Amber and Clay

(Full disclosure: I received a free ARC for review through Edelweiss and Library Thing's Early Reviewers program. Content warning for child abuse, animal abuse, and sexual assault.)

The children I spoke of before were like that. They weren’t alike, but they fit together, like lock and key. The boy, Rhaskos,
was a slave boy. Unlucky at first.
A Thracian boy—(Thrace is north of Greece)
—redheaded, nervy, neglected. A clever boy who was taught he was stupid. A beautiful boy whose mother
scarred him with a knife.
The girl, Melisto, started life lucky.
A rich man’s daughter, and a proper Greek. Owl-eyed Melisto: a born fighter,
prone to tantrums, hating the loom.
A wild girl, chosen by Artemis, and lucky, as I said before—
except show more for one thing: she died young.
This is their story. When it's over, if you like, you can tell me what it means.

***

"I want to tell you the things I never told anyone, in case this is my last chance. When I was alive, I didn’t talk much. So much of what I felt was a secret. I think that’s what I loved about the bear. Neither of us had any words."

***

Again we walked and talked. I never talked to anyone like that. No one ever talked like that to me. I talk to you still, Melisto. I’ve been talking to you ever since.

***

The red-haired boy variously known as Rhaskos, Thrax, and Pyrrhos is many things, though few of his masters care to know. He's Thracian nobility, with the scars to prove it - and also a slave, belonging to the wealthy Alexidemus and his soldier son Menon in Thessaly, and then to a humble potter named Phaistus in Athens. He loves horses and is as adept at handling them as he will one day become at drawing and sculpting them. He is a contemporary and friend of Sokrates, though he is powerless to stop his execution. He is an orphan, with a dolphin for a mother; a mother who loves him so fiercely that she curses a ghost to help set him free. He is like clay: common at first glance, but also not; capable of transmuting into creations lovely, clever, and full of value.

The owl-eyed girl called Melisto is seemingly as lucky as Rhaskos is not: the only child of a wealthy Athenian, Melisto wants for nothing. But she is a wild (read: untamed) girl child in a rigidly gendered society that has already predetermined Melisto's future for her: marriage, motherhood, a life of quiet domesticity. When, at the age of ten, Melisto is chosen to serve the goddess Athena as a Little Bear, her life opens up before her at Brauron; this is who she was meant to be. Like all good things, it cannot last.

Rhaskos and Melisto's destinies collide when Melisto frees a bear cub that is to be sacrificed to Athena. Or maybe their paths met even earlier, when Meda/Thratta was ripped from her toddler son. Perhaps the gods nudged them towards each other from birth. Alternately, the gods have nothing to do with it. Who can say? (Hermes, maybe. He has a lot to say and loves to hear himself talk!)

AMBER AND CLAY is ... not what I expected. Normally I'd steer clear of a contemporary (or any!) book styled after the ancient, epic poems (I positively labored through THE ODYSSEY and THE ILIAD in high school!), but the visual element sucked me in. I was under the (mistaken!) impression that AMBER AND CLAY would be heavier in illustrations than it actually is, almost as though part graphic novel. As it turns out, the illustrations - of archaeological artifacts - are a little sparser than I hoped, but they tie into the narrative quite nicely and add another layer of wonder and surprise to the story. The "exhibits" are really well done and do not disappoint.

Additionally, the synopsis had me thinking that this would be a supernatural romance; and while AMBER AND CLAY is indeed a love story, Rhaskos and Melisto are entirely too young to hook up, even by the time they finally meet near the story's end. (It's hard not to envision them - especially Rhaskos - as older than they are, both because the story seemingly stretching across years, and so much happens to these crazy kids to last several lifetimes.) Instead, this is a different kind of love story: AMBER AND CLAY tells of the love between a mother and her son; a father and his daughter; a teacher and his students; a girl and a bear; a ghost and her tether to the earth.

And despite my reservations about those epic poems, Schlitz both honors the form and breathes new life into it. While Melisto tells her story in prose, Rhaskos speaks in verse; and the gods sometimes address us commoners in turn-counterturn, occasionally using more complicated linguistic techniques like elegian couplets (which I barely recollect from HS English). This all sounds incredibly tricky and complicated (and undoubtedly is), but Schlitz pulls it off without a hitch. AMBER AND CLAY is fun and engaging, with a surprising sense of humor and expert sense of dramatic flair.

***

“Oh, Phaistus, look at his hair! He’ll be beautiful once he’s healed.
We’ll call him Pyrrhos!” As if I were a dog.
Pyrrhos means fiery.
Half the red-haired slaves in Athens are called Pyrrhos.

***

It is, dare I say, exceedingly readable.

Honestly, I let out a little groan when I saw the "Cast of Characters" on page one, complete with various households and multiple monikers for the same people; but the story, the characters, their relationships to one another - all are easy enough to follow.

Schlitz's characters, both those based on historical figures and those spun from imagination and whimsy, are so full of life that they practically jump off the page. Rhaskos and Melisto; Meda and Lysandra; Phaistus and Zosima; Menon and Lykos; and, of course, Sokrates. Likewise, her descriptions of Greek life and customs left me hungering to learn more. Naturally, the most fascinating custom - that of the Little Bears of Brauron - is also that which we know the least about.

The scenes featuring Melisto and the bear cub are among my favorite in the book. In a story filled with animal sacrifice, this little slice of compassion and respect is life-affirming; to wit:

***

It turned in slow circles and collapsed with its rump pressed against her thigh. Melisto put one hand on it. It seemed to her that she had never touched anything more real than the bear cub."

***

For a moment her mind slipped back into the past. She recalled the bruises she had carried from her mother’s pinches, and the sore patches on her scalp from Lysandra’s hair-pulling. She remembered the loathing in her mother’s face that struck terror into her soul. She had never been afraid of the bear like that.

***

and

***

On the nights when she waded into the bay and watched the moon, she was barely conscious of the fact that it was she who saw, and the moon that was being watched. In the same way, she did not measure how much she loved the bear. She was the bear.

***

Likewise, Rhaskos's interactions with Grau/Phoibe are so wonderfully tender, my heart aches just to think back on them. From the moment he renames her (grau means hag) - a change of name that's much more respectful than those Rhaskos was forced to accept - Rhaskos treats his donkey charge with decency and kindness. The same kindness that he himself longs for.

***

Animals know when things get better. People might not know, but animals do.
That very first day, Grau knew
I was going to be good to her
and I swear to you, she was glad.

***

Cue the "what is this salty discharge" gifs.

AMBER AND CLAY is such a beautiful story, and I'm glad I took a chance on it. Iambic pentameter be damned. show less

Set in ancient Greece during the period of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.E.) and its aftermath, this is a tale told in verse, prose, and artifacts of two star-crossed characters Rhaskos, a Thracian slave and Melisto, the daughter of an Athenian slaveholder. It’s not like Romeo and Juliet or even Pyramus and Thisbe. Its parallel is Akhilleus and Penthesilea united at the point of death. It’s the wondrously told life of two children growing up during a time of slavery and war.

Fittingly, since the philosopher Sokrates is one of the characters, who is famous for asking thought proving questions, the book poses hard questions for young readers about life, death, war, slavery, and failures of human justice throughout the book, show more without easy answers. Instead, philosopher, gods and goddesses ask the reader what do you think? When one of the central characters is struck dead by a bolt of lightning, a sphinx speaks asking those hard questions :

Don’t ask me. I’m the Sphinx.
I ask riddles. I don’t answer them.
I can tell you this:
sooner or later
you’ll find yourself here:
the place where nothing makes sense,
the place where you ask: What does life mean?
You’ll be shocked,
or suffering,
and you’ll want to know why

…and then life will go on
not answering,
and the wheel will turn, till there comes a time
when you look at the world
and feel such wonder,
such tenderness,
you’ll want to cup the earth in your hands;
so much mystery!
such richness of life!
such intricate patterns…
-- pages 216-217

This book has all the vivid imaginings of ancient Greece that I savored in Mary Renault’s The Bull from the Sea and The King Must Die show less

In the tradition of really immersive children's historical fiction about the ancient world, Schlitz explores ancient Greece and the lives of everyday people. Things I loved: her nuanced portrayal of slavery -- nuanced in the sense that it covers many different ways that slaves were oppressed, from the blatant (abuse, lack of schooling) to the more subtle (even former slaves aren't really free from the system, the expectation that care givers will love their Master's children) -- this is not an apologist's work. Loved that it is character based, and explores the roles of women as well -- also relatively horrifying to modern eyes. I appreciated the common mortality as well: realistic, sometimes shocking to me as a modern reader, but show more accurate. I enjoyed the periodic random commentary by the gods, and really loved the imagining of what the mysteries of the bear girls of Artemis might have been like. I also enjoyed the push and pull of the larger context of a long term ongoing war -- the characters are not directly fighting, but are affected by it in ways they don't entirely understand. I also liked the format shifts -- incorporating modern commentary on objects, and the various forms of verse throughout.
I wasn't as sure about Socrates. He's an interesting figure and character, but somewhat random as a plot mover. The pacing is also a bit odd -- there is a lot going on, but also not very much. Ultimately I think I wanted more from it than I got, but as I write this review I can't put my finger on what that means given how rich the material and characters are. show less

In ancient Greece (circa 400 BCE), two children find their fates linked. Rhaskos is born a Thracian slave and his mother loves him dearly, but she's sold away. Now, he finds comfort in drawing horses in the dirt and his talks with philosopher Sokrates. Melisto is born wealthy and privileged, but has a mother who hates her and a father who is gone more often than he's at home. When she is selected to be a bear for the goddess Artemis at Brauron, she finds a place where she is happy and free. When a freak accident happens, Melisto and Rhaskos' lives are connected on the path to find Rhaskos' freedom.

I absolutely loved the two main characters in Amber and Clay, and their connection to the title as well. The section where you read about show more Melisto in Brauron as a bear was one of my favorite parts of the book - oh to be a child, allowed to do whatever you please in a wilderness sanctuary and you become friends with a bear cub!

This was told in verse form and at first I was worried I wouldn't like it, but I quickly fell in love. The writing varied - there were a couple of different narrators besides Rhaskos and Melisto, mostly Greek Gods (Hermes was my favorite). The descriptions were amazing:

“She knew her mother was an attractive woman, but there was something feral about Lysandra’s grace, something that reminded her of a weasel she had once watched kill a snake.”

Mostly, I loved the exhibits, the "relics" from that era, that were given between chapters and were described like museum pieces. They gave the readers little insights to answers the museum descriptions may be asking. Even at my age, it would kind of make me giggle a bit when I knew the answers.

I would highly recommend this for all lovers of historical fiction, Ancient Greek history, and those who love a good story. show less

In ancient Greece, in the time of Sokrates, Melisto, the daughter of a citizen, is sent from Athens to Brauron to become a Little Bear, honoring Artemis. In Thessaly, Rhaskos' mother scars him before she is sold away, so she will know him if she sees him again; she becomes Melisto's nurse, and later, she binds Melisto to find and protect Rhaskos, who has been enslaved first to Menon and then to a potter. Melisto and Rhaskos' stories are woven together, and patterned with the voices of others - gods, the Sphinx - and artifacts important to the story, such as a necklace of gold and amber, a tablet inscribed with a message of manumission, and shards of pottery. Although the main characters are young, the ancient and epic nature of the show more tale, as well as the more brutal aspects of slavery, and Rhaskos' many conversations with Sokrates, make it seem best for an older middle grade or YA audience.

Quotes (pagination from ARC)

We watch you / the way you watch television....we don't loose sleep over your suffering, / or puzzle over what it means. / You poor mortals, you want to know why. / We gods don't suffer, so we don't care why. (Hermes, 2)

Look, I know it was wrong to steal, / but have you ever thought about what was stolen from me? (Rhaskos, 49)

I will make him like myself:
a maker of beautiful things. (Hephaistos, 53)

Are the gods like that? And if so - / if the gods aren't good / what good are the gods? (Sphinx, 216)

One thing I'm ready to fight for - / that we shall be better, braver, and more active men / if we try to find out what we don't know. (Sokrates, 268)

I liked wondering. I felt as if my mind were a toy, / full of riddles to solve. (Rhaskos/Pyrrhos, 319)

The higher and finer a thing is, / the less men can say what it is.... But he thought we ought to try. / He thought we should ask questions. / There wasn't anything so holy / that he wouldn't ask questions. (Rhaskos re: Sokrates, 388-389)

The Greeks knew that water is life, / and time is a thief. (Hermes, 404)

I don't want to leave this world.
I'm like a sailor clinging to a wreck,
I'm sure to go down in the end. (Melisto, 466) show less

I found this story incredibly moving, with vibrant and nuanced characters, and a fine attention to historical details. As an adult reviewer and middle school librarian, I'm not sure that this book is necessarily written for the 12-18-year-old crowd--it reads, to me, more like adult fiction written primarily about young protagonists. I'm giving it 4.5 stars only because, as others have mentioned, the world-building, scene-setting, and character-building needed to establish the conflict and resolution took up 4/5ths of the book, which might be a turn-off for others but wasn't for me--I was completely immersed and compelled to live inside the Ancient Greece Laura Amy Schlitz skillfully recreates.

Rhaskos and Melisto both grow up in Greece circa 400 BCE, but could not be more different. Rhaskos is a slave whose Thracian mother is taken from him at a young age and who loves to draw horses. Melisto is the only daughter in a well-to-do family whose mother dislikes her. They are connected by circumstance when Rhaskos's mother becomes her nurse.

This is very difficult to categorize, historical fiction but also has the Greek gods speak (mostly Hermes, but also Athena and Hephaistos), and written for middle grade but also pretty violent at times and doesn't shy away from the reality of life in Athens at that time, including war, drunkenness, and slavery. Rhaskos's portions are in verse while Melisto's are in prose. Interspersed are show more descriptions of "exhibits" from the present time, which we then see as part of the story. Certain pieces were interesting and I was invested enough to read to the end, but for some reason I never quite connected with the story and found myself questioning certain narrative choices. show less