The Amethyst Ring

The Seven Serpents Trilogy #3

by Scott O'Dell

Relates the adventures of Julian Escobar, a young Spanish student who impersonates a god of the Maya and travels to view the grandeur of the Incan empire

Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction

212 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1983

About the author

Scott O'Dell was an American author celebrated for his historical fiction, especially novels for young readers. He is best known for Island of the Blue Dolphins, a classic that earned the Newbery Medal and has been translated into many languages and adapted for film. Over his career he wrote more than two dozen novels for young people, as well as works of nonfiction and adult fiction, often drawing on the history and landscapes of California and Mexico. His books, including The King’s Fifth, The Black Pearl, and Sing Down the Moon, earned him multiple Newbery Honors and a wide readership. O'Dell received numerous awards for his contribution to children’s literature, among them the Hans Christian Andersen Award and the Regina Medal. In 1984, he established the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction to encourage outstanding works in the genre.

Reviews

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very upset with how the book ended. By this point I thought the main character needed a good thing to help straighten him out. He had had a hard life but deserved happiness.

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve come to realize that O’Dell did something unusual in historical fiction. Normally you expect to empathize with the main character. Not so this time. He wrote a searing indictment of the Spanish Conquistadores by using a character, Julian Escobar, a man who wanted to believe he meant well when he killed people, when he impersonated a revered God of the Mayans, when he had rather disgusting interactions where he told himself he was simply taking care of young girls when they were all he had the nerve to love. This part was understated but was definitely present. Through this man, O’Dell shows how rapacious and greedy the Spaniards were with murderers and scum making up the army. He certainly succeeded in his aims. These books were not enjoyable reading. But they are correct. The fervent claims of converting souls for Christ were no more than an excuse to find gold. I’m glad I finally realized what the author was doing in this trilogy. But I don’t think it was a successful attempt. They were bold writing back when textbooks taught more that the Spanish had sincere religious fervor driving them. I’m not too sure who I’d recommend them to. Certainly this trilogy should be given to young adults or older. I suppose it would be good in adjunct with college history classes about the Spanish conquest of the native civilizations.

[itchy · Rating 4 out of 5]

eponymous sentence:
p9: He began to twist the large, violet-colored stone he wore on the fourth finger of his right hand--the amethyst ring of a bishop.

It is what it is. It's not the best, but it's what we have.

[Stephanie Pieck · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the last novel of the trilogy, the eventful story of Julian Escobar, onetime seminarian, sometime Mayan god, twice shipwrecked, comes to its bloody close. Written in the style of prose exemplary of the 1500s, this is not an easy series to read. However, no character emerges from these pages unscathed, for while the Spanish destroyed so much in their bloodthirsty quest for gold cast in the light of spreading Christianity to "savages" and brought disease and destruction in their wake, the ancient cultures they plundered were not idyllic, stepped in superstition, human sacrifice, and (in the case of the Maya) the purposeful deforming of infants to promote a sloping head shape and crossed eyes that were seen as desirable traits.
Scott O'Dell was one of the finest historical novelists writing for younger readers. His other, more accessible titles are more widely read and would serve as a better introduction to his work. Yet his unflinching honesty is what sets him apart, too. He did not shy away from uncomfortable, even brutal truths in these books.
Perhaps the mark of a great historian is an ability to tell the story of humanity such that all people retain their imperfections. No one is set on a pedestal, and everyone is accountable for their shortcomings.

[Jason Golomb · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Amethsyt Ring" is the final book in Scott O'Dell's Seven Serpents Trilogy which follows the young Julian Escobar as he walks across New Spain during the early years of Spain's conquest of the New World. In book one, "The Captive", Escobar starts off as a wide-eyed seminarian looking to introduce Christianity to the native "savages", but ends up finding a Mayan culture past its prime while innocently (at first, at least) stepping into the role of the returning god Kukulkan. In book two, "The Feathered Serpent", Escobar embraces his role as a god, while exposing his inner religious and moral conflicts, and then runs right into Hernan Cortes as he marches across Mexico towards his fateful collision with Moctezuma and the Aztecs.

Book three follows Escobar after the initial battles in Tenochtitlan leave Cortes' Spaniards seemingly defeated and Moctezuma dead. Spain has gotten word of Escobar's imitation of Kukulkan and a bishop has been sent to the New World to pass along a message to Cortes to have this "God" arrested. While attempting to legitimize his attempts to convert his "noble savages", Escobar allows this bishop to be sacrificed and steals his ring (his amethyst ring). Escobar can never overcome this artificial ordination and is never able to bring himself to baptize anyone in the New World.

He runs south to avoid Cortes and winds his way to Panama where he runs right into Francsisco Pizarro as he prepares his small army to enter the land of the Inca. O'Dell places Escobar right in the midst of Pizarro's conquest of Peru and the Inca, as he did in "Feathered Serpent" with Cortes and the Aztecs. The key moment of conflict in the war with the Incas was Pizarro and his band of less than 200 soldiers, defeating tens of thousands of Inca at Cajamarca and kidnapping their emperor Atahualpa.

I love the stories of the Spanish Conquest and so these fictionalized accounts, targeted to young adults, are the perfect way to introduce these amazing tales of non-fiction. The book is very well written and easy to read and absorb. The hero has flaws and the story doesn't have a Hollywood ending, which makes the tale all the more compelling and interesting. I highly recommend this book.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A childhood favorite when I read it in the early 1980s.

[Brian Savino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, that was depressing