Product Description

Ayla and Jondalar leave the safety of the lands of the Mammoth Hunters and embark on a seemingly impossible journey across an entire continent. Their goal is the Cro-Magnon settlement in what is now southern France where Jondalar lived as a young man. Accompanied by the half-tame Wolf, the superb stallion, Racer, and the mare, Whinney, they brave both savage enemies and the elemental dangers of weather and terrain in their search for the place that will become Home.



Jean Auel's imaginative reconstruction of pre-historic life, rich in detail of language, culture, myth and ritual, has become a set text in schools and colleges around the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8397 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 976 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Jean Auel's The Plains of Passage, the fourth volume in the Earth's Children sequence, is one of the most massive yet (running to nearly 1,000 pages) and has all the sweep and vigour of the earlier books in the series. There are few writers who demonstrate the sheer range and ambition of Auel in the fantasy field. The Clan of the Cave Bear was a truly ground-breaking work, with its sweeping historical saga crammed with the kind of detail that had never been seen before in the genre. The Valley of Horses and The Mammoth Hunters continued to enthral readers with their breathtaking panoplies of an ancient world.

The Plains of Passage continues the epic description of our civilisation as it was 25,000 years ago. Auel's protagonists Ayla the orphan and Jondalar the traveller decide to forsake the comfort and safety of life with the mammoth hunters by the Black Sea, and set out on a daunting odyssey. Their plan is to traverse a continent, heading for the Cro-Magnon settlement which Jondalar called home as a young man. Their journey across unimaginable distances is fraught with spectacular dangers, and their only companions are the half-tame Wolf, the magnificent stallion Racer and the mare Whinney.

As so often in Auel's work, it's the brilliantly evocative scene-setting that makes her narratives of high adventure so impressive. Characterisation is, as always, functional rather than inspired, but it's perfectly suited to the Technicolor landscapes the reader is confronted with. And the descriptive passages are as evocative as ever:

The rising sun peaked over the eastern edge with a blinding burst of light that illuminated an incredible scene. To the west, a flat, utterly featureless dazzling white plain stretched out before them. Above it the sky was a shade of blue she had never seen in her life. It had somehow absorbed the reflection of the red dawn, and the blue-green undertone of glacial ice...

Publishers Weekly
'The authenticity of background detail, the lilting prose rhythms and the appealing conceptual audacity continue to work their spell'

Review
'Jean Auel has an extraordinary appeal to an enormously wide age group and the latest volume of her pre-historic saga is impossible to put down' (Rosamunde Pilcher )

'The authenticity of background detail, the lilting prose rhythms and the appealing conceptual audacity continue to work their spell' (Publishers Weekly )

On THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR:
'Beautiful, exciting, imaginative.' (New York Times )

Customer Reviews

Incredibly good if a little too descriptive
This book sees Ayla and Jondalar travelling across the continent in an effort to reach the ice glacier before the end of winter and eventually to reach Jondalars' home in Southern France and begin their new life within the Zelandonii community. Throughout their journey they visit the Sharamudoi, the S'Armuni, the Losandoni and the Lazandonni, the home of Jondalars' father. The plot and storylines surrounding these groups make up for the immense amount of description which at times is incredibly tedious and can go on for several pages, however this detail also brings to life the world in which Ayla lives and reminds readers of the progress made by human kind over the many thousands of years between the setting of this book and present day. Overall the only failing of this book is its length (mainly due to the description of the surrounding flora and fauna) however it is well worth getting through this to enjoy the storylines which are so well written and thought out by Jean Auel. All in all a wonderful book which sees the transaction between Aylas life with the Clan and her life beyond with the man she loves, a terrific addition to the series.

Sometimes like reading a textbook
This is the fourth book in the series and sees the two leads make an epic journey home across prehistoric Europe.

I loved the first book in this series and the second one was pretty good too, but it seems that as the series goes on the author struggles to find enough "story" to write about so spends half of her time writing exessive descriptive passages that I have to admit I only skim read until there is more character interaction. Approximately half of each chapter seems to be an in depth account of the geology, flora or fauna of the region - whilst this is informative it does not add anything to the story and the already vivid pictures created in the readers head, making the book longer than necessary. The author seems to need to prove that her work has been meticulously researched when really she doesn't need to, it is obvious anyway, and sadly this sometimes makes her novel seem like a textbook (having just finished Uni I was hoping for an escape from this!).

Another gripe of mine is that the main character Ayla and her boyfriend Jondolar just get more and more perfect and one dimensional with the passage of time, they are always right, no one else can have an opinion and what started out as deep characters are getting shallower and more predictable with each book. They are both gorgeous, morally sound, great in bed, everyone they meet loves them immediately or pretty soon after Ayla has wowed them with her amazing skills of magic, healing, animal taming, inventing the wheel..... (ok so the wheel one was a joke but you get the idea). I would have liked to see some character flaws to make Ayla more "real" as she is becoming more and more god-like in her perfection.

Having said this I can't leave a series unfinished and as a bit of escapism it can be enjoyable so I am currently sarting Auel's 5th one.

Brilliant! Just as thrilling and captivating as the others!
This last in a series of four books about the Cro Magnon woman Ayla, is in the same captivating "can't put it down" style as the other three. This book describes Ayla's journey and adventures across the plains with her partner Jondalar as hey head for his home and tribe. They follow the route that Jondalar took with his brother, to bring his mother the news of his brother's unfortunate fate, and to give Ayla the home she has always missed.

On this adventurous but dangerous journey they encounter other tribes and people to make new friends, and some enemies. I can safely say that this book has the same historic integrity and factual basis. It is a true enjoyment to embark on a journey that possibly changed the way we live today.