Anabasis (First Edition)

Auria, a slave girl in ancient Greece, rescues a child that has been put out to die and they flee into the mountains, where Auria finds the courage to survive and grow

National Book Award winner Gilchrist (Victory over Japan; Star Carbon) lifts her literary gaze from the exploits of the Hand family to produce this richly textured but overly idealized historical novel. During the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) between Athens and Sparta, Auria, a runaway slave girl, transforms herself into a warrior, healer, lyceum teacher, painter, ceramist, poet, songwriter and fiercely loving adoptive mother of an infant girl whom she rescues from a cave. Escaping her callous master, Auria teams up with a band of exiles and runaway slaves plotting rebellion in a mountain fortress, where she eventually marries Pericles's grandnephew Meion. Though representative of Gilchrist's assertive, independent heroines, Auria is neither fully realized nor wholly credible. A larger-than-life quality unsettles the story, even though Gilchrist ably evokes a Greece roiled by war, plagues and injustice as she touches, sometimes too heavily, on such themes as women's sexual and social subservience.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Although it is something of a relief that Gilchrist (Starcarbon, p. 162, etc.) has struck out in a new direction after writing so much about the Hand family, this bland tale of a goody- good slave girl set in Greece in 431 b.c. lacks even a touch of irony. Auria is happily apprenticed to a kindly healer named Philokrates who has taught her to read and write, and both reside in the villa of her master, Meldrus, until, all in one day, Philokrates dies, Meldrus's wife gives birth to a fifth daughter, and Auria witnesses another slave leaving the baby outdoors to die. Horrified, she runs away with a goat and a dog and saves the child. The four of them discover a wooded sanctuary that has obviously been inhabited and then abandoned and set themselves up there. Eventually, Auria meets Meion, a former mining slave who lives in a camp with other runaway slaves. They fall in love and marry, although the reception is somewhat subdued after the ailing leader Leucippius cannot hold his arm up long enough to toast them and Auria must immediately begin healing him. When Meion hears that his mother has been captured by the Peloponnesians, he takes off to find her. To keep her busy in his absence, Auria is assigned to create a school for the camp's young children. Gilchrist explains that she dreamed up Auria as a child when her mother read her Greek myths, and this novel has the tone of a young-adult biography, sort of a Little House on the Prairie in tunics. The dialogue is so somber that it becomes dreary (``Swear by Apollo that you will not die in battle or leave me ever''). As a saintly bore, Auria is never a credible character. A pro ventures out on a limb, and it cracks. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Gilchrist's lyrical new novel is quite a departure for the National Book Award winner. In ancient Greece, at the time when Pericles ruled Athens and Sparta's warriors presented a formidable threat to the status quo, a slave girl named Auria has the good fortune to be apprenticed to a learned herbalist, Philokrates. This volatile age, fraught with danger, is the setting for Auria's escape. When the beloved old man dies, Auria rescues an infant that has been cast out by its parents to die and finds her way to freedom. It is a resilient spirit that leads Auria to overcome all obstacles on a treacherous journey into the mountains. This uplifting tale of a valiant young woman is rich in historical nuance, but should have broad appeal to fans of Gilchrist's fiction. Alice Joyce

National Book Award winner Gilchrist is best known for fiction depicting modern Southern lives (e.g., In the Land of Dreamy Dreams, LJ 10/15/81), but here she departs from that setting dramatically. In her "Author's Note," Gilchrist explains how as a child, inspired by her mother's renderings of classical history and myth, she first imagined this story of a literate slave girl in ancient Greece. Intelligent and inquiring, Auria is raised as the apprentice of renowned healer-philosopher Philokrates. After his death, the teenager escapes from their villa, taking with her an unwanted baby girl exposed to die, a goat, and a dog. The companions travel into the wild mountains, depending on Auria's skills and bravery for survival. When they join a group of antislavery rebels allied with the dying hero Pericles, Auria finds true love and the self-knowledge to help her withstand tremendous challenges to spirit and body. Gilchrist's youthful enthusiasm for her heroine is evident throughout this appealing short novel, which should interest both adult and young adult readers. Recommended for public library fiction collections.
Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.