I can't find my copy of The Valley of Horses, or as I call it, the-other-clan-of-the-cave-bear-book by Jean Auel. It's been missing for months now. I've ransacked all my book cases looking for it, but it's not turning up.
It's not that it's such a great book or even a good book--it's kind of a cave man and cave woman romance novel, with a lot of gratuitous sex thrown in, unlike the first book. Whether it' s good or not is beside the point. I read it once and you'd think that would be enough. But no.
You see, I don't know if anybody else does this but sometimes I use books the way some people pop pills. Besides using them for escape and entertainment, enlightenment and understanding, even mental exercise, I also use them as tranquilizers and to comfort myself. I'm sure it started when I was little and needed to find ways to comfort myself. Some are books for adults and some are children's books. One is even the bible: psalms can be very comforting.
So where does The Valley of Horses fit into this? It actually doesn't fit into the above very neatly--so who expects neat?
I read it when I'm feeling a certain way--or is it when I'm needing to feel a certain way? There's something meaningful to me in picking it up and reading about Ayla and the life she makes for herself when she's first cast out by the Clan. Many times I only read the first part of it, before she finds the valley, when she's wandering alone on the plain or the steppes or whatever it is, struggling to survive in the most basic sense.
Something about that woman and her deep solitude as she wanders resonates in me. Something about her being all alone; so alone but so strong. She's self-sufficient, and has all the tools she needs to survive, as long as her mind and heart tell her that's what she should do. She has at least one moment when she wonders if she should go on living when it would be so easy to stop.
And I find this comforting? Yes.
A minute ago I thought that of course I see myself in Ayla, alone in whatever way I'm alone, and wandering in a bleak land, but strong-- and I thought that was the deepest thing. But now I see that the comfort I take from it comes from my ability to suspend my disbelief, and to feel emotionally, at least for a little while, that Ayla is a kind of companion on the journey. She's been through it. She's been through it in extremis, it couldn't get much worse than what she went through, but she came out on the other side.
She suffered through some of the worst pain an human being can feel, but it passed and she came out whole. And I suppose that means that I can, too, or even that I already have.
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PS: I found it. I have an Oxford Press set of the works of Jane Austen that I keep between bookends on top of the bookcase. That's why I didn't see it. Strange bedfellows, huh?
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