . . . . If you ever wondered what it was like for the first reasoning humans, this is the perfect way to learn. It's as though Auel has opened up a time portal, travelled with and lived with actual human beings as they begin their journey towards the people we are today. Moving and majestic, this story sweeps all before it and encompasses everything we know about our ancestors as they trek through central Europe and set up home in the caves there. All life is here in all its glory, the loves, the jealousy, the rivalry, the medicines . . . A compelling historical drama with every modern trait of the human being, but set in the days when the world was young. Magnificent, and a privilege to be able to read it. You must read this.

She deftly creates a whole world, giving a sense of the origins of class, ethnic and cultural differences that alternately divide and fascinate us today. Among modern epic spinners, Auel has few peers.

Incredibly poignant and relevant to today

She does have a most extraordinary talent for recreating lost worlds

Repetitive

I have always loved this series, and remember reading book 1-3 many times. Something in me always stopped there, but with the audiobooks, I continued. Books 4-6 is very repetitive, and there have been segments I have jumped forward a lot. in-between the repetitive segments, where we get "new story", the story is excellent. But it takes away somewhat that old parts of the story drones on like that. You could really read books 1-3, and 6. I was also a bit disappointed that the really interesting part came so late in this book, and instead of going into it, it felt rushed. But it feels good to have a conclusion. If I ever read again, I'll go back to book 1-3, and just remember the later parts.

Fantastic, emotional journey 😊

The journey that Ayla and Jondular's started so long ago still packs a punch. This is such an book and I hope this is not the end, we as the reader go through so much together and there are so many obstacles for them to overcome in their journey together that you are drawn into. A very very well written and researched book, I can't wait for more, there are so many paths to follow and so many things left unsaid.
A truly wonderful series, a huge well done to the author and all the people that researched the time period, lived it all through Ayla and Jondular's journey xx

The conclusion of the series!

A really good book, but you have to read the full series. I read them about 20 years ago and this was a long awaited finale!

Repetition

struggled to finish. it's just repetitions and not a lot happening at all. should had stopped after the second book while it was good.

Echoes

Repetitious, tedious and quite disappointing. This book is but a weak echo of the previous books. And just like an echo it repeats itself over and over again. If you buy this be prepared listen to a dreary amount of ???mother songs???, explanations of what happened in previous books and descriptions of cave paintings. I do not mind listening to Auel describing them going about their business and doing everyday things like drinking herb tea and weaving baskets, in fact I quite like it. But really, what is the plot here? Where are we going with this? At the end of the book there is an attempt at a romantic twist that is once again but a weak echo of something that happened in one of the previous books. We briefly meet some cavemen criminals, but it is handled so fast and is such random part of the story that it might as well have been left out. I guess you could say that Aylas education to becoming a shaman is the plot here, but then why is her touring the painted caves the only part of it we really hear about?

There seems to be two narrations available. This one is very well done, but since the narrator strikes me as an elderly British woman I was deathly afraid of the explicit sex scenes I have come to expect from Auel. Thankfully there were fewer than usual.