Lavinia, by Ursula Le Guin
About the Book
'Like Spartan Helen, I caused a war. She caused hers by letting men who wanted her take her. I caused mine because I wouldn't be given, wouldn't be taken, but chose my man and my fate. The man was famous, the fate obscure; not a bad balance.' Lavinia is the daughter of the King of Latium, a victorious warrior who loves peace; she is her father's closest companion. Now of an age to wed, Lavinia's mother favours her own kinsman, King Turnus of Rutulia, handsome, heroic, everything a young girl should want. Instead, Lavinia dreams of mighty Aeneas, a man she has heard of only from a ghost of a poet, who comes to her in the gods' holy place and tells her of her future and Aeneas' past... If she refuses to wed Turnus, Lavinia knows she will start a war - but her fate was set the moment the poet appeared to her in a dream and told her of the adventurer who fled fallen Troy, holding his son's hand and carrying his father on his back...
Troy has fallen. Rome is a tiny village by the seven hills... At the end of Vergil’s epic poem The Aeneid, the Trojan hero Aeneas, following his destiny, is about to marry the Italian girl Lavinia. But in the poem, she has played only the slightest part, and has never spoken a word.
Lavinia is determined to follow her own destiny. And when she talks with the spirit of the poet in the sacred grove, she begins to see that destiny. So she gains her own voice, learning how to tell the story Vergil left untold — her story, her life, and the love of her life.
Alicia's Review
Lavinia, a nobody character in the Aeneid takes centre stage as the heroine. A love story. A story of passion and death. This is a poetic romance with the format of a novel, a serenade of the poet Vigil and a celebration of the strength of the female spirit.
Never mind that I found my usual easy-going suspension of disbelief to be impossible; it is hard to keep up such fakeries when the truth is woven into the story itself, as implacable and inescapable as the prophecies of the poet himself. For Lavinia knows -- as do her readers -- that the man she is waiting for will die, that she will spark a bitter war, and that if she does not follow this destiny then her life, and the life of her people will be for nothing.
An intriguingly subtle interweaving of Ursula Le Guin's skill both as a fantasist and as a literary writer.
About the Author
Author Bio
Ursula Le Guin has won many awards, including a National Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Newbery Honor and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. Previous titles: Left Hand of Darkness (HB Jan 10) Lavinia; Gifts; Voices; Powers; Other Wind; The Lathe of Heaven; Dark Universe; The Dispossessed; Fisherman of the Inland Sea; Four Ways to Forgiveness; Searoad
Details
ISBN 13: 9780753827840 ISBN 10: 0753827840
Author: Le Guin, Ursula
Pub Date: 1 Jul 2010
Edition Type: 1
Format: Paperback
Imprint: Phoenix
RRP: $27.99
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NZ $24.90
incl GST
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