The Wild Blog in the West

As I mentioned last time , after sucking down The Clan of the Cave Bear  in just a few days, 14-year old me grabbed ahold of its sequel.  I was so excited.  The ending of  Clan  was so powerful and emotional -- what could Auel possibly have in store for us next?  Would Ayla be reunited with her family?  Would we see how Durc was treated once Ayla was gone?  At this point, anything was possible. I tore open the novel and read the first chapter. "She was dead.  What did it matter if icy needles of freezing rain flayed her skin raw."  Yes, yes!  I read as Ayla forged ahead alone, haunted by her final moments with the Clan, until she ended up in "cool, green, sheltered valley" where horses were grazing.  Then... Wait -- who were Jondalar and Thonolan?  I skimmed ahead through their chapter, looking for some connection to Ayla, but there was none.  Next chapter, Ayla was still in the valley.  Next chapter, Jo...

What I hear... and sometimes how I feel. I have been wanting to write about this topic for a long time, but struggled with how to do it.  So I'm going to forgo the pretty words and just say it: when did people have to start apologizing for wanting other people to be quiet? Think about it: the quiet person hurts no one.  He or she may as well not even exist because no one else is aware of his or her presence.  The loud person hurts numerous people by imposing him/herself on other people's space, crowding out their thoughts with insistent noise or chatter. Yet the quiet person is the one who must say time and again: "I'm sorry, could you please keep it down?"   I'm so sorry to have to impose myself on you.   The loud person never pauses to consider whether his or her noise could be hurting someone else.  The loud person just turns up that car stereo, or cranks up that leaf blower, or talks even louder into that cell phone, or plays the television lo...

I was just the right age when I received my induction into the world of Jean Auel: 14 years old.  My mother handed me a second-hand copy of The Clan of the Cave Bear , telling me that a friend of hers recommended it, but not telling me what it was about.  At 14, I was reading "grown up" novels, but not novels that had explicit sex and violence.  I was also still young enough to identify with Ayla, the novel's protagonist.  So I sucked Clan down in just a few days, and quickly grabbed its sequel, The Valley of Horses .  I was fortunate that the first four Earth's Children novels had already been published. As I mentioned last time , The Clan of the Cave Bear premiered with a splash in 1980* and is still regarded as Jean Auel's best novel.  Unlike its widely panned film version , Clan was regarded as a serious work of fiction, using research available at the time to reconstruct a world that was practically forgotten.  That the author herself was not...

Replica of a painting in the Chauvet Cave in France. The original is thought to be 31,000 years old. I said in my last update that at some point I would tackle a book critique.  I've decided to think big and do six... Jean Auel's six, that is. For those who are unfamiliar, Jean Auel's Earth's Children series began in 1980 with The Clan of the Cave Bear , about a Cro-Magnon girl losing her family in the prehistoric era and being raised by a clan of Neanderthals.   Clan became a runaway best seller and quickly established Auel as an author to watch.  Notably,  Clan  was not only the first novel of the series, but also Auel's first novel ever.  In fact, I think it was the first piece of  fiction  that she had ever written.  Let that sink in for a moment.   Within 10 years, The Clan of the Cave Bear  was followed by three other door-stopper best sellers:  The Valley of Horses (1982),  The Mammoth Hunter...

This one was, and may always be, the toughest decision I have ever had to make.  Some musicals are just made to be on the Wrong list.  But Across the Universe (2007) does so much right -- so very, very right.  A month from now, I could completely flip and decide that Across the Universe  should be on the Right list.  But at the moment, I think that its flaws outweigh its virtues.  The movie starts well and then slowly sinks throughout the course of its 133 minutes. In the most basic sense, Across the Universe is a jukebox musical that makes good use of the Beatles' song catalogue.  Yet it would be more apt to describe it as a love letter to the Beatles.  Certainly not the first -- that would probably be the much-panned Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band   -- but possibly the best.  As someone with a deep, abiding passion for the Beatles, I don't take that lightly. The story unfolds much like the Beatles' own trajectory. ...

Queen Victoria, date unknown.   PD-US Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl But she doesn't have a lot to say. Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl But she changes from day to day . -- Beatles, " Her Majesty "* Before I leave Downton Abbey  for good until Series Four, I wanted to write a post that I had hinted at writing earlier  about one of history's most misunderstood women.  Well maybe I shouldn't go quite that far, but there are definitely some preconceived notions about Queen Victoria that should be put to rest.  That she was a dull, pious person who always said "we" and who spent 40 years mourning her husband.  Well, that last one was true. But she was also passionate, astute, and remarkably progressive for her time.  And where she wasn't progressive, her five daughters were.  In short, she was awesome. First, a quick history of Queen Victoria.  She was born in 1819 to King George III's third son, Edward Duke of Kent, a...

So here we are on the final days of the Manor House  project.  Let me start by saying that I understand the appeal of spending three months living upstairs.  John and Anna Olliff-Cooper have gotten some flack for their comments about how they regret having to leave that world for the modern one, and while some of that flack is deserved, I feel that some of it misses the mark. For three months, "Sir John" and "Lady Olliff-Cooper" got to put aside their cares and be catered to every hour of every day.  While we might scoff, is that not what most of us secretly aspire to?  Isn't that what most of us secretly wish for -- to become rich and not have to deal with the petty stupidities of life like waiting in line at the bank, or listening to the neighbor's leaf blower ?  So for three months, Sir John and Lady Olliff-Cooper got to be exactly what they had always worked so hard to be: so rich, they no longer had to deal with day-to-day cares.  And best of ...