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Lavinia Ursula K Le Guin 9780151014248 Books

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Lavinia Ursula K Le Guin 9780151014248 Books

In Vergil’s Aeneid, the Trojan War hero Aeneas wanders the Mediterranean after destruction of Troy, ultimately landing upon the west coast of Italy, where he marries the daughter of a local king and founds what would later become Rome. The king’s daughter was named Lavinia and in this novel, the author creates a life for Lavinia and the people of her kingdom.

This is a short work, written in very florid prose. The author paints almost a dream-like, ethereal aura around Lavinia, as she converses with the ghost of Vergil and even posits her role as a fictional being. The first half of the book is VERY slow, however the pace quickens upon the arrival of the Trojan hero.

Do not purchase this novel based upon any affinity you may have with the author or her writings. I very much enjoy her science fiction offerings (her fantasy, not so much), but there is nothing in this book that would cause you to suspect that it was written by Ursula LeGuin. Can’t recommend.


Tags : Lavinia [Ursula K. Le Guin] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV><DIV><DIV>In a richly imagined, beautiful new novel, an acclaimed writer gives an epic heroine her voice</DIV><DIV> </DIV><DIV>In <I>The Aeneid,Ursula K. Le Guin,Lavinia,Harcourt,0151014248,Historical fiction.,Legends;Rome;Fiction.,Rome (Italy);History;To 476;Fiction.,Aeneas (Legendary character),Fiction,Fiction - Historical,Fiction Alternative History,Fiction General,Fiction Historical,Historical - General,Historical fiction,Legends,Leguin, Ursula - Prose & Criticism,Marriage,Rome,Social Science Women's Studies

Lavinia Ursula K Le Guin 9780151014248 Books Reviews

As so many people do, I remember Ursula K. LeGuin's best for her Earthsea Trilogy, which I discovered in 1974 by sheer accident -- I think I found it browsing at my local library walking home from school -- and the story stuck in my head all these long years until I had children of my own, at which point I bought copies of the entire cycle for them. In the interim, of course, two more books had been added to the cycle, so I took the liberty of reading those, and was impressed again (albeit in a different way) with LeGuin's talent and staying power. Though the stories are aimed at children, they're really only "sort-of" aimed at them -- the subject matter and moral of the tales can be appreciated just as well by grown ups, as the themes of greed and power and the necessity for keeping the Equilibrium ring true for adults just as they do for children, and can be appreciated in a different way with some experience of the world.

So much for my preface. Having recently been re-exposed to LeGuin's work, I was favorably disposed to her when I noticed that she had a new novel out. I bought it without even reading the blurb, and started reading it without knowing anything about it, and started to love it before I realized it was telling the story of the Aeneid from a different perspective. If you read the Aeneid in college, you will no doubt recall the story, but LeGuin's retelling of the tale has a power that the poem doesn't -- perhaps because as prose it's more accessible to (most) modern readers -- and I enjoyed reading it much more than I remember enjoying reading Virgil in translation.

On balance, I think LeGuin has been unfairly pigeon-holed as a writer of children's tales and a niche writer of fantasy. She's much more of a myth-maker, a modern story-spinner in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm, and her work has an ease and grace that perhaps deceives people into thinking it's not really literature. It is -- it undeniably is. This is simply a great book.
Ursula Le Guin is a story teller in the classic sense. The saga may seem new, and yet it feels as if you knew the rhythms in your soul. Lavinia lives an obedient life to her father, her ancestors, her gods, and her sense of self showing that true heroism is not always revealed on a literal battlefield.
Like almost all Ursula Le Guin's work, gorgeous writing, reading it is like being absorbed in great music. This wasn't about unpredictable plots but a meditation on mortality, destiny and himan nature, set in Italy before the founding of Rome. Based on a character briefly referenced in Virgil, she uses a plot device that the protagonist knows she has been created by a poet but is determined to live a full life anyway. I would recommend highly.
I love Lavinia's encounters with Virgil, and her understanding of being and being a creation. Lovely re-telling of the last six books of the Aeneid from a different perspective.
Far from Sci Fi, but carefully researched and well told. If you haven't read Virgil's Aeneid, this will give you the sequel !
The book is actually quite good, but the edition for some reason is misbehaving. It has paragraph fragments, repeated paragraphs, and passages that seem to be out of sequence (in ways that are not contrivances of the author). I've tried resetting the device, but no luck; I may try to re-download the book, if that's possible.
There's this thing where writers take characters from some other writer's work and tell _their_ story. GRENDEL and WICKED come to mind most readily, though they aren't all about the villains.

This is what Le Guin chose to do with what she may well have known was going to be her last novel. She took an important-but-minor character from Virgil's AENEID (query as opposed to some other AENEID?) and told her story. Specifically, the woman fated to be Aeneas's wife and the ancestress of Romulus and Remus.

Told in her own voice, the story begins with Lavinia sighting the arrival at Latium of the ships bearing Aeneas and the remnants of his Trojan survivors. It moves backwards to her childhood; tells the final episodes of the AENEID from her point of view, then describes her life with Aeneas and after. I won't summarize beyond that.

Wolves, as if to foreshadow Romulus and Remus, play a recurring role in Lavinia's life. So do gods, shades, and oracles. (She knows from one such that she will have Aeneas only three years before he dies.)

Lavinia is a fascinating character, very much the daughter of her wise father and her mad mother. Her voice is vivid and clear, and explains just enough to make the story vivid and clear without bogging down in exposition.

I want to write more, but I can't. The book is too powerful, too emotionally powerful, for me to speak rationally of.
In Vergil’s Aeneid, the Trojan War hero Aeneas wanders the Mediterranean after destruction of Troy, ultimately landing upon the west coast of Italy, where he marries the daughter of a local king and founds what would later become Rome. The king’s daughter was named Lavinia and in this novel, the author creates a life for Lavinia and the people of her kingdom.

This is a short work, written in very florid prose. The author paints almost a dream-like, ethereal aura around Lavinia, as she converses with the ghost of Vergil and even posits her role as a fictional being. The first half of the book is VERY slow, however the pace quickens upon the arrival of the Trojan hero.

Do not purchase this novel based upon any affinity you may have with the author or her writings. I very much enjoy her science fiction offerings (her fantasy, not so much), but there is nothing in this book that would cause you to suspect that it was written by Ursula LeGuin. Can’t recommend.